Cathal Murphy bags the City Of Dublin Junior chess title

A quartet of Ulster players took part in the recent City Of Dublin championships at the Gresham Hotel in O’Connell Street. Two of The three musketeers Murphy and Kelly (Morrison sat this one out) were joined by another regular southern traveller Gareth Annesley  and southern debutant Siebran Westra.

Cathal and Martin both decided to play in the junior section and strictly to their southern ratings of 1190 and 1160 respectively. Cathal  topped the 55 player section, finishing on 5.5 from 6, while Martin finished just out of the prizes with a respectable 4 from 6, just managing to hold on to his “unbeaten” record against Irish females with a win over Katherine Bolger in round 1.

Although Cathal won his first five games, two of these, against grading prize winner Suzanne Barry and second placed Adam Murphy (grand prix and Vienna attack respectively) were on a knife-edge throughout with several tactical and checkmate threats and positions played out (see below)  Barry actually missed 38...Qf3+  leading to mate in 3, while Cathal missed 22.Qxf8, while under time pressure against Adam Murphy, but went on to win and then closed out the tournament with a win against unknown Polish player Filipski and a closing draw against John Halpenny.

Gareth and Siebran finished with 3.5 and 2 respectively in a tough under 2000 Major section. Siebran started brightly with a win over Denis O’Connell, but suffered two losses and was then drawn against Gareth in round 4 and managed to succumb to Annesley “G-force”.  Gareth himself recovered from a slow start to finish on a respectable 3.5 with wins over Siebran, Tom O’Gorman and three draws.

Chess “analysis” was continued late into both evenings in Doyle’s bar, as a great weekend was had by all.

Full results and cross tables can be found on the ICU website.

Any comments and analysis on the appended games are more than welcome.

[Event "City of Dublin Junior"] [Site "Dublin"] [Date "2014.09.13"] [Round "2"] [White "Murphy, Cathal"] [Black "Barry, Suzanne"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B23"] [WhiteElo "1190"] [BlackElo "970"] [PlyCount "81"] [EventDate "2014.09.12"] [EventType "swiss"] [EventRounds "6"] [EventCountry "IRL"] [SourceDate "2014.09.22"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 d6 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. Bc4 e5 6. O-O exf4 7. d3 g5 8. Qe1 Bg7 9. Bd2 Bxf3 10. gxf3 Qd7 11. Kh1 O-O-O 12. Rb1 Ne5 13. Bd5 Qh3 14. Qf2 Ne7 15. b4 b6 16. bxc5 dxc5 17. Qe2 Kb8 18. a4 Nxd5 19. Nxd5 Rd6 20. a5 Nd7 21. axb6 axb6 22. Rb3 Kb7 23. Rfb1 Re8 24. Nc3 Ne5 25. Na4 Nd7 26. Nc3 Be5 27. Nb5 Rg6 28. Ra3 Bb8 29. d4 cxd4 30. Qc4 Rc6 31. Qxf7 Rec8 32. Nxd4 $2 Rd6 33. c3 Rf8 34. Qc4 g4 $2 35. Qa6+ Kc7 36. Nb5+ Kd8 37. Nxd6 Bxd6 38. fxg4 $2 f3 $4 39. Bg5+ Ke8 40. Qc8+ Kf7 41. Qxd7+ 1-0

[Event "City of Dublin Junior"] [Site "Dublin"] [Date "2014.09.13"] [Round "4"] [White "Murphy, Cathal"] [Black "Murphy, Adam"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C25"] [WhiteElo "1190"] [BlackElo "1050"] [PlyCount "59"] [EventDate "2014.09.12"] [EventType "swiss"] [EventRounds "6"] [EventCountry "IRL"] [SourceDate "2014.09.22"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 Bb4 4. Nf3 d6 5. Bc4 Nf6 6. O-O Bg4 7. d3 Nd4 8. fxe5 dxe5 9. Bxf7+ Kf8 10. Bb3 Bc5 11. Kh1 Nxf3 12. gxf3 Bh3 13. Re1 Qe8 14. Be3 Bxe3 15. Rxe3 Qg6 16. Qg1 Qh5 17. Qf2 Ke7 18. Rg1 g6 19. Ree1 Rhf8 20. Qc5+ Kd7 21. Rg3 Ne8 $2 22. Nd5 $4 Rf7 23. Nxc7 Rxf3 24. Ba4+ b5 $2 25. Bxb5+ Kd8 26. Nd5 $1 Rxg3 27. Qe7+ Kc8 28. Qxe8+ Kb7 29. Qc6+ Kb8 30. Qc7# 1-0

A small announcement

In 1999 I started the Ulster Chess Chronicle to provide a contemporary record of Ulster Chess on the internet. My interest in chess history soon meant that I started writing about past events and players too. After a while the website became a little unwieldy and with off-the-shelf templates like blogger available, I started NI Chess News, so that hopefully it would be a bit easier to edit for me and to navigate for readers.

I've decided now to incorporate the contemporary material accumulated over 15 years at the Chronicle into this website and to create a new Ulster Chess History website for the historical material. Some reports and articles will go to the Ulster Chess Union website which seems only fair because the Chronicle also hosted official pages before the UCU got its own internet presence.

So, for the next while NI Chess News will resemble a construction site, so please be patient while I'm at work on all this. In the meantime you'll notice a change of colour scheme here as I try to replicate the Ulster Chess Chronicle look.