Congratulatons to Alvaro Valdés Escobar who won the Philip Hogarty IM Norm tournament with a score of 7/9. Alvaro (pictured below with the trophy) finished on the same score as GM Petr Neuman but finished 1st on tie-break.
Congratulations also to Gerry MacElligott (pictured below receiving his trophy) who finished 3rd in the Seniors Over50 Section.
The 2017 Elm Mount Christmas Blitz was held on Monday 18th December. There were 34 participants, possibly the biggest Christmas blitz ever in the club. The tournament was organized into 4 groups – 3 groups had 8 players and 1 group had 10 players. Each group was run as an all-play-all tournament with a time handicap system depending on the rating gap between the players. The 2 highest-scoring players in each section qualified for the knockout stages.
After many games the group winners were David Fitzsimons, Alex Goss, Ronan Murphy and Bren Ó Moráin and they were drawn against the runners-up, Paul O’Neill, Andy Peters, Eugene McMorrow and Nico Boldjar in the quarter-finals. The pairings were:-
Ronan Murphy v Andy Peters
Paul O’Neill v Bren Ó Móráin
Eugene Mc Morrow v Alex Goss
David Fitzsimons v Nico Boldjar
The winners were Andy, Paul, Alex and David and the semi-final pairings were:-
Paul O’Neill v Alex Goss
David Fitzsimons v Andy Peters
The semi-final winners were David and Paul.
There was a 3rd-place playoff between Alex Goss and Andy Peters
Andy won the playoff to finish in 3rd place.
The final was between David Fitzsimons and Paul O’Neill
Paul defeated David to become the winner of the 2017 Christmas Blitz!
The prizes were presented by Pat Fitzsimons. As well as finishing first in the blitz, Paul O’Neill was also presented with the Victor Murray Perpetual Trophy for winning the 2017 Club Championship.
All the prizewinners are pictured below. The players finishing in 3rd and 4th place in the 10-player group, John Dooley and Colm Mooney, were awarded the 9th and 10th prizes.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!
The 2018 Leinster Chess Union Christmas blitz was held in Elm Mount Chess Club on Monday 11th December. There were 60 players who were split into sections by rating with each section an all-play-all 5-minute tournament. The winners in each section had first choice of the selection of prizes. Food was provided after the tournament also!
Two Elm Mount players, Alex Goss and Philip Grehan, won their sections and are pictured below receiving their prizes from Pat Fitzsimons.
Below are all the prizewinners receiving their prizes:-
The 2017 Club Championships final cross-tables have been added here.
The Leinster Leagues are well under way. The best-placed Elm Mount team at present is the O’Hanlon Cup team who are currently leading their division, while the Bodley Cup North team is currently in 2nd place. But there are many rounds to go yet!
There are 3 Elm Mount players in the current ICU rating Top Improvers list, which shows the biggest rating increases in the last 3 months:-
Shane Melaugh +226, Paul O Neill +185 and Alex Goss +147
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Elm Mount have won the Killane Cup for the first time after losing a number of finals in previous years.
The final was held in Elm Mount last night and resulted in a victory over Skerries by 3½ to 2½. The winning team was made up of Pat Fitzsimons, Alex Goss, Andrew Peters, Donal Ó Danachair, Kevin Summons-Walsh and Peter Scott. Congrats to all!
The 2017 Club Championships are all but over and the winners of all 4 sections are known:-
Section D was won by Seán O’Neill with a score of 7 out of 8.
Section C was won by Greg Coyle with an unbeaten 6½ out of 7.
Eugene McMorrow and Kevin Summons-Walsh finished in joint 1st in a very closely- fought section B with a score of 5/8.
Paul O’Neill is the overall Club Champion for 2017 after winning section A with a score of 8/10.
Crosstables will be added later.
The Branagan, Killane and Willie Brennan Cup competitions have started.
Elm Mount got off to an excellent start in the Branagan, with a 3½-2½ win away to the Armstrong cup winners, Gonzaga, in the first match. The scores on each board were:-
Gavin Melaugh 0-1 Sam Collins
Shane Melaugh ½-½ Henry Li
Paul O’Neill 1-0 Killian Delaney
Terry Creighton 0-1 Gordon Freeman
Alex Goss 1-0 Eoghan Casey
Andrew Peters 1-0 Andy Keenan
Elm Mount will be putting forward a motion to the LCU agm that match points should be used for the group stages of the cup competitions (eg a team gets 1 point for winning a match and ½ point for drawing). The advantage are:-
- a team which wins all its matches will always qualify for the next round
- it reduces the impact of a club which is no longer in contention putting out a very weak team. When groups are small, this can have a big impact.
There was a good attendance at the AGM which was held on Monday 22nd May.
During the AGM, board prizes were presented to the top scorers on each team by Fred Armstrong, the Club President.
Paul O’Neill was the top scorer on the Armstrong team with 8.5 points..
Fred Armstrong and Terry Creighton were joint top scorers on the Heidenfeld team, scoring 8 points each. Outgoing treasurer Gerry Barry presented their awards:-
On the O’Hanlon A team, both Alex Goss and Peter Scott scored 7/11:-
The top scorer on the O’Hanlon B team, Greg Coyle, was not present to pick up his prize.
The top scorers on the Bodley Cup team were Peter McGrath and Kevin Murray:-
The last round of the leagues took place in the ALSAA centre on Sunday 23rd April.
The Armstrong (Division 1) team finished in 4th place with 50.5 points from a possible 88. Paul O’Neill, pictured below, won a board prize with a score of 8.5/11.
The Heidenfeld (Division 2) team also finished in 4th place with a score of 50/88. The top scorers on the team were Fred Armstrong and Terry Creighton who each scored 8/11.
Elm Mount had two teams in the O’Hanlon Cup (Division 4). The A team finished in 4th place with a score of 34.5 out of 66. The top scorers on the A team were Alex Goss and Peter Scott with 7/11 each. There was a very close finish at the bottom of the table with 3 teams finishing within a point of each other but unfortunately the Elm Mount B team finished in 12th place with 25 points and were relegated. Greg Coyle was the top scorer on the B team with 6.5/11.
The Bodley Cup (Division 6) team finished in 10th place with 18 points out of a possible 50. The top scorers on this team were Peter McGrath and Kevin Murray who both scored 4 points.
All the league tables can be seen at here.
Congratulations to Terry Creighton who came joint first in the Gonzaga Championship on the weekend of Jan 22nd-24th.
The full crosstable is available here.