The Winter League saw major upsets last night, when the top three seeds all lost.  Now there are four players tied on first place with just two rounds to go: Joona Kiiski (the defending champion and previous leader), Conall Hegarty (who beat Joona), Carlos Silva (who beat Conall in the first round, and is the […]

The January Blitz was held (somewhat belatedly) on 6 February.  Perhaps fittingly, given our abuse of the calendar, the event was somewhat chaotic: few enough people were there half an hour after the scheduled start time to warrant conducting it as an all-play-all, then several others drifted in later and wanted to join in, resulting […]

There was fairly small attendance at our final blitz tournament of the year; it seems that the temptation of mince pies and prizes did not outweigh a combination of the other attractions of the festive season and the unpleasantness of venturing outside in the cold, hail and floods.  Therefore the winner was Pete Morriss, on […]

The November blitz tournament was won by Brendan Buckley, with the excellent score of 6½ out of 7 (conceding a draw to Pete and winning all his other games); second was Pete Morriss (who was beaten by Carlos, in addition to his draw with Brendan) on 5½; to continue the pattern, the grading prize was […]

Just three Galway club members undertook the arduous journey down to Limerick to play in the Limerick Congress – but all three came home with prizes.  Pete Morriss and Kevin Fitzpatrick won grading prizes in the Open section, whilst the star of the Galway contingent was Carlos Silva, who was joint first in the under-1400 event, […]

Felix Calleja won the October Blitz, with 6 points out of 7, losing only to Brendan Buckley, who came second with 5½ (losing to third placed Jason Rawlinson, and also dropping half a point by missing the first round).  The grading prize was won by newcomer Henryk Raczkowiak, on 4 points. Using increments met with […]

The Galway Winter League – the main event of our domestic calendar – is about to start.  Round one will take place on Thursday 24 October.  The Winter League (our club championship) has seven rounds, at roughly four week intervals throughout the winter, and is ICU-rated.  Each player has 90 minutes for all their moves, plus an increment […]

This Thursday (17 October) will be our October Blitz tournament.  As usual, it will have seven rounds, with a starting time of 7.30.  Also as usual, latecomers (and early departers) can be included, though you will miss out on your quota of seven games.  Time rate will be 5 minutes per player for the game, […]

The prestigious Galway Congress was won by Irish number one Grand Master Alex Baburin; he came equal first with International Master Vladimir Sveshnikov (who came all the way from Latvia for this event) but Baburin won the trophy with a better tie-break score.  A full list of prize winners is below.  The complete results for […]

There was a good turnout for the September blitz, including some welcome new faces.  The winner was Gerardo Artola, with 6/7 (losing only to Felix); second was Brendan Buckley (5½ – losing to Gerardo, drawing with Andrew, and winning the rest).  The grading prize was won by Fintan Hegarty (3½ points).  The October blitz will […]