Bunratty Chess Festival 18-22 Feb 2015

RQ_ennis_chess

On a more interesting note who do people actually think will win the various tournaments? With Adams not playing So must surely be heavy favourite for the weekender now though multiple former winner Gawain Jones will probably fancy his chances too as I guess will Nigel Short. If you were pricing it how would you do it?
The other sections in the weekender are very hard to call and probably defy prediction.
The winner of the Classic also looks tricky to predict though Sam Collins must have a great chance if not of winning it then certainly of making his final GM norm.
Re the entry fees its good that the ICU have rowed back on their position a bit and are introducing changes to registering foreign based players gradually rather than all at once a couple of weeks before the biggest tournament in the country.

reunion

RQ_ennis_chess wrote: »

On a more interesting note who do people actually think will win the various tournaments? With Adams not playing So must surely be heavy favourite for the weekender now though multiple former winner Gawain Jones will probably fancy his chances too as I guess will Nigel Short. If you were pricing it how would you do it?
The other sections in the weekender are very hard to call and probably defy prediction.
The winner of the Classic also looks tricky to predict though Sam Collins must have a great chance if not of winning it then certainly of making his final GM norm.
Re the entry fees its good that the ICU have rowed back on their position a bit and are introducing changes to registering foreign based players gradually rather than all at once a couple of weeks before the biggest tournament in the country.

Masters tournament - Sebastien Maze
Masters Setion - Gawain Jones

Everyone below is just guess work really!

Challengers Section - Pete Morriss (impressive results recently) though it's too hard to call really!
Major Section - Brendan Cooney
Minor Section - Garhy Aboelsoud

L1m1tless

Minor Mercedes Plaza Reino
Major Niall O'Shea
Challengers Henry Li
Masters Wesley So
Classic Simon Williams

brilliantboy

Hard to make accurate predictions with the entry lists presumably still largely incomplete but I'll go ahead.

There's no better time that now for Sam to clinch the GM title, but that brings it's own pressures with it.
I think Lawrence Trent could win the Classic as he's playing some good chess at Gibraltar and will come to Bunratty in good nick.

So will steamroll the Masters unless someone manages to get him on the sauce.
Pete Morriss and Henry Li are good shouts for the Challengers, and it's hard to discount the Shorts, but Alex Byrne is my pick.
No clear favorite for me in the Major, though it will be interesting to see what kind of level the German Zuschlag is at.
The Minor won't be won by one of the top seeds. Youth seems to be the trend so I'll give it to Dean Copeland.

RQ_ennis_chess

Some interesting predictions so far. I'll go for...

Masters: Wesley So or Gawain Jones
Challengers: I'll go for Jan Heinrich though there are quite a few potential contenders
Major: Niall O Shea or Robert Lavery
Minor: Dean Copeland, Thomas Dunne Sr or Mercedes Plaza Reino

The Classic is very interesting and nearly all the players could realistically win it. I'll go for Sebastian Maze (as top seed) or Sam Collins (on home soil and going for his final GM norm). Simon Williams is a great attacking player and plays very creative chess, when he is playing well his games are great to watch but it is sometimes hard to predict how he will do. Of the other players I think Lorin Da Costa could cause a few surprises. It should be an interesting tournament anyway!

eclipsechaser

Anyone know if the Classic is being live-streamed and if so, what is the link?

L1m1tless

http://bunrattychess.com/livegames.php

Yreval

With the entry list more or less complete, I think I'll have a go at predicting the winners:

Classic: I think Collins will finally achieve the GM title here, but as far as the tournament itself goes I think Sebastian Maze will have a bit too much for the others.
Masters: Tough to look beyond Wesley So for this one.
Challengers: I'll take this opportunity to nominate a clubmate of mine, Soren Jensen. When he's in form he can produce some seriously impressive attacking chess, although his style admittedly doesn't lend itself too well to consistent results. Still, over the course of a weekender I think he has what it takes.
Major: Ian Kilpatrick, if only because I'm somewhat familiar with him, he's been in decent form lately and is near the top of the seeding list.
Minor: Normally you might as well pick a name at random in this section, but here I'll go with another clubmate, Suraj Tirupati, who's been beating 1400-1500 players for fun in the Ulster leagues recently. He's rated 1050 and has only been playing competitively for a few months, but is improving at an alarming rate. Watch out for this guy.

flipsake

Classic Sam Collins
Masters Wesley So
Challengers Paul Kiely
Major Oliver Antoni
Minor Suraj Tirupati

Best of luck to everyone playing. Nearly 330 already signed up! Would love to be there but great to be able to follow online.

L1m1tless

Good luck to everyone this weekend, hope you all enjoy the tournament! Dont forget to buy me a pint or you are all banned :-P

brianhere

Congratulations anyways to all the winners at Bunratty. The Classic was won by one of the Icelandic players, who also got a GM norm so well done to him, and Wesley So, followed by Nigel Short, predictably won the Masters.

Good luck to all the other winners including Jacob Miller from TCD, who was rated about 1400 a year ago and has now jointly won the 1600-2000 section, and the Beatty family. Ross Beatty has just won the 1200-1600 section, aged about 12 I think, and his father, who only took up chess a little while ago but has been watching not a little of it with his son, did very well in the Minor section.

cdeb

brianhere wrote: »

Good luck to all the other winners including Jacob Miller from TCD, who was rated about 1400 a year ago and has now jointly won the 1600-2000 section

He was runner-up in the Minors two years ago and it now looks like he'll be in the Masters next year. Quite a meteoric rise!

Many thanks to my two opponents who walked straight into mating combinations. Included the first smothered mate I've ever gotten.

Great tournament as ever. Thought it was the better as well for the stricter rules on playing up sections. Seemed to be a very strict policy of within 50 points or you play down.

RQ_ennis_chess

So much for our predictions though, I think the only one anyone got right was So to win the Masters.

flipsake

Yeah. Very difficult to predict chess.
Well done to the organisers. Over 350 competitors. Must be some kind of record. And well done to the prize winners. Got to see a little of Ross Beatty's final round win in the Major online. Very impressed by his composure under time pressure for such a young fella. Pretty good weekend for him and his father. 10/10!
Was there was a blitz playoff for the challengers for the trophy?
Anyone got any good games or recommendations of some of the masters games that are worth checking out?

cdeb

flipsake wrote: »

Was there was a blitz playoff for the challengers for the trophy?

It was cancelled in the end. The organisers decided the top two of the five winners based on tie-break, but after a half-hour wait, it finally turned out one of the players concerned had gone home! So as the money was the same, he didn't turn around, and Scott Mulligan was given the trophy.

Yreval

Had a great time, even though it was another disappointing tournament over the board for me (kept drawing with players I should have been beating. Still better than losing to such players, like I did last year). There seemed to be even more of a buzz about this tournament than usual - I guess that's what having the world number 8 and a GM opportunity for an Irish player will do.