Congratulations to Martin Jacobs, (pictured above with his winners trophy), on becoming the Larkhill Boys School Chess champion for 2014.

The  2013-4 league season has finished.

The Armstrong team finished as runners-up.
The Heidenfeld team won their division and are promoted to division 1 for next year.
The Ennis Shield team finished in 3rd place.
The O’Hanlon team finished in 7th place out of 12.
The Bodley team finished in 4th place

The knock-out competitions (Branagan Cup, Killane Shield and William Brennan Trophy) will be starting soon.

The Club Championship will be starting soon – please let Pat Fitzsimons know by 25th April if you will be playing.

Elm Mount have won the Heidenfeld Trophy,  finishing a half-point ahead of Rathmines A on the last round of the leagues on 13th April. Both teams were level going into the last round with Elm Mount ahead on the tie-break. On the day, Elm Mount won 6-2 while Rathmines A could only win 5.5-2.5 so Elm Mount finished clear winners.

The winning team is pictured below:

Back row: Terry Creighton, Seán Murphy, Stephen Kelly, Andy Peters, Bernard Boyle.
Front row: Peter Scott, Oliver Dunne, Fred Armstrong (captain), Alan McDonagh, Gerry Barry

The 2013 Leinster Chess Union Christmas Blitz was held in Elm Mount’s home venue, the Ierne Club in Drumcondra, on Wednesday 18th December. There was a turnout of 48 entrants from many different clubs, well up on last year. The tournament was divided into all-play-all sections by rating, with prizes for the winners and runners-up.

It was a successful night for Elm Mount, with 3 Elm Mount players, Luke Keenan, Zygis Jakubauskas and David Fitzsimons winning their sections. They are shown below being presented with their prizes by Pat Fitzsimons, who controlled the tournament:-

Other Elm Mount prizewinners were Alex Goss and Terry Creighton.

The 2013 Christmas Blitz took place in the club on Monday 16th December. There were 29 participants and the tournament was run using the usual time handicap method.
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The players were divided into 4 all-play-all groups initially with the top two in each section qualifying for the quarter-finals. Eventually, it came down to a final between Alex Goss and Yann Salmon …

In the end, Alex triumphed to come 1st and have first pick of the prizes. The prizewinners were:-

1st: Alex Goss
2nd: Yann Salmon
3rd: Adam Spirek
4th: Ciaran Quinn
5th: Luke Keenan
6th: Andy Peters
7th: Terry Creighton
8th: Karl Vernor

Below are  the winners being presented with their prizes by Pat Fitzsimons:-

Alex Goss 1st

Yann Salmon 2nd

Adam Spirek 3rd

Ciaran Quinn  4th
Luke Keenan 5th

Andy Peters 6th

Terry Creighton 7th

Karl Vernor 8th

Happy Christmas to All!

Elm Mount hosted this year’s Mick Germaine Cup competition which was held on Saturday 28th September 2013. Ratoath emerged as winners with a very high score of 21 points from a possible 24, finishing just a half point ahead of the Enniscorthy Kings with one of Elm Mount’s two teams (the Elm Mount kings) entered in the event finishing in 3rd place. Alex Goss and Joe Morley finished as joint top scorers on the Elm Mount kings team with a score of 3.5/6 each.

The Elm Mount knights, comprised of some of the club’s youngest members, also gained valuable competitive experience at the tournament. Adrian John scored 3 points for the team to get the board prize for the Knights team.

Pictured are the two Elm Mount Teams with Mick Germaine who presented the prizes.

 From left Alex Goss, Luke Keenan and Philip Grehan with Mick Germaine (Joe and Dan Morley (not in photo) also competed on the Elm Mount Kings team.