Congress: 2014

The Galway Chess Congress was held in the Menlo Park Hotel, Galway, on the weekend of 17-19 October. We are very grateful to the Menlo Park Hotel for providing such an excellent venue, and our sponsors: the Irish Chess Union and Blackthorne International, and Grandmaster Alex Baburin (who donated two books as prizes when, unfortunately, at the last minute he was unable to attend).

The Masters section was won convincingly by IM Vladimir Sveshnikov, with 5 points out of 6. Second equal, half a point behind, were Valentine Kalinins and Philip Short. Philip Short also retained the Connaught Champion cup. The grading prize was won (also for the second year in a row) by Don Short. Clearly the Shorts thrive in Galway

The Major section (under-1800) produced a very close and exciting finish. The winner was Michael Bradley on an excellent 5½: Michael actually won all his games, as he took a travelling bye in the first round. Second equal, on 5 points, were Gearoidin Ui Laighleis and young Daniel Dwyer, who drew with each other in round 4 before finishing strongly with two wins apiece. After four rounds on the Saturday night the sole leader had been Gary O’Grady, with 4 out of 4; but Sunday was not good to Gary and 4 points was his final tally. This was, however, good enough to win a grading prize, tied with Galway’s Andrew Barber. The top grading prize went to Henry Li, also on four points, and the third grading prize to Robbie Kildea , on 3½.   Gearoidin Ui Laighleis also won the Women’s Prize, donated by Alex Baburin.

The Minors section was also very closely fought. Going into the last round, the leader was Conor Nolan, the only player in the tournament to have 5/5, whilst second place was held by Luke Keenan on 4½. Luke managed to end Conor’s perfect record and claim the title himself with a good win. Luke was then in a four way tie for second place on 5 points, with newcomer Killian Reape, playing in his first tournament, and brother and sister Agustin and Mercedes Plaza Reino. Grading prizes went to Jonathon Peoples, Denis Ruchko, and Eoin Hunter.

 

Full results and crosstables:

Masters

Majors

Minors

 

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And a game by the winner:

Vladimir Sveshnikov – Keegan O’Mahoney 1-0

 

 

11 Comments

  1. […] Chess Club have announced that this years Galway Chess Congress will take place in the Menlo Park Hotel over the weekend of 17-19th October. There are 3 sections […]

  2. Robert T. Leggett says:

    Is there B and B. within walking distance of the Hotel, if so, would you please let me know the prices and were they are.

    your Faithfully
    Bob Leggett Phibsboro C.C.

    • Fintan says:

      Hi Bob,

      Thanks for the reminder – I’d forgotten to copy the “Other accommodation” section over from last year’s page. That’s under the Accommodation section now. Hopefully that is of some use.

  3. shahram says:

    any paypal option ?

    • Fintan says:

      We use Stripe for our online payments. A quick search for “Stripe versus Paypal” will give many results such as this one which outline some of the reasons for choosing Stripe over the traditional online payment processor.

  4. […] in the Menlo Park Hotel from the 17th to the 19th October. All the details are available at the Galway Chess Club website and you can also pay your entry fee online at the same […]

  5. shahram says:

    I entered the competition in the weekend but I don’t see my name in the list yet ,did I register properly ?, the payment went through , so close to competition , list should really be updated daily .

    • Pete says:

      You entered at 9 o’clock last night and should have received a confirmatory email automatically a few minutes later. The list on the website will be updated soon. Believe it or not, we do sometimes have other things to do than updating lists. So please show some patience.

  6. shahram says:

    When I registered online after entering details and clicking on submit button , it just went back to galway website without stating that I had registered , I found the email from stripe , stating I had paid galway chess club but it had gone straight to junkmail that’s why I had not seen it earlier .When will you be doing the pairing ?Am I the lowest rated player in master section or is it Don short ? just in case of odd number players , would be good to know earlier ,whether am i getting a game friday night or a full point bye .thanks

    • Fintan says:

      Hi Shahram,

      There should have been an email from Stripe and an email from [email protected] . I’m not sure at what time the draw is being done, but I can tell you that you are definitely not the lowest rated player in the Masters section (I still have some entrants left to add to the website), so you will get a game even if there are an odd number of players.

      regards,

      Fintan

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