Galway Junior Chess

Congratulations to St. Mary’s N.S. Donnybrook who became only the 2nd ever winner of the Cronin Cup. The top teams from the tournament qualified for the semi-fianals.

St. Rapheala’s Dublin played against Clairnbridge Galway, the match was a draw 2-2 and St. Rapheala’s progressed on a tie break. In the other Semi St. Marys eliminated last years champions from Craughwell Co. Galway on a score of 3-1.

Galway teams played out the 3rd & 4th placed match, which was a 2-2 draw .. once again Clairnbridge were on the wrong side of the “countback” and Craughwell took 3rd place.

St. Mary’s had their toughest match of the day in the final aganist St. Rapheala’s but after a long match experience and class got the new champions home.

The other teams continued with the league format and St. Rapheala’s were 1st & 2nd in this event .. it was a tie for 3rd, and to decide 3rd place the teams lined up for a blitz match: St. Catherine’s ‘Queens’ won the match against Scoil ide’s ‘the Queens’ to take a well deserved podium finish.

Full results of this w/e’s Ennis chess competition can be found here ..
https://www.icu.ie/articles/828 https://www.icu.ie/articles/828 .. congratulations to 12 players from the Glaway coaching squad who played to a really high standard !

Over the w/e there are different events according to players ages .. For full details of all the events go to www.icu.ie/juniors.

And … the ICU Chess Festival .. on Sunday 14^th April.

There’ll be some fun one day competitions in the Talbot Hotel, Dublin. Games will be ‘rapid play’ (with 15 minutes for each player). And there will be a sections for Under 10’s , U12s and parents. All welcome .. from 12.00 pm until 4.00 pm.

For early beginners there will be a one-day U8 tournament.  Entry only €5.  First round is at 12pm,  and the prize giving will be at 4.30pm.

For family members who don’t know how to play but would like to learn, lessons for beginners will be available throughout the day.

Took place at the Bridge club on Friday 22nd March. It was a close competition with 9 teams from 4 different schools competing for the title. The eventual winners were Craughwell, who won a play-off game with Scoil Ide to retain their title of Galway champions. Congratulations all, games were competitive, everyone put their energy into their thinking.

The schools finals this year was held again in the Ardilaun Hotel. One significant change from previous years .. the number of players on each team increased from 4 to 8 players. This was a big improvement as bigger school clubs could send 2 teams and get 16 players to experience playing for their school.

Congratulations to 3 schools playing in their first ever chess event .. Great to see both
Abbeyknockmoy and Oranmore Boys school ( via movesforlife.ie ) scored well and improved as the event went on . Tulach Uí Chadhain ( who practice a lot on Chessossity.com ) scored very well and were in the hunt for a top 3 finish.

The top two teams qualify for the All-Ireland finals. Both St. James, Bushy Park & winners St. Pat’s Galway have experienced the high level of chess in Dublin last year. And will be looking forward to a bigger testing ground later this year.

Entries are open for this years National Schools finals for mixed teams of 8 players and a separate event for girls teams of 4 players.

To register your schools team (and if you’ve any questions) please email brendan@chessossity.com

There will be prizes for 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd in eache competition and the winners in both competitions will qualify for the All-Ireland finals in Dublin in June.

More than 20 young players spent their mid-term break developing their first chess openings and begun working on techniques for improving chess thinking skills … 7 more sessions remain between now and May 2019. Thanks to ICU Junior officer, Desmond Beatty for expanding this training program to Galway.

Congrats to all the participants at this years first kids chess event in Galway .. we had some good games of chess with the overall winner .. Shane Loughlin (well done) , and 2nd was Szymon Werzygn, 3rd Alekxander McAleer.

In the challengers section 1st was Sam Hickson , 2nd Macdara Mannion, and 3rd Daniel Action. Well done all the winners and participants.