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.