Benildus Club Championships 2013/4

Sparks

Just kicked off last night. Some articles already up on the Benildus website:

Junior Club Championships – first round draw

Seed|Player|Rating
1|Ross Beatty|1530
2|Jamie Kearns|1388
3|Odhrán McDonnell|1251
4|Jack Donovan|1182
5|Dan O’Brien|1142
6|Dylan Boland|1126
7|Finn McDonnell|1021
8|Mihailo Manojlovic|1006
9|Anastasija Manojlovic|964
10|Luke Hayden|921
11|Tom Kearney|905
12|Luke-Andrew Feeney|855
13|Colm Hehir|842
14|Richard O’Rahilly|982*
15|Cal Nolan|612*
16|Dónal Hehir|560*
17|William Kenny|548*
18|Declan Dolan|532*
19|Joe Sheehan|149*
20|Aisling Kane|Unr


The first round draw is as follows -

Board|White|Rating| |Black|Rating
1|Tom Kearney|905|v|Ross Beatty|1530
2|Jamie Kearns|1388|v|Luke-Andrew Feeney|855
3|Colm Hehir|842|v|Odhrán McDonnell|1251
4|Jack Donovan|1182|v|Richard O’Rahilly|982*
5|Cal Nolan|612*|v|Dan O’Brien|1142
6|Dylan Boland|1126|v|Dónal Hehir|560*
7|William Kenny|548*|v|Finn McDonnell|1021
8|Mihailo Manojlovic|1006|v|Declan Dolan|532*
9|Joe Sheehan|149*|v|Anastasija Manojlovic|964
10|Luke Hayden|921|v|Aisling Kane|Unr

* – provisional ratings are only used to rank players with
provisional ratings; they are considered unrated for the purposes of
the main draw.

There are three grading prizes – one for u-1000 and two for unrated. No player can win more than one prize. In the event of two or more players finishing level on points, the tie-breaks will be head-to-head followed by MBuch followed by progressive sum.

Time control is 75 minutes each for all moves, with games starting at 7:30pm sharp. Pens, scoresheets, etc will be supplied.

And the first round report is up:

Club Championship review – seeds come good

For the first time, all matches in the Frank Scott Shield went with seed – but it was a close-run thing on more than one board.

The Junior Cert results coming out in the morning meant there were a couple of absentees from the original draw, so we went with a re-jigged draw, with Luke-Andrew Feeney getting bumped up from board 2 to board 1 to take on Ross Beatty. Despite being top seed by almost 200 points, Ross won’t have it all his own way in this tournament, and Jack Donovan was quick to stake his claim to retaining his title when dispatching Richard O’Rahilly with ruthless efficiency for the first result of the night.

A couple of other wins followed soon after; Luke Hayden claimed a walkover win, while Anastasija worked up a textbook attack on a pinned f3 knight which was shorn of its usual light-squared bishop defender; Joe Sheehan soon found his king quite exposed, and mate followed quickly.

On 6, Dylan looked to be cruising against Dónal Hehir, having a two pawn advantage, but then he went in for a possibly unnecessary rook sac. It didn’t look like he had enough for it at all – an attack on a slightly exposed opposition king was all – but then a pawn attacked a pinned bishop, material was roughly level and Dylan went on to pick up a couple of pawns, trade off pieces and queen for victory.

Beside Dylan on 5, Cal Nolan was the only person in the bottom half of the starting rank list to win. Initially drawn against Dan O’Brien, that changed to first-year Diarmuid Carey instead; Diarmuid did win a pawn, but then got a rook trapped on b2 and neglected to castle; Cal picked up the rook, took aim at Diarmuid’s king and accepted his resignation soon after.

As the evening went on, the remaining games were getting tighter. Finn had a clear advantage – an extra pawn and a better pawn structure – but no immediate win against William Kenny, Odhrán was down to his last 20 minutes against Colm Hehir in the only rematch from last year’s tournament, Ross was a pawn up against Luke-Andrew, but it didn’t look the most solid, while Mihailo didn’t seem to have gotten much against Declan Dolan from his opening gambit. Finally, though, all the games did start to go the way of the seeds. Odhrán tore open Colm’s kingside defences with a nice tactic -



1. … Bxg3+! ends white’s resistance; black’s major pieces will cause carnage (2. PxB RxB 3. RxR RxR; if white doesn’t take, black just retreats the bishop and there’s a gaping hole straight to white’s king), and Odhrán soon wound up a queen for rook and won easily from there.

Finn ground out his win against William Kenny, picking up a couple of isolated pawns to reach a trivial king and pawn ending, and there were just two games remaining – and both were real scraps. Ross had had to advance his extra pawn to e3 to avoid losing it, but it had ventured far into opposition territory and had no support from any other pawns. Both players had doubled up rooks on the pawn, and were manoeuvering their last piece, a knight in each case, into the fray. Luke-Andrew wasn’t able to find a way to win the pawn, however, and in the end fell for a sucker knight fork, losing an exchange and with it the game. Still, Ross had less than three minutes remaining at the end – and tougher games lie ahead!

His round 2 opponent was last to finish in round 1 – Mihailo was being pushed all the way by Declan Dolan, who seemed in quick succession to go from a pawn up to two pieces down to piece for two pawns down. Declan’s king marched all the way to the third rank, and Mihailo’s bishop was suddenly required to stay at home and defend against various back-rank mate threats. However, Mihailo had managed to pick up a vital outside passed pawn – Declan didn’t have time to get back from his own attack to stop the pawn, and ended up losing on time just as the pawn queened.

...continues with full results on the benildus site

Sparks

Second round draw is up:

Junior Club Championships – round 2 draw



The provisional draw has been made for the second round of the Junior Club Championships.

There may be a couple of requests for travelling byes; if they don’t materialise, the draw is as follows -

Board|White|Rating| |Black|Rating
1|Ross Beatty|1530|v|Mihailo Manojlovic|1006
2|Odhrán McDonnell|1251|v|Luke Hayden|921
3|Finn McDonnell|1021|v|Jack Donovan|1182
4|Anastasija Manojlovic|964|v|Dylan Boland|1126
5|Jamie Kearns|1388|v|Cal Nolan|612*
6|Dan O’Brien|1142|v|Tom Kearney|905
7|Declan Dolan|532*|v|Luke-Andrew Feeney|855
8|Diarmuid Carey|Unr|v|Colm Hehir|842
9|Richard O’Rahilly|982*|v|William Kenny|548*
10|Dónal Hehir|560*|v|Joe Sheehan|149*

Cephei

Well done everyone

cdeb

On a slight tangent - how well do club championships go off generally? I see from the ratings list that Drogheda, Limerick, Cork, Rathmines, Elm Mount, Phibsboro and Naomh Barróg have had theirs rated since the summer; Inchicore had an unrated one, and Malahide and Bray had theirs last September, so they may be on again now. That's a good chunk of the clubs - ourselves, Gonzaga and Dublin would the be main clubs missing there, and then many of the smaller ones who'd only have one or two teams in the leagues; it might be difficult to get the numbers for a club championships. (I've included Gonzaga in the former list as it's bizarre they only have one team given the amount of decent players they have)

Do the tournaments attract members who mightn't otherwise usually pop down of a club night? What percentage of members tend to enter? Do clubs run them on successive club nights, or are there gap weeks included in the schedule to allow matches to be rearranged? When do they take place? In between the cup games? Or over the summer?

TheKeenMachine

cdeb wrote: »

On a slight tangent - how well do club championships go off generally? I see from the ratings list that Drogheda, Limerick, Cork, Rathmines, Elm Mount, Phibsboro and Naomh Barróg have had theirs rated since the summer; Inchicore had an unrated one, and Malahide and Bray had theirs last September, so they may be on again now. That's a good chunk of the clubs - ourselves, Gonzaga and Dublin would the be main clubs missing there, and then many of the smaller ones who'd only have one or two teams in the leagues; it might be difficult to get the numbers for a club championships. (I've included Gonzaga in the former list as it's bizarre they only have one team given the amount of decent players they have)

Gonzaga will have a Bodley team this year.

cdeb

Boo!

The Bodley is getting to be quite a respectable league now. Wicklow will be competing as well. It's certainly no beginners' league any more. I think we need a division 7 sooner rather than later.

Sparks

Round 2 kicks off at 1930 tonight...

cdeb

Damn you and your 24-hour clock!

Anyways, it actually kicked off at about 4pm yesterday.

Sparks

Ooooo, the sneaky little sods and their school hours Who got the early kickoff?

cdeb

Boards 1 and 4.

Good reasons in fairness - special dispensation to go see Stephen Brady FM and Roger Waters. I approve.

Sparks

I guess that's a good cause
Any upsets from the seeding?

cdeb

Board 4 is going to arbitration tonight; a draw has been claimed.

Board 1 was bloody tight - maybe a drawn endgame at the end; Q+B v Q+2 - but it went with seeding right at the end when a queen was hung...

Sparks

Sounds like fun Must try to get there a few minutes early to see that arbitration...

Sparks

Round 3's draw is up:

Junior Club Championships – round 3 draw

The pick of the ties in round 3 sees the reigning champion take on the top seed on board 1 next week.


Draw in full...
continues

Sparks

And the review of round 2 is now up as well:

Club championships – round 2 review

Two of the favourites for the Frank Scott Shield are still in the running for the trophy this year…but only just!

Two of the games were brought forward to the Tuesday, and both were by far the tightest games of the round. On board 1, Ross was taking on Mihailo; the game reached an opposite-coloured bishop endgame where Ross had a better king but Mihailo had a better pawn structure. Mihailo won a pawn, but was then forced to give up his bishop to stop Ross queening. So it was three pawns against a bishop and one – both queened, Mihailo turned down two draw offers to go for the win but with 32 seconds left and Ross checking, he offered a draw. Ross looked at the position for a second, realised that Mihailo’s last move left a one-move tactic to win his queen, and the game was over.

Time trouble was also a factor in the other game, when Dylan and Anastasija – the two form performers from the City of Dublin at the weekend – reached a pawn endgame where both kings were tied down to opposing passed pawns, and no real pawn breaks were on. Anastasija had just two minutes, while Dylan had 40, and Anastasija claimed a draw. There was no way either was going to win, so we had our first tie of the tournament.

The Wednesday saw some more interesting games with, as usual, the top two boards the last to finish.

... continues

Sparks

The draw for round four is now up, start time is 1930 next wednesday...

cdeb

Next Wednesday is 2013 surely?

Sparks

Some of us predate Luke's "I am of the eighties" t-shirts

Sparks

Round 3 review is now up on the Benildus website:

Junior Club Championships – round 3 review

Only two players retain 100% records after round 3 as the Frank Scott Shield enters the business end.

As per usual, the bottom boards were among the first finished. Joe Sheehan battled well to reach a QvR ending against Luke-Andrew Feeney. A couple of moves later, Joe resigned, citing the material imbalance. Afterwards, he was to try win the game from Luke-Andrew’s position…and couldn’t. Just a bit too late, he had learned that queen versus rook is a nasty endgame to win. Don’t believe me? Have a try yourself! Can’t find the win? Watch this to learn how to do it. Rook versus queen is well worth playing on; the side with the rook has decent drawing chances in practical terms.

Luke Hayden and Declan Dolan had few problems dispatching William Kenny and Diarmuid Carey, while Mihailo made amends for last season’s nasty defeat against Colm Hehir (when he lost on time when two queens up) with victory this time out. Anastasija got into time trouble against Finn and in and around the same time lost a piece, leaving Finn with a straightforward win.

On 3, Dylan had slightly the better of Dan before the latter found out the hard way that this wasn’t a league game, and the time control was only 75 minutes each! Cal Nolan was on board 2 almost by default after a rearranged draw and a bye, but certainly put it up to Odhrán, who was a pawn down for much of the game before finally coming good at the end.

That left, once again, a big battle on board 1....continues

checknraise

Black loses his rook in 5 moves

Sparks

Review from Round Four is up on the Benildus website:

Frank Scott Shield – round 4 review

Only four players are left in with a chance of lifting the Junior Club Championships after round 4′s action on Wednesday.

There were some quick games on the bottom boards as some players attempted to make a last-ditch burst for one of the grading prizes; Diarmuid Carey delivered Scholar’s Mate to Hannah Sheehan, while Dónal Hehir quickly wrapped up a win against Aisling Kane. William Kenny started well against Declan Dolan, but left rather a large hole on g2, which Declan exploited with a pawn on f3 and queen on h3.

Alex Byrne’s first game in the tournament proper saw him up to 1½ after victory over Joe Sheehan, while Colm Hehir had too much for Richard O’Rahilly.

Those five were all over reasonably quickly, leaving all the 1000+ players still playing on the top five boards. Luke-Andrew grabbed a dangerous-looking pawn on b7, and paid the penalty as Jack Donovan launched an attack down the newly-opened b-file, winning ruinous material a few short moves later. Anastasija accounted for Cal Nolan, while Mihailo was held to a draw by Luke Hayden despite seeming to have an advantage earlier in the game.

With board 2 postponed due to illness, that just left the top board, where Dylan was the latest to take on Ross....continues

Board 1 zugzwang

Sparks

Revised draw for tonight's final round of the club championships now up on the Benildus website here:

Revised Club Championship draw

The draw for tonight’s final round of the Frank Scott Shield has been revised. The draw is now as follows -

Board|White|Rating||Black|Rating
1 |Finn McDonnell|1021|v|Ross Beatty|1530
2 |Jack Donovan|1182|v|Dylan Boland|1126
3 |Mihailo Manojlovic|1006|v|Anastasija Manojlovic |964
4 |Dan O’Brien|1142|v|Luke Hayden|921
5 |Luke-Andrew Feeney |855|v|Cal Nolan|612*
6 |Colm Hehir|842|v|Declan Dolan|532*
7 |Alex Byrne|611|v|Dónal Hehir|560*
8 |Joe Sheehan|149*|v|Richard O’Rahilly|982*
9 |William Kenny|548*|v|Diarmuid Carey|Unrated
10 |Hannah Sheehan|Unrated |v|Aisling Kane|Unrated

If Ross avoids defeat, he will win the tournament. If Finn wins and Jack doesn’t, Finn is club champion. Where things get interesting is is Finn and Jack win, when we would have a three-way tie with everyone on 1/2 in the head-to-head. ...continues

Sparks

And the final result is now up on the Benildus website:

Finn is Junior Club Champion



Just nine months after threatening to quit the game following a disastrous Bodley game, Finn McDonnell has added the Frank Scott Shield to the Leinster u-14 title to complete a memorable year.

The first few games of the final round ended fairly quickly – Aisling picked up Scholar’s Mate against Hannah on the bottom board, Joe Sheehan beat Richard while Luke-Andrew had an attack going against Cal, but couldn’t convert and ended up giving a draw.

With Odhrán pulling out sick, only Jack could challenge the top two for the top prize, and even then only with a head-spinning series of results. Fortunately for me, that wasn’t needed after Jack agreed to a relatively early draw against Dylan. That left just two in contention for the top prize…

The Hehirs had contrasting fortunes; Colm had too much for Declan Dolan while Dónal fell to Alex Byrne. William Kenny and Diarmuid Carey were locked in a battle to see who could do the most damage after queening; William was able to queen again to pick up the point.

That left just boards 1 and 3...continues