The 2023 Galway Rapidplay was held on Saturday 17 June. There was an unprecedented interest in playing in this tournament, and we had to close entries four weeks before the tournament took place, by which time we had already reached the venue’s capacity.
Joint winners, on 6 points, were Lukian Hushpit and Pratik Mulay. There was a tie for third place between Colm Daly, Denis Ruchko, Klaus Weih, and the unrated Thomas Chamberland. Alla Bronnikova won the Best Female Prize. There were were 7 winners of Junior Prizes, which were in two categories of under-18 and under-14; an unusual outcome was that the best junior overall, Christopher Woods, was in the younger age-group. He scored an excellent 5 points out of 7. There were also 15 winners of rating prizes: see here for the full list of prizewinners. The winners of the rating and category prizes were given the choice of a fairly small money prize, or an engraved commemorative trophy; most – though not all – chose the trophy.
The tournament was played on one of the hottest days of the year so far, which might explain the relatively large number of strong players on the top boards suffering lapses of concentration when short of time: the two joint winners owed their success, in large part, to their admirable ability to stay focused in somewhat difficult conditions.
Here are links to the list of prize-winners, standings, and cross-table.