Galway Senior Chess

HP Galway Chess Congress 2008 won by Yury Rochev

Galway Winter League 2008/09

July 2008: Giant chess arrives in Galway

We finally got delivery of our giant chess set! The idea is to make use of the giant chess board that is built into the prom opposite the Aquarium. We figured we'd use it any time there was good weather but our wonderful summer has meant that it has only seen the light of day on 2 occasions. See some pics below:

July 2008: City of Dublin - Aug 29-31

The City of Dublin tournament is on from Aug 29-31 in The Morrison Hotel in Dublin. Details and entry form here:http://www.icu.ie/events/display.php?id=137

Jun 29th 2008: Galway 3rd in Irish C'ships

The Galway Chess team came 3rd in the Irish Club C'ship held in Cork over the weekend. They needed to come in the top 2 in order to qualify for the European Club Cup in Greece in October. Douglas from Cork won and Kilkenny came second. Both these advance to the European competition.

Marek Goban wins 2008 Winter League in play-off with David Path

Marek Goban made it a 3-in-a-row for the Galway Winter League title as he tied with David Path over the 7 rounds on 6/7 and then won the sudden-death play-off to decide the winner of the Galway Winter League trophy. See more below.

Monthly Chess Blitzes 2007/08

8 May 2008:19 players entered this month's blitz which saw the welcome return of some of our Westport friends. The winner was David Path on 5.5/6. John Hensey from Westport was second and Zaidan Zulkipli was 3rd. Valerie Nestor won the grading prize. See results here

10 Apr 2008:13 players entered this month's blitz but the standard was very high. The winner was David Path on 5/6. Pete Morriss and Marek Goban tied for second and David McCann winning the grading prize. See results here

6 Mar 2008:This was a charity event in aid of It will be a charity event, in aid of Habitat for Humanity. On the 30th of May this year, volunteers from National University of Ireland Galway (including Chess organizer Mark Jennings will travel to Kawama in Zambia.

The competition was won by Mohammed Shafiq with Paul Ward runner-up with Fintan Hegarty.

25 Jan 2008: We had a record turnout of 23 in the tournament with some very strong players. The competition was won by Zaidan Zulkipli - with David McCann and Oissine Murphy sharing the grading prize. See results here

29 Nov 2007: This was won by Zaidan Zulkipli and Pete Morriss - see results here

8 Nov 2007: This was won by Gabor Horvath from David McCann who put in a very strong performance - see results here

4 Oct 2007: This was won by David Path from Lorcan O'Toole with Fintan Hegarty getting the grading prize - see results here

Marek Goban wins Galway Winter League 2007/08

Marek Goban made it a 3-in-a-row of Galway Winter League titles as he tied with David Path over the 7 rounds on 6/7 and then won the sudden-death play-off to decide the winner of the Galway Winter League trophy.

The Galway Winter League started on Thursday October 25th at the Galway Chess club and was played over 7 rounds finishing on March 13th 2008. This is an ICU rated event with 90 mins per player per game and there was an entry of 27 players mostly from Galway city but with a sizeable contingent from the Ballinasloe club.

David Path led the tournament right up to the second-last round when his draw with former winner Pete Morriss enabled reigning title holder, Marek Goban, to draw level with one match. In the final round, both David and Marek won their games although David, in particular, had some very tough moments against Ron Cummins who put up a very tough fight. In the end, the tournament ended in a tie between David and Marek and historical precedent dictated that a sudden-death play-off be used to decide the destination of the title.

The play-off was set for Thurs March 27th and was decide over 2 games where each player had 15 minutes each on their clocks. Marek won the first game with white and so needed only to draw the second game with black and managed to do so despite David's best efforts. Below is the 'action' at the start of the second game with Marek on the right.

This was the tightest finish to the Winter League for at least 4 years with the result in doubt right to the last few seconds, sometimes amidst hue tension. In particular, my own highlight was watching the 5th round match between Marek and David. David had the upper hand the whole way through and Marek was desperately short of time. All the spectators knew that if David were win, then the title was probably his. Crucially, Marek managed to force a draw with 2 seconds left on his clock and that proved to be the turning point to retaining his title. Below is Marek accepting the GWL trophy from Galway Chess Club chairman, Ronan Duke.

Hashem Mehrjoo claimed 3rd place on tie-break from Paul Ward (who was unluckily done out of 3rd place last year also!) and the grading prize went to Ron Cummins from the Ballinsloe club, who came so close to beating David Path in the final round.

Many thanks to John McKenna for his sterling work in running the tournament so efficiently and to all who competed and made it probably the most successful Galway Winter League yet.

See here for the report on last year's competition.

Lecture/Simul by Dr Yury Rochev: Mar 3rd 2008

NUIG Chess Society hosted Dr.Yury Rochev (FIDE Master) who gave a one hour lecture on improving chess play, focussing mainly on the endgame. Following the lecture, Dr.Rochev played 20 of the audience at the same time and only conceded one draw, winnning the rest.

GM Baburin gives Galway lecture: Nov 20th 2007

The NUI Galway chess soc organized for chess grandmaster Alex Baburin, originally from Russia, to give a lecture and simul in NUI Galway on Tues Nov 20th last. Following this, he played 20 members of the audience in a simultaneous chess game. The evening was a huge success and enjoyed by all who attended.

Alex Baburin set up the first Internet-based daily Chess newspaper. He is also the author of the excellent book "Winning Pawn Structures". There is an interview with Alex here and his profile is on his GrandMaster square website. His games can be found here.

Most recent Chess Competitions

Gawain Jones wins the
2007 HP Galway Chess Congress

Sunday Sept 23rd 2007:

Congratulations to the Gawain Jones who won the 2007 HP Galway Chess Congress, held at the Salthill Hotel from Sept 21-23rd. Congratulations also to Eamon Keogh, Hashem Mehrjoo and Pete Morris (both from Galway!) who tied for the Challengers competition, to Yoel Ferrer from the Galway club who won the Major section and to young Tony Deane from Ballinasloe who followed up his All-Ireland U-16 victory with a win in the Minor section.

Full report here and here's the standings and crosstable files:

• Masters/Challengers section
• Major section
• Minor section

Here's some photos from the event.

Marek Goban retains the Galway Winter League 2006/07

The Galway Winter League 2006/07 started on November 16, 2006 and was played over 7 rounds with Marek Goban as defending champion.

24 players entered in this, the 5th running of the main ICU-rated competition in Connaught during the winter months. Defending champion Marek Goban had a fairly trouble-free journey towards retaining his title, only conceding one draw, to Mike O'Donnell in the final round. Zaidan Zulkipli was clear runner-up, a full point ahead of a group of 4 players on 4.5/7. Third prize went to Paul Ward by the tightest of tie-break margins from Mike O'Donnell. The grading prize went to Amin Shamsudin, also on 4.5/7.

• round 1 results and round 2 draw (Nov 16th 2006)
• round 2 results and round 3 draw Dec 7th 2006
• round 3 results and round 4 draw Jan 11th 2007
• round 4 results and round 5 draw Feb 1st 2007
• round 5 results and round 6 draw Feb 22nd 2007
• round 6 results and round 7 draw Mar 15th 2007
• Round 7 results and final standings Mar 29th 2007

Monthly Chess Blitzes 2006/07

The club has just held a series of chess blitzes - 10 minutes aside per game - at the chess club on a Thursday night. These competitions are open to all and are handicapped based on rating: for every 100 points difference, the higher rated player gets 1 minute less (than the standard 10) and the lower-rated player gets 1 minute more. For a 700 point difference, we then have a match with the lower rated player having 17 minutes and the higher rated player having 3 minutes. We find that that tends to equalize out the rating difference! All we have to do now is to find a way to beat Zaidan Zulkipli who has won the first 2 blitzes :-)

The last blitz of the year was held April 26th in room IT 203 in NUIG and was won (again!) by Zaidan Zulkipli with Pete Morriss runner-up (again!) and Eamon Abberton won the grading prize. Many thanks to Jerome Sheahan who contributed the food and drinks for the end-of-season "party"!

Previous results in 2007:

• Mar 8th: 1st Amin Shamsudin; 2nd Pete Morriss; Grading: Oissine Murphy. See full results
• Feb 15th: 1st Zaidan Zulkipli; 2nd Yoel Ferrer; Grading: John Cormican. See full results
• Jan 25th: 1st Zaidan Zulkipli; 2nd Pete Morriss; Grading: Yoel Ferrer. See full results

Galway Chess Club plays in 2006 Euro Champions League

The Galway Chess club was one of two clubs representing Ireland at the 2006 European Club Championships from Oct 7-15th 2006. This is the first time that the club has ever represented Ireland and is a huge achievement for the club. Qualification was achieved by coming second at the Irish Club C'ship last June (which was held in Galway) which was a performance well above expectations given that the champions of Leinster and Munster had much higher ratings as had the previous year's champions (who played instead of the Ulster champions, due to an issue with the Irish Chess Union).

Pete Morriss, the team captain, submitted the report on the team's qualification and participation in the ECC - a magnificent achievement, given that the opposing teams in the Irish C'ship were much higher rated.

In any case, the Galway team of:

• Marek Goban
• Stefan Tomezack
• Pete Morriss (captain)
• Lorcan O'Toole
• Zaidan Zulkipli
• Indy Banerjee
• Jarek Wieczorek

.. headed off to compete with the likes of Victor Korchnoi, former World Championship finalist. As you can see from the photos, they managed to fit in a little R&R along with rigours of such daunting competition!

Despite some excellent performances and desperately unlucky defeats, the team were unable to better their expected seeding but this was definitely a case where the taking part was main thing.

Many of the games were transmitted live and are still available on the web to follow. Here's a selection:

• Marek (white) vs Michael Bezold (rnd 1)
• Stefan (black) vs Valery Atlas (rnd 1)
• Pete (black) vs Luigi Lain (rnd 2)
• Marek (black) vs Charles Cobb (rnd 6)

Special thanks to Pete Morriss, team captain, not only for organising the Galway team but also for organizing the Irish Club C'ship play-off in Galway.

Competition Result Archive (most recent first)

GM Baburin wins HP-sponsored Galway Chess Congress 2006

The 2006 Galway Congress, sponsored by Hewlett-Packard Galway, was held from Sept 29th - Oct 1st and was won by GM Alex Baburin, on a tie-break from Yury Rochev, Karl McPhillips and Alex Lopez. See the Galway Chess Congress 2006 page for full details.

Galway Winter League 2005/06

Marek Goban won the 2005/06 Galway Winter League from Pete Morriss in second place and Indy Banerjee in third place. The round-by-round results are available below:.

Infopoint Systems Galway Chess Congress 2005

The 2005 Galway Congress, with prize fund of €10,000 sponsored by Infopoint Systems, was held from Oct 7-9th at the Corrib Great Southern. It attracted a record entry for 224 players who played in 4 separate sections with Bartosz Socko and Gawain Jones sharing first place. See the Galway Chess Congress 2005 page for full details.

Pete Morriss wins Galway Winter League 2004/05

The Winter League Competition started on October 14, 2004 and was played over 8 rounds finishing on March 31st 2005 with Pete Morriss winning an exciting play-off against Lorcan O'Toole, the 2004 champion.

• Round 3 Nov 18th 2004
• Round 4 Dec 9th 2004
• Round 5 Jan 13th 2005
• Round 6 Feb 3rd 2005
• Round 7 Feb 24th 2005
• Round 8 March 31st 2005

Rashid Ziyatdinov and Yury Rochev play on a chess board worth €86,000!

In Feb 2005, one of the top chess players in the world, GM Rashid Ziyatdinov (who lived in Galway in 2005) took on Yury Rochev FM in a chess match in the Bold Art Gallery which was hosting Graham Knuttel's chess set, worth €86,000 (believe it or not). Check out the record of the event.

IM Mark Quinn wins the 2004 Galway Congress

The 2004 Galway Congress was held at the Corrib Great Southern from Sept 10-12 2004. It attracted 200 entrants and the Masters section was won by IM Mark Quinn. See here for more details.

Lorcan O'Toole wins Galway Winter League 2003/04

Sat Feb 7th 2004: Galway Rapidplay

Check here for reports of previous rapidplays.

GM Alex Baburin wins the 2003 HP Galway Open.

Galway Winter League 2002/03

The Galway Chess Club recently concluded the Galway Winter League which was held over 12 rounds. It started last October and will finished in April. The result was in doubt right up to the last 5 minutes of the last game when long-time tournament leader Lorcan O'Toole was defeated by Lee MacTiernan. That meant that Lloyd Malcolm overtook Lorcan right at the finish to become the Galway Club Champion. Here's the final standings and crosstable after 12 rounds.

Previous Competitions