Judit Polgar Talk

On Thursday 25th May the Irish Chess Union has organised a talk with one of the world's leading female chess players, Judit Polgar. It is being held in University College Dublin and commences at 6.00pm. Online tickets are 5 euro with all proceeds going to charity. If you are interested in attending this fantastic event tickets can be purchased through the ICU website, however, you may need to hurry as numbers are limited!

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Judit is the only woman to qualify for a World Championship tournament, having done so in 2005. She is the first, and to date, only woman to have surpassed the 2700 Elo rating barrier, reaching a career peak rating of 2735 and peak world ranking of No. 8, both achieved in 2005. She was the number 1 rated woman in the world from January 1989 up until the March 2015 rating list

Primary Schools Interprovincial Championships

On Saturday 22nd April two of Northern Ireland's top primary schools, Strandtown and Inchmarlo, were representing Ulster in the Irish Primary Schools Interprovincial Championships. The two teams of 4 players headed down to Gonzaga College in Dublin to play in this extremely competitive tournament.

This was an exciting day out for the children as they got to represent not only their schools, but also their province! The chess clubs in both these schools are in their infancy with Strandtown running for just over a year and Inchmarlo just under a year. Despite this, the clubs are thriving with over 20 members in each. They came up against some very tough and experienced opposition but acquitted themselves very well, playing with a tenacity, commitment, enthusiasm and never say die attitude that made myself and every parent incredibly proud of them. The experience gained from this tournament will be invaluable as they continue to progress and develop into the future stars of Ulster Chess.

Many thanks to all the parents for bringing their children down to Dublin and to Lukasz Goralski for organising an excellent event.

Success at Irish Championships

The Irish Junior Chess Championships saw over 10 players from Ulster travelling to Sligo to compete in the Blue Ribbon event of the Irish junior calendar. It was an exciting weekend of chess, played in a fantastic venue, and excellently controlled and organised, largely due to the hard work of Colm O'Mhuireagain, Desmond Beatty and Gerry Graham.

The Ulster players all acquited themselves well in a tough tournament, however, there were a few outstanding performances -

Aaditya Singh finished a fantastic 2nd in the U8 section scoring 5/6. His sister Anjali Singh finished 2nd in the girls rapidplay tournament.

Avrora Zelenchuk performed incredibly well to finish 3rd in the Girls U12 championships.

Jonathon Peoples scored a brilliant 4.5/6 in the very competitive U19 tournament, finishing 2nd overall and only missing out on first place on tiebreak.

Congratulations to all our players who took part and many thanks to the organisers for staging such a spectacular, exciting and enjoyable event.

Dexter Harris and Adam Fitzsimons