Good Galway results in Ennis Congress

A number of Galway Chess Club members travelled down to Ennis for the Ennis Congress, and some good results were achieved.  The best overall performance was Winter League holder Gerardo Artola Pola, who came outright fourth overall in the Open and won the grading prize, with 4½/6: an excellent result, particularly considering that he was rated only 21st out of the 40 entries.  The best individual performance was that of Carlos Silva, who drew with many-times Irish Champion Colm Daly – and from what I have heard Carlos had the better of the game.  (Unfortunately, a couple of rounds later Carlos came up against Gerardo, who proved a more difficult opponent for him.)  Carlos finished in 18th place, with 3/6, which was a very good result considering the calibre of his opponents.  Other Galway competitors were Jason Rawlinson, Paul Ward, and Kevin Fitzpatrick.  A complete cross-table can be found here.

In the under 1400 section there was only one Galway competitor: Denis Ruchko.  Denis scored 4/6, which put him eighth equal – which again was far ahead of his seeding.  He is rapidly moving up the ranking list of the top Irish juniors of his age.