The 2015-15 Leinster League league season starts tomorrow, 14th September. The Armstrong team (at home on the 14th) and the Bodley team (away on the 18th) are in action the first week with the Heidenfeld team and the Ennis team kicking off their seasons the following week. The O’Hanlon team’s first match is on 1st October.
A new item has been added to Chess Pieces – Prodigy (submitted by Oliver Dunne).
The 2014 Player of the Year award was given jointly to Shane Melaugh and Gavin Melaugh. They are pictured below receiving the award from Club President, Victor Murray.
Five of Elm Mount’s players competed in this year’s Irish Junior Championships which were held in Blanchardstown recently. Philip Grehan and Gavin Melaugh played in the under 12s event, while Shane Melaugh, Luke Keenan and Alex Goss played in the under 14 section.
Gavin receiving his prize for finishing as runner up in the under 12s Section of the Irish Junior championships with from left (Michael Gordon, Director of Marketing New Ireland Assurance, Joe Higgins TD and Pat Fitzsimons, Chairperson of the Irish Chess Union.
The 2014-15 Leinster League season is now over.
The club had 2 teams in the Armstrong Cup (Div 1). The Armstrong A team scored 54 points and finished in 3rd place by just half a point. Joint top scorers were Zygis Jakubauskas and Alan McDonagh who each scored 8/11. The Armstrong B team finished in 12th place with 26.5 points and was relegated to the Heidenfeld for next season. Top scorer was Pat Fitzsimons with 5/11.
The Ennis Shield (Div 3) team finished in 9th place with 26.5 points. Top scorer was Eugene McMorrow with 7.5/11.
The O’Hanlon Cup (Div 4) team scored 32 points and finished in 8th place out of 12 teams. 4th to 8th place in this division were separated by only 1.5 points in the end. The top scorer was Peter Scott with 6.5/11.
The Bodley Cup (Div 6) team finished in 6th place with 24 points. Alex Goss, Sean MacGowan and Colm Mooney were joint top scorers with 5.5 points.
The 2014 Elm Mount Christmas Blitz was held in on Monday 22nd December. The players were divided into 3 sections of 8 players each with the top 2 plus the 2 best 3rd-placed players to qualify for the quarter-finals. The traditional handicap system was used with time varying from 5 minutes each to 2 minutes v 8 minutes depending on rating.
David Fitzsimons, Shane Melaugh and Gedas Jakubauskas were the section winners with Karol Marzec, William French and Gavin Melaugh the three runners-up. Eugene Donohue and Zygis Jakubauskas were the best 3rd-place finishers.
The quarter-final draw was:-
David Fitzsimons v William Ffrench
Eugene Donohue v Gavin Melaugh
Shane Melaugh v Karol Marzec
Gedas Jakubauskas v Zygis Jakubauskas
After a break for food, the knockout stage began:
The results were: Zygis beat Gedas, Karol beat Shane, Eugene beat Gavin and David beat William.
The semi-final pairings were David v Eugene and Zygis v Karol.
The winners were David and Zygis (after a replay) and the final began …
Eventually Zygis triumphed to become the 2014 Christmas Blitz champion!
The prizes were presented by Pat Fitzsimons:-
There were 2 extra prizes for those at the opposite end of the table awarded to Peter McGrath and Alan McDonagh
Luke Keenan (pictured below) won the Galway Minor tournament held on the weekend of 17-19 October with a score of 5.5/6, half a point ahead of 4 runners-up. 48 players took part in the tournament. There is a cross-table here.
Luke Keenan, 2014 Galway Minors champion.
The 2014 Club Championships are well under way. Cross tables for Sections A and C are updated here – more to follow soon.
Elm Mount’s FIDE Master David Fitzsimons (pictured with the winning trophy) made Irish Chess history on 16th August 2014 by winning the Inaugural Prague Open Chess Tournament with an unbeaten score of 7.5/9. The event had almost 200 competitors including 11 International Masters and 10 FIDE masters. This is the first time an Irish player has ever won a major European International Open Chess event. Congratulations to David on his ground-breaking achievement.
Below is the final cross-table:-
Elm Mount have won the Branagan Cup for the 4th year in a row after a 3.5-2.5 victory over a strong Gonzaga team in the Ierne club last night. The match went down to the last couple of minutes of the 4 hours with Oliver Dunne’s win over John McMorrow clinching a narrow victory for Elm Mount. Below is a picture of the winning team:- 
Not pictured: Bernard Boyle, Adam Spirek