Galway Chess Club is pleased to announce the

HP Galway Chess Congress 2008

Oct 3rd-5th 2008

sponsored by

Hewlett Packard Galway

and supported by Failte Ireland West

Prize Fund: €4,000

Venue: Salthill Hotel, Galway

Galway Chess Club

The Galway Chess Club meets every Thursday night from 8pm from Sept to May at the

Galway Bridge Centre,
St Mary's Road,
Galway

We're on our summer break from the Bridge Centre but club is currently meeting each Thursday night from about 8.30pm in the Cottage Bar in lower Salthill (just down from Ward's Hotel) for some social chess.

For more details, contact Ronan Duke (chairman) (phone 091 471792 after 6pm or 086-8072384) or Pete Morriss (treasurer). Note: replace the "_at_" characters in the email addresses with "@" and replace "_dot_" with a ".".

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Monthly blitzes

The club holds a series of rapidplay competitions each year and all are welcome. Many of these are handicapped by giving the better players much less time (as little as 3 minutes for a game) which seems to equalize things and make for some excitement. In the November blitz, one of the lowest rated players came second so the handicapping seems to work!.

Junior Chess

A chess competition for juniors of all standards is run every month from Sept to April- see here for more details. Next competition is will be Sept 2008.

Coaching

Gabor Horvath, from Hungary, is now doing chess coaching in the Galway area. Gabor has a FIDE rating of 2278 and is available for coaching at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. You can contact Gabor at 087-3295500 or the following email address: chessgalway at gmail dot com.

Other clubs

The nearest active senior club in Galway is in Ballinasloe where the junior club is also very strong, having won the Community Games 2007 titles at U-12 and U-16. The Ennis club is very strong and competes in the Munster League. There is no Connaught League at present as there are not sufficient number of active clubs.

There are Junior coaching classes in the Claregalway area and in the Oranmore BNS and Clarenbridge NS schools.

Contact Ronan at 086-8072384 or ronanduke at gmail dot com for more details or if you want to add any detail.

News for 2007/08 Season

Updated: August 2008

Aug 2008: Galway juniors impress in 4 Nations tournament in Liverpool. Ruth Cormican is unbeaten. See more here.

July 2008: Giant chess arrives in Galway.

July 2008: 5 Galway juniors selected to represent Ireland. Sarah Cormican selected for Ireland's senior team. See more here.

July 2008: City of Dublin congress is announced for Aug 29-31st.

Jun 29th 2008: Galway's team finished 3rd in the Irish club C'ships.

May 28th 2008: Ballinsloe retains Community Games U-12 and U-16 titles.

May 18th 2008: Briarhill NS and Creagh NS win ChessZ national titles.

May 8th 2008: David Path won the last blitz of the 2007/08 season. See results here.

April 2008: Galway Juniors Win All-Ireland titles!.

April 10th 2008: David Path won the latest blitz held on April 10th. See results here.

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

Feb 18th 2008: Connacht U-16 team wins 2008 Inter-provincial Title

Nov 20th 2007: GM Baburin gives Galway lecture

Sept 23rd 2007: Gawain Jones wins the the 2007 HP Galway Chess Congress

Aug 19th 2007: Ballinasloe wins All-Ireland U-12 and U-16 titles in Community Games

Aug 19th 2007: Galway players selected to represent Ireland

Archive of events from 2006/07 season:

• Sun April 29th 2007: The last Junior Monthly event of the 2006/07 season took place at the Bridge Centre on Sunday April 29th. See here for the results.

• Sat April 28th 2007: 10 Galway club members made their own small contribution to Cuirt when they took part in a simul event where they all played Yury Rochev at the same time in the Town Hall during the Cuirt festival. Many thanks to Yury for standing in at short notice when Jon Manley (chess master and publisher of 'The Grass Arena by John Healy' - hence the tenuous connection to chess!) could not travel over from the UK. See here for some photos.

• Thurs April 26th 2007: Galway Chess Club blitz (10-min aside) tournament, open to all, starting at 7.45pm. See the Monthly blitz section. This was the final monthly blitz of the season.

• The Galway Winter League for 2006/07 was won again by Marek Goban - see the report section for the round-up from the Mar 29th final round.

• John Alfred ran the latest of the ChessZ Monthly's last Saturday Mar 24th 2007. Results here.

• Tues March 6th 2007: Yuri Rochev FM gave a lecture on "How to play the endgame" at NUIG lecture hall IT 125G (this is downstairs in the IT building - note that is also a hall called IT 125 on the 1st floor). This lecture was free for all students and 5 euro for non students. Time: 6.15-7.30 pm (lecture) 7.30-7.40 pm (Q&A session). See flyer - it also has the phone numbers of the organisers if you want to contact them.

• Thurs March 8th 2007: Galway Chess Club blitz (10-min aside) tournament, open to all, starting at 7.45pm. See the Monthly blitz section.

• Tues Feb 20th 2007 from 6-8pm: The NUIG Chess Club is hosting International Master Gawain Jones (rating 2509) who will deliver a lecture : "Chess Games and Analysis", and will then play a simul against 10 audience members, chosen by a draw. Gawain, who is just 19 years old, holds 2 GM norms,and is among the strongest international masters in the world. VENUE: IT125G lecture theatre, National University of Ireland, Galway. FEE: 5 euro for general public, just 1 euro for students/juniors.

• 5th Round of the Galway Winter League 2006/07 is on this Thursday (Feb 22nd) from 7.45pm at the usual place - the Galway Bridge Centre.

• Thurs Feb 15th 2007: Galway Chess Club held a blitz (10-min aside) tournament, open to all, at the Chess Club. See the Monthly Blitz section.

• Sun Feb 18th 2007: The most recent Junior Monthly event took place at the Bridge Centre. Results here.

• Sat and Sun Feb 17th and 18th 2007: Galway hosted the Irish Junior Interprovincials (U-16 and U-19) in the Aula Maxima at NUIG. Connacht came 3rd in the U-16 but could have won that competition with a little luck - it was that tight! Well done to John McKenna for organising it.

2006

• Thanks to Pete Morriss, the Galway team captain, who has submitted a report on the team's qualification and participation in the European Chess Cup 2006 - a magnificent achievement, given that the opposing teams in the Irish C'ship were much higher rated.