Three Ulster players took part in the recent Las Vegas International Chess Festival at the South Point Casino in Las Vegas Nevada. CJ Murphy in his stateside chess debut managed to claim a share of fourth place in the "unrated" section with a score of 3.5/6. This section was nominally unrated, but all the players in it had played before, albeit not in official tournament play in the states. To demonstrated the relative strength of the section, Murphy actually played up in round 2 to the U1200 section and claimed his easiest win of the tournament in only 20 moves.
All the unrated players will now have official USCF ratings.
Two experienced American campaigners Danny Mallaghan and Cecil Sloan, made up the Ulster/Irish contingent. Danny scored 2.5/6 in the U2000 section and Cecil matched this score in the U1800.
All results cross tables can be found here.
