The Club Tournament started in May and ran over the summer months. A total of 18 players entered this competition which forced the junior event to be split into two sections to allow a round-robin format. The senior event was won by Jonathan O’Connor with an impressive 5/5 result. Denis Dempsey and Cormac Reid won their respective junior sections with Cormac prevailing in their final play-off.
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Dublin CC entered four teams in the 2014-15 Leinster leagues. Both the Armstrong and BEA teams finished mid-table but the Ennis team had to work hard to avoid relegation, finishing in tenth place of twelve. On the other hand, our new fourth team, playing in the O’Sullivan Cup, had more success, finishing in third place in their section. Daniel Murray, one of that Dublin team and playing in his first league season, secured a board prize, not having lost a match.
After a lapse of some years, we entered two teams in the Cup Competitions organised by the LCU, one in the Branagan and one in the Wm. Brennan. In the latter, our team, captained by Cormac Reid, came a respectable second in their section. The Chess Club's Annual Christmas Dinner was held on Nov. 21 in the beautiful dining room of the United Arts Club. Members and their guests filled the room to capacity and enjoyed a gourmet meal provided by resident chef Anthony O'Grady. The photo below captures the scene. 
The club tournament took place over the summer months with seven competitors in each of the divisions (Senior and Junior). It was played on a round robin basis which gave each player six matches. Notably, all the games were completed within the intermediate and final date targets set which gave flexibility for holidays and work commitments. Colm Egan won the Senior Division and new member Sean Beatty won the Junior Division after a three way play-off.  Club President Eddie O'Connor presenting the winners' prizes to Colm Egan on left and Sean Beatty on right at the club's AGM.  Harry Mannion, a member of Dublin Chess Club's Ennis league team, secured a fantastic result in the 2014 Irish Chess Championship which finished in TCD on July 13. Playing in the junior division (ratings < 1500), Harry scored 100 % with five wins from five games played and so finished the outright winner of the event.
Harry, a very active and popular member of our club, is congratulated on this fine achievement. Jonathan O'Connor justified his stature as Dublin Chess Club's top player by winning all of the 15 simultaneous games he played on Jan. 16 in the club. Ten of his opponents were from our club and five were visitors who had been brave enough to accept the challenge, including three juniors aged nine to 14. Some of the games merited serious analysis which was provided by Martin Schmidt in an adjoining space to interested spectators. They interacted with Martin in the analysis and also provided some light humour - one question put to Martin was "why an opponent on one board could not just gobble up Jonathan's pieces which were mounting a strong attack?" in the middle game. The event was enjoyed by players and spectators alike and considered repeating in the future.  Jonathan addressing the 15 players before the start of the simultaneous games.
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