​Our 2021 club tournament started in May and attracted 19 entrants from our members. It was run online as in 2020 and split into three graded sections. In all some fifty matches were played. The three sections have now concluded with the following results;
Senior Section: Robert Murtagh was the worthy winner and so remains Club Champion having won all of his matches. Martin Schmidt was the runner-up.
Intermediate Section: This was won by Vihanga Gamage with Darren McLean in second place.
Junior Section: The winner was Thomas Lavelle and Andrew Whelan secured second place.

This online rapid tournament was run Wednesday evenings over the January to March period for our club members. Ten players competed and points were accumulated week by week based on standings and the number competing each week.
The clear overall winner was Joe Durkan (Shaicabero) with 39 points. There was a close finish for second place with Darren McLean (deemac4) on 27.5 edging out Denis Dempsey (Donnachad) on 24.5.

The online club ladder, run over the Winter, finished on March 14. The different category winners were as follows;
 - Climber of most rungs on the ladder.    John Lucas
 - Finished top of the ladder.                       Robert Murtagh
​ - Played most matches.                               Shared between Martin Schmidt, Uffe Balslev & Robert Murtagh. 

​Congratulations to these four winners who will receive token prizes.                  

Jonathan, our top rated player, ran an online simul against seven of our members on Dec. 9. Using the Lichess host and also Zoom, he was able to show the board positions as he played and also offer lively comments and banter about each game which could also be viewed and heard by the players and some members who were just spectating. He won five of the seven games and lost to Robert Murtagh and Davide Cesaro. The simul was followed by some fascinating interactive analyses of the different games. All very enjoyable and worth repeating.

Because of the Covid-19 restrictions this annual club tournament was held online this year. Split into graded senior and junior sections, it started in July and finished in mid September. Each section was run on a round robin basis with clock times of 20/10 for the senior and 30/15 for the junior event.
​Robert Murtagh was the worthy winner of the senior event with a strong 100% win performance and becomes the new Club Champion. The junior section was more closely contested with Darren McLean being the eventual winner.

​Paul, a former Club President and one of our most eminent members, sadly passed away on August 25. Apart from his many valuable contributions to the organisation and affairs of Dublin Chess Club, Paul also served on the United Arts Club committee as Chairman in the early nineties. More recently he was elected President of the Leinster Chess Union where he played a prominent and important role.
Paul loved chess and was an enthusiastic league and tournament player. He was a regular at our club nights where he was always ready to meet and greet members and visitors alike with his big smile. He will be sadly missed. Our sympathies go out to his wife Rosemary and family.

Dublin CC entered two teams in the inaugural online chess league which started in May. Our first team of four, captained by Martin Schmidt and playing in the Monday Summer league, won all of their eight matches to finish top of the table. Our second team, captained by Daniel Schlachter, played in the Tuesday Summer league and did not fare so well, finishing last. While an enjoyable experience during these Covid-19 times, these leagues were relatively ungraded and threw up too many games with large rating differences between the players.

With the chess club closed and no over-the-board games possible due to the Covid-19 virus, our members have resorted to online chess. Member Nezar Ammari set up our club's first online tournament which took place on March 28. It was a blitz event (Arena style) hosted on lichess.org. and seven of our members competed. The winner was Robert Murtagh with an impressive win rate of 100 %. Further tournaments followed.
As lower rated players seem not to like the blitz/arena format, another series of weekly tournaments was set up for those players, hosted on chess.com and using the Swiss format and rapid-play clock times. A Dublin Online Chess Club was set up on that site by member Daniel Schlachter to facilitate this and 17 of our members have joined. The first of these weekly Wednesday tournaments was held on Apr. 22 with Mark Nagle the winner. This tournament has proven popular as it substitutes for the real "Wednesday Club Night" and continues weekly.

Due to the Covid 19 endemic, Dublin Chess Club is closed until further notice.

An "all play all" blitz was held in the club on Feb. 12. Ten players, including visitor Marco from Germany, competed. The outright winner with a super score of 9/9 was Club President Eddie O'Connor pictured below on the left receiving his prize from Rory Broderick. Eddie's performance was very impressive given that in many of his games he only had three mins. on his clock against ten on his opponent's due to the handicap system used.