Congratulations to David Fitzsimons IM who is the new Irish Chess Champion for 2024 after scoring an unbeaten 7.5/9 in the Irish Championship to finish a clear half point ahead of the 2023 champion Alex Baburin GM.

David is pictured below with the Irish Championship perpetual trophy.

The full tournament cross-table can be seen at the Chess-Results website.

Well done, David!

The semi-finals and finals of the 3 Leinster Cup competitions were held on Saturday 27th July in St. Patrick’s National School in Skerries. Elm Mount teams had qualified for the semi-finals of both the Branagan Cup and Willie Brennan cup.

Elm Mount won the Branagan Cup, beating Dún Laoghaire 3½-2½ in the semi-final and then defeating Gonzaga by the same score in the final.

Elm Mount finished as runners-up in the Willie Brennan Cup, beating Naomh Barróg in the semi-final before losing narrowly 2½-3½ to Lucan in the final.

The Branagan team are shown below:-

From left, Igor Marcondes, Bernard Boyle,  Gerard MacElligott, Shane Melaugh, Pat Fitzsimons, Fred Armstrong and Ciaran Quinn.

The Willie Brennan team are pictured below with their trophies:-
From left, Eugene McMorrow, Thomas Syms, Jack Herring and Patrick O’Tierney.

Congratulations to Kevin Huang, who finished in joint 2nd place with an unbeaten 5/6 in a field of 59 players in the Murray Challengers tournament in Drogheda recently. Kevin is pictured below receiving his prize:-

Well done! The full tournament results are here.

Elm Mount have won the Irish National Club Championship for the first time!

The event was held at the Talbot Hotel in Stillorgan over the weekend of April 26th-28th. Fifteen teams took part and the competition was organized as a 5-round Swiss system, with teams getting 2 points for winning a match and 1 point for a 3-3 draw, and with 6-player teams being selected from a panel of 8.

The 8 players who played for Elm Mount were Alvaro Bayo, Shane Melaugh, Igor Marcondes, Ciaran Quinn, Kim Garcia De Souza, Harry Braine, Fred Armstrong and Thomas Syms.

The team started off with a narrow 3½ – 2½ loss to Galway on Friday evening. but bounced back with 2 clear wins on Saturday, beating Bray-Greystones 6-0  and Blanchardsown 4½ – 1½. A narrow 3½ – 2½ win against Master Chess Club on Sunday morning brought the team up to 2nd place behind Malahide who had won 3 matches and drawn the other. Elm Mount narrowly beat St. Benildus 3½ – 2½ in the last round while Malahide lost by the same score to Ennis.

The final result was that Elm Mount, Galway and Ennis all finished on 8 match points out of a possible 10, but Elm Mount took first place by virtue of scoring more points in the individual games.

Full details of the event can be found here.

The picture below shows some of the team playing:-

The result means that Elm Mount have qualified to play in the European Club Championship later this year.

The 2023 Elm Mount Christmas blitz was held on Monday 18th December in the Artane-Beaumont Family Recreation Centre. 28 players took part in four all-play-all sections and food was provided after the games.

The four section winners were Shane Melaugh, Jack Herring, Wayne Crawley and Kevin Huang. The runners-up were Gavin Melaugh, Nicu Boldijar, and Thomas Syms while the third-place finishers were Alvaro Bayo, Donal Ó Danachair and Philip FItzsimons. Nessa and Daniel shared joint 2nd/3rd place in their section.

The prize-winners are pictured below receiving their prizes from club secretary, Pat Fitzsimons:-

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

The Leinster Chess Union’s 2023 Christmas Blitz was held in the Artane Beaumont Family Recreation Centre, Elm Mount’s venue, on Tuesday 12th December. 38 players participated in all-play-all sections. Food was provided after the chess, after which the prize-winners selected their prizes from the choices available. Club secretary, Pat Fitzsimons, presented the prizes, with some Elm Mount players among the recipients!

The top section was narrowly won by Tom O’Gorman, half a point ahead of Alvaro Bayo with Gavin Melaugh and Oisín Ó Cuilleanáín a further half-point behind in joint third place.

Among the other section winners were Killian Martinez and Finn Cummins, who took 1st place on tie-break from Jacob Barron.

The prize-winners are pictured below, receiving their prizes from Pat Fitzsimons.


Well done to all the prize-winners!

Congratulations to two of Elm Mount’s junior players who were amongst the prizes at recent tournaments.

Harry Braine was the joint winner of the Challengers Section of the recent UCD Chess Congress with a perfect score of 5/5 while Thomas Syms (aged 10) finished third in the Challengers Section of the Kilkenny Chess Congress with an unbeaten score of 5/6. Thomas is pictured below at the prize giving with Maurice Buckley (left) from the Kilkenny Chess Club.

Thomas Syms is representing Ireland at the European Junior Chess championships (under 10s) and is outperforming his seeding with a very creditable score of 3.5/7 as of 12th September which includes victories over some higher-rated players.

Thomas is pictured below:-

Best of luck in the remaining games!