Eight players from Dublin CC played in the 40th Kilkenny Chess Congress held over Nov. 25 - 27 and four won prizes - a remarkable achievement. New Dublin member Stanley Yin and our Armstrong Captain Mark Collins shared first place in the Major. Hannah Lowry-O'Reilly got a grading prize in the Major and ​Ollie Sinnott won the ungraded player award in the Challengers.

Left to right in the photo above are Stanley Yin, Jack Lowry, Mark Collins and Maurice Buckley.

A full account of the Congress is available on the ICU website at http://www.icu.ie/articles/647

The first of the club's series of 2016-17 winter blitzes was held on Oct. 20. There was a good attendance at this with a total of 17 players taking part. Our Armstrong Captain Mark Collins won the senior event. Visitor Vihanga Gamage won the junior section with an impressive score of 11/14. Vihanga is from Sri Lanka and is studying computer science in DIT.

The Club Summer Tournament finished on Sept. 16 when new member Daniel Martinez Otero drew his last section match which was against Jonathan O'Connor the reigning trophy holder. This half point was enough to make Daniel the overall winner of the senior section of the tournament. Daniel hails from Spain and is doing his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering in UCD.
The junior tournament was split into two sections and the section winners were Denis Dempsey and new member Ronan Murphy. They battled it out in the final play-off which Ronan won. Tough on Denis who was also a runner-up last year but congratulations to Ronan who was unbeaten in all of his tournament games.

Another blitz event was run in the club on March 3. The winner of the senior event was Jonathan O'Connor (again) but a surprise winner of the junior event was newcomer Eugen Vocheci who hails from Romania but now lives in Dublin. Congratulations to them both in winning on the evening which was organised by Club President Eddie O'Connor.

The Fischer Chess Club from Amsterdam, on their way to the Kilkenny Annual Chess Congress, paid a visit to Dublin Chess Club on November 26. Here they enjoyed a meal and some liquid refreshment before sitting down to he serious part of the evening - a battle with Dublin for the Louis Pieterse trophy. This event is held in the memory of Louis who, originally from the Netherlands, became an esteemed and much loved member of Dublin Chess Club before his untimely passing.
Since it's inception, when the event had been planned as an annual affair to be played on alternate years in Dublin and Amsterdam, the trophy had spent most time in the Fischer Club. This time however, the Dublin Team Captain Martin Schmidt was determined to win and packed his team with a couple of strong imports. His strategy paid off with Dublin emerging as the overall winners.
The photo below shows Martin holding the Pieterse Trophy flanked by fellow team members Andrew Mendelson and Ravshan Khaydarov (on his right) and John Kennedy, Eddie O'Connor and David O'Connell (on his left).

The AGM of the Club was held on November 11. The outgoing Committee of President Eddie O’Connor, Hon. Sec. Rory Broderick, Hon. Treasurer Ronan Nolan, Members Martin Schmidt, Cormac Reid and Joe Durkan were re-elected along with new Committee member Ross O’Mullane.
At the AGM Hon. Sec. Rory Broderick presented the Summer Tournament trophies to the senior winner Jonathan O’Connor (first photo) and the junior winner Cormac Reid (second photo).

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.

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.