Armstrong 2013/14

cdeb

St Benildus 5-3 Dublin was the result from last night. Quite a close match, with four games ending with less than a minute less on the Benildus clocks. I fairly scammed Paul Guinness; was just losing most of the game, but Paul didn't push home his advantage and gave me counterplay. I was going to take a perpetual with 45 seconds left when I saw another line, went in for it and thankfully had enough time to win! I had visions (as did Paul!) of losing on time and Gerry giving out to me for not taking the draw. :P

Mel Ó Cinnéide on board 1 offered Jonathan O'Connor a draw with a combined 20 seconds remaining; Jonathan very politely declined and delivered mate in two instead.

Bray/Greystones v Phibsboro and Dún Laoghaire v Trinity were last night's other games. Unusual for Trinity to be playing round 1 on time?

mikhail

Did DL vs Trinity go ahead? Often they postpone their first game or two.

cdeb

That's usually reflected in the fixture list though; their round 1 is usually dated after their round 2.

But maybe it's just because of the new fixture software that the "original" date has been left in.

Sparks

cdeb wrote: »

Quite a close match, with four games ending with less than a minute less on the Benildus clocks.

You might say that...



Jonathon&Mel's clock after the match

(Okay, there was actually six seconds left on the clock at the end, there was some confusion when taking the photo )

Airbender

mikhail wrote: »

Did DL vs Trinity go ahead? Often they postpone their first game or two.

So far as I know, TCD asked to postpone the game, as they don't have the team yet. To be played on 16th October.

Sparks

Airbender wrote: »

So far as I know, TCD asked to postpone the game, as they don't have the team yet. To be played on 14th October.

Well, to be fair, they have only just gotten through Fresher's week last week...

L1m1tless

Curragh 4 Celbridge 4

A Good result for the Curragh being outrated on every board.

Sparks

Benildus-v-Dublin Round 1 report up on the Benildus website:

Armstrong off to winning start

The Armstrong started off the new season the same way they began the previous three – with victory over Dublin.

It wasn’t quite a repeat of last year’s comfortable 6-1 victory, though – four of the games ended with less than a minute left on the home clock, so this was definitely a tie that could have gone either way.

It started off routinely enough though; John Healy got up and left the room before 9:00, a win under his belt. But things were going wrong on the bottom two boards...continues

cdeb

Bray hammer reigning champions Phibsboro 5½-2½. Gonzaga must be thrilled! Phibsboro seem a lot weaker than last year, unless they just got quite stuck for players and had a lot of subs. Their bottom four boards were all on the Heidenfeld last season.

macelligott

Does anyone know the Gonzaga v Kilkenny result ?

Chessrookie

I heard the Gonzaga Kilkenny game was a 4 4 draw

macelligott

That looks like a good result for Kilkenny unless Kilkenny are stronger than last year.

Chessrookie

I forgot that I also heard that Kilkenny defaulted board 1 which makes the final score 4:3.
It does raise an interesting debate topic. If your top player cannot make the match in a division such as the Armstrong, tactically are you better to bump everybody up on board and concede a walkover of board 8, or do you default and play boards 2 to 8?

RoundTower

Of course it is preferable to play against your opponent's 7 weakest players on boards 2-8. What Kilkenny did is cheating - Jack Lowry and Maurice Buckley knew that Mark Quinn was unavailable and wrote his name on the team sheet anyway. Originally Jack asked to have us agree a draw on board 1 without Mark or Sam playing. This is technically ratings fraud, but nothing new for Kilkenny, who did this at least once last year against Rathmines. We refused and Sam tried to contact Mark, but he did not get a reply to texts, phone calls or emails.

When I confronted Maurice about this before the game he threw up his hands and said "Of course he will be here, he is just running late".

The rules of the Leinster leagues do draw a distinction between a default, where a player is named but fails to show up, and a walkover, where a team fields less players than they have boards available. They will probably try to claim that this should be treated as a default, which is extremely disingenuous when Mark was never available to play and, I understand, is currently retired from chess. If it's allowable to name Mark on board 1, why not name Magnus Carlsen, or club president Boris Spassky?

On the day, the Kilkenny players played very well and deservedly won 4.5-2.5 on the boards that were competed. Unfortunately any complaint from Gonzaga is going to look a little like sour grapes, it would be better if we won and still complained to the league.

Whatever you think about whether Kilkenny's behaviour is within the league rules, it is extremely unsporting to ask your opponents for a favour based on a lie about which players you have available. It is also poor form to force anyone to turn up to sit and wait at a chessboard for an hour when you know they will never play. It is also a disservice to Kilkenny's young players like Eoin Minnock and John Courtney, two very strong teenagers who surely would benefit from a competitive game against one of Ireland's strongest players.

I expect Kilkenny will escape serious punishment on a technicality, but hopefully this is a warning to any other captains who might be asked for a "favour" by Maurice or Jack.

David Murray
Gonzaga Chess Club

cdeb

RoundTower wrote: »

Of course it is preferable to play against your opponent's 7 weakest players on boards 2-8.

Technically, the question was whether it's worth the point you're going to be docked to do it - i.e. will you get one point more out of it?

RoundTower wrote: »

Originally Jack asked to have us agree a draw on board 1 without Mark or Sam playing.

Did this happen on the day of the game or in advance of it?

RoundTower wrote: »

On the day, the Kilkenny players played very well and deservedly won 4.5-2.5 on the boards that were competed.

So the final result was 3½-3½? (And not 4-3 as others have said)

RoundTower

Jack asked in advance, saying Mark wasn't available on that day - could we maybe find another day that would suit both Mark and Sam, or if not, just not play the game at all? Of course that was a trick and there was no day that would have suited Mark.

Final result on the day was 3.5-4.5 before any deductions. I guess it depends on the circumstances and the eventual ruling whether they were better to default the top board or give a walkover on the bottom board.

Chessrookie

kevin,
I had heard it was a draw, and that mark defaulted when everybody knew he wasn't coming. Hence my original post of 4:4. I also heard that Sam had to wait out the clock as Kilkenny pretended he was coming, when the whole room knew he was never coming.

I think at the very least it is completely unsporting. This is the top league in Leinster with all the top players involved. If your suppossed board 1 is unavailable, you should have to pay the consequences and move everybody else up.
It's a team sport and Kilkenny are a big club with plenty of players. No doubt they were delighted to get 3.5 points in a tricky fixture when travelling without a board 1

checknraise

There has to be a much bigger punishment for defaulting on board 1 to board 8 otherwise why wouldn't every team do it when it suited them. I have heard that Mark has retired from chess and I am assuming that what Kilkenny did was without Marks knowledge as Mark would never have agreed to it. It looks like Gonzaga will have to live with the match result but surely Kilkenny cant have any points............

I dont know what is worse Kilkenny deliberately wasting Sam's time or denying a game against Ireland's to player to one of their juniors!

cdeb

It's interesting that the punishment for defaulting on board 4 in the Bodley is the same as defaulting on board 1 in the Armstrong (or Heidenfeld, for that matter). As you note, there's more boards you're bumping down. Should a 1½ point default be introduced for, say, the top four boards in the Armstrong and Heidenfeld? Or is it really that much of an issue? (In the sense that does it happen often enough to be an issue?)

macelligott

Balbriggan 4-4 Elm Mount

EnPassant

Elm Mount 5 Dun Laoghaire 3

mikhail

Trinity 6.5 - 1.5 Benildus

A full strength Benildus team were pasted by a very strong Trinity - Yuri Firstov and Karl McPhillips lead a team with Rory Delaney (1903) on the bottom board.

cdeb

Don't think I've ever seen a 1900 on the bottom board of the Armstrong! Gonzaga have serious title rivals there, I think. It's not as if we're a bad team either (three or four 2000s)

EuropeanSon

Our (Trinity's) first team is terrific this year. A far cry from the middle of last year, when I had to sub in on board 6 against Phibsboro! (I'm ~1350)

L1m1tless

Curragh 2-6 Bray/Greystones

kildaremark

Curragh v Bray/Greystones

cdeb

St Benildus 2-6 Elm Mount.

We were missing three of our 2000+s, but Elm Mount are obviously quite a strong team. I don't think I've ever seen Gerry O'Connell get so comprehensively hammered, and so early on, before!

Sparks

Writeup on Armstrong Round 3 (Benildus-v-Elm Mount) on the Benildus website:

The week in review

...

On Wednesday, the Armstrong were up against Elm Mount, a side they’ve only managed a single draw against in the past ten seasons. Going into the game without three of our four 2000s, things looked bleak indeed.

Brendan Lyons had at least gotten us off the mark with a draw a couple of days earlier, but on the Wednesday, the defeats started to roll in as expected... continues

Sparks

From IRLChess :

125 years of the Armstrong Cup


Today (20th October) marks the 125th anniversary of the first ever Armstrong Cup match.

The cup was donated by William Armstrong B.L. as a challenge cup “for annual competition by the chess clubs of Dublin”. Its first season was 1888-89, and six teams entered: the Phoenix, City, Kingstown, Dawson Street, Dublin University, and National C.C.s. Matches were over six boards, each team was to play each of the others twice, and only overall match results counted. The competition resulted in a resounding victory for the Phoenix with 9 match points out of 10, well ahead of City and Kingstown, each with 6½ (though Kingstown had two unplayed matches). The picture below, taken from Elm Mount’s website, shows the full inscription with the names of the first winners inscribed at the top.



...continues

L1m1tless

Gonzaga 6 Curragh 2

macelligott

CowboyDreams wrote: »

Gonzaga 6 Curragh 2

Do you have the individual scores ?

L1m1tless

nope!

macelligott

Looks like it will be a very exciting Armstrong Cup this season :-)

cdeb

Yep. Curragh are weak enough for the Armstrong; 6-2 is possibly another poor result for Gonzaga.

Airbender

Dun Laoghaire 5 Kilkenny 3 (from what I heard).

Gearoid MacGabhain

Balbriggan 5.5 Phibsboro 2.5 Good day for the home side

macelligott

Balbriggan have a very solid team this year.

macelligott

Is the Dublin University team (TCD) too strong for everyone in the Armstrong Cup this year ? They have 23.5/31 with one game in dispute as far as I know. The only team, so far, able to put up a fight against them was Dublin in round 3.

checknraise

They are extremely strong but I wouldnt say they are too strong. On ratings Gonzaga would probably be slight favorites against Trinity but they have not been getting good results so far.

macelligott

Armstrong Cup Round 4
Elm mount 7-1 Dublin

Echecs

Armstrong Cup Round 4
Phibsboro 4.5 - 3.5 Dun Laoghaire

kildaremark

Armstrong Cup - Round 4
Curragh 3 - 5 Balbriggan

cdeb

Kilkenny 2½-5½ St Benildus

Excellent result for us as we average 1½ points a match fewer when we're away to Kilkenny compared to when we're at home to them!

Gearoid MacGabhain

Any updates on round 5 scores
Celbridge finglas and DU against Elm Mount

EnPassant

Gearoid MacGabhain wrote: »

Any updates on round 5 scores
Celbridge finglas and DU against Elm Mount

Dublin University 3 Elm Mount 3 with 2 adjourned.

cdeb

St Benildus 5-3 Phibsboro

Only our second win against them in the past 11 seasons

Mel Ó Cinnéide beat Stephen Brady FM on board 1.

Sparks

Writeup of the Benildus-Wicklow Bodley match, the Benildus-Phibsboro Armstrong match and the simultaenous with Anatol Lokasto now up on the Benildus website:

...the Armstrong were up against reigning league champions Phibsboro, whom we’d only beaten once in the past ten seasons. They’re not as strong as last season though, with only four of the side that beat us 6½-1½ last year. We started well – the two Johns picked up early wins; John H in a typically wild Evans Gambit which he has threatened to annotate for the site and John G after his opponent “took liberties with his time”.

Highlight of the evening was Mel Ó Cinnéide’s first result for the club after three opening defeats – and a well-timed one it was too, beating Stephen Brady FM with the black pieces. The result was only Brady’s tenth defeat in the past ten and a half seasons ...continues

EnPassant

EnPassant wrote: »

Dublin University 3 Elm Mount 3 with 2 adjourned.

Final score was Dublin University 4.5 Elm Mount 3.5.

Echecs

Dun Laoghaire 6.5-1.5 Curragh

cdeb

Curragh 1.5-6.5 St Benildus.

macelligott

Round 6
13/01/2014
Elm Mount 5.5 - 2.5 Celbrdge