Rounds 5 and 6 are set for Monday 13 and 20 May, except by other prior arrangement. There are still some €5 entry fees outstanding. Anyone who hasn’t paid yet can give it to the controller on the night.
| GROUP A – Round 5 | |||
| No | Name | Result | Name |
| 1 | Delaney, K (1) | 1 – 0 | Killane, J (6) |
| 2 | Goggins, D (8) | 0 – 1 | Kalam, A (3) |
| 3 | Doyle, P (13) | 1 – 0 | Aherne, J (5) |
| 4 | Skrzypnik, T (2) | .5 – .5 | Mulligan, S (12) |
| 5 | McEvoy, P (14) | 1 – 0 | Bermingham, T (4) |
| 6 | Hirmer, R (11) | 1 – 0 | Burke, J (9) |
| 7 | Goralski, L (10) | 1 – 0 | Kouhtev, A (17) |
| 8 | Lynch, P (16) | 0 – 1 | Nikrow, S (15) |
| GROUP B – Round 5 | |||
| No | Name | Result | Name |
| 1 | O’Connell, J (4) | 0 – 1 | Freer, P (2) |
| 2 | Scallan, N (5) | 1 – 0 | O Conchobhair, F (3) |
| 3 | McGrath, A (8) | .5 – .5 | Scallan, F (7) |
| 4 | Byrne, C (6) | 0 – 1 | Gaffney, J (1) |
| GROUP C – Round 5 | |||
| No | Name | Result | Name |
| 1 | Papadopoulos, S (5) | .5 – .5 | Collins, K (1) |
| 2 | Byrne, P (6) | 0 – 1 | Butler, T (4) |
| 3 | Coman, L (7) | .5 – .5 | Balkanay, A (3) |
| 4 | Mowlds, D (8) | 1:0 | BYE |
Matthew Gallagher has withdrawn from Group C
| GROUP A – Standings after Round 4 | |||
| Place | Name | Loc | Score |
| 1-5 | Kalam, Abul | 1891 | 3 |
| Delaney, Killian | 2012 | 3 | |
| Doyle, Philip | 1633 | 3 | |
| Killane, Jack | 1792 | 3 | |
| Goggins, David | 1737 | 3 | |
| 6 | Aherne, John | 1819 | 2.5 |
| 7 – 10 | Mulligan, Scott | 1656 | 2 |
| McEvoy, Pat | 1614 | 2 | |
| Bermingham, Tony | 1867 | 2 | |
| Skrzypnik, Tomasz | 1901 | 2 | |
| 8 – 11 | Burke, James | 1721 | 1.5 |
| Hirmer, Raimund | 1689 | 1.5 | |
| Kouhtev, Atanas | 1453 | 1.5 | |
| 14-15 | Goralski, Lukasz | 1711 | 1 |
| Lynch, Peter | 1494 | 1 | |
| 16-17 | Nikrow, Shahram | 1531 | 0.5 |
| Burns, John | 1758 | 0.5 | |
| GROUP B – Standings after Round 4 | |||
| Place | Name | Loc | Score |
| 1 | O’Connell, John | 1288 | 3.5 |
| 2-4 | Scallan, Nick | 1246 | 2.5 |
| Scallan, Fiachra | 1180 | 2.5 | |
| McGrath, Andrew | 1115 | 2.5 | |
| 5 | O Conchobhair, Fergus | 1353 | 2 |
| 6-8 | Byrne, Ciaran | 1225 | 1 |
| Freer, Pat | 1368 | 1 | |
| Gaffney, John | 1407 | 1 | |
| GROUP C – Standings after Round 4 | |||
| Place | Name | Loc | Score |
| 1 | Collins, Kevin | 1100 | 3.5 |
| 2 | Byrne, Paul | 730 | 3 |
| 3-6 | Balkanay, Arda | 982 | 2 |
| Coman, Liam | 711 | 2 | |
| Butler, Tom | 982 | 2 | |
| Papadopoulos, Sotitios | 818 | 2 | |
| 7 | Gallagher, Matthew | 997 | 1.5 |
| 8 | Mowlds, Dee | 700 | 0 |
Rathmines Chess Club 
I should have not entered the rathmines club championship as I am simply too kind & generous when it comes playing against kids & clubmates , therefore I think my results should not be forwarded to the rating officer ( as not to delay me getting NORM )and if already has it can be deleted ? , wouldn’t be the first time for him to make a player totally vanish from a competition afterwards.
I am supposed to be playing peter lynch next and he said to me that he likes to play on a bridge on mondays ( not sure what game he plays on a bridge , if it is chess or bungee jumping or whatever , not my business anyway ) I don’t mind playing him on thursday but can he let me know is it this thursday or next ? . actually michael kennedy who is a great guy ( just like myself ) has been kind enough to ask me if I wanted to post one of my games on website , so if possible my next game ( p.lynch vs shahram ) can be used if peter agrees in advance, I think it is more exciting this way than cherry pick through your past games to find one where you played well .You have to show people what you really are , warts & all.
On malahide tournament
I ended up with respectable score of 4/6 which was only 0.5 points away from being joint First , but seems that score was not good enough for a grading prize ( the money would have come handy to pay for petrol to ennis tournament ) , then i am going to take a break from the club & tournaments till september unless it is a rapid or blitz tourney.
If I was the controller , players would never get to round 4 of this competition without paying the 5 euro registration fee .On registration day I would ask each player registering ( 5 euro please ) , if they said they haven’t got it ,I would ask them to empty their pockets and if they were telling the truth I would ask them what kind of adult goes around streets of Dublin who doesn’t carry 5 euro on him ? and make sure to bring it next round and if they turned up round 2 and no money ( no money = no game )
As a controller I would not waste my time going around setting up boards one after another when guys who are going to play are idly standing around chit chatting , it does not take more than 30 seconds for 2 players to set up the board themselves .In malahide in one of my games the board was set wrong ( king & queen places were swapped ) and I opened d4 by mistake instead of e4 and realized 3 seconds after I played it & had to stick with the move , if I had set up board myself that would not have happened .
what was the score in your first brannigan cup game?
@ leon. No one is here but me & few drifters that pass through here time to time .The answer to your question is ,I don’t know, as I am not part of the inner circle . I know they playing benildus next wednesday , could be their first game , not sure if rathmines have 1 or 2 teams. I know nothing . I just finished planning my new strategy for future games ,.The new chess strategy has many directives and the main keypoint is that during games instead of me making moves which I like to make ,I ask myself ( what move would a GM make ? ) and make that move which should be superior to my own moves, dunno if it works or not but at least stops me making moves which are dubious and unsound but I make them just because I feel they are good craic.
Looks like me going to Ennis this weekend ( LAST CALLS FOR ANYONE NEEDING A LIFT ) to play & see cliffs of moher which is probably the silliest thing I’ll do this year . 2.5 hours drive there and same back , 70 euro on petrol ,115 euro B&B , I don’t know what I was thinking ?!!.When reviewing masters game I seem to be good at predicting ( guessing ) what the next move would be ,so my strategy during the tournament would be to constantly ask myself what would a GM would play , so It will be my alter ego playing there , he can get the blame if don’t work out & be left behind in ennis for good and I get the credit if it does !.
On other news ,while in the park today I watched as a dog with a tennis ball in it’s mouth, kept dropping it and let it bounce and roll away a bit then it would pick it up again & drop it again for about 10 minutes and I said to myself , It’s amazing that stupid dog finds this entertaining and then I realized I’ve been watching the dog for the last 10 minutes !.
Here is my game against peter lynch last night ( with his prior agreement )
p.lynch 1449 v me 1532
1 d4 , Nf6 . 2 c4 , e5 . 3 dxe5, Ng4 .4 Qd4, d6 5. exd6, Bxd6 6. Qxg7 , Be5 7. Qxh8+, Bxh8 ( 0-1)
some commentary . The trap here I had performed before on line in blitz game more than once, I wondered if it would work in a long game , so after 4.Qd4 , I knew I was going to play 4… d6 followed by 5. exd6 ..BXd6 but feared if I played it quickly and appeared as if I knew what I was doing ,my opponent gets spooked and won’t take the bait so waited about 10 minutes as in deep thought and looking as gloomy as I could and scratching my head time to time before I moved and when 6. Qxg7 came , my face changed to a cheshire cat !.
Talking about taking a bait , last month when I was in spain , one day I decided to walk from marbella to port banus to see how the rich people live , half way there along the promenade there was one restaurant like many , it had poster pictures of some of the items in it’s menu and one them was a picture of a nice fish on a plate with price tag on it’s picture saying ( 5 euro only ) which I felt it was too good to be true but had to find out so went in and asked waiter while pointing to the poster is that fish 5 euro ? he replied: yes , would you like to sit down and I did and I said to myself it is probably going to be size of a gold fish and surprised when a big fish came after finished eating it asked for the bill and the fish costed 17 euro !!, I asked the waiter what is this ?and he told me if I had checked the menu I would have seen that it’s 5 euro per 100 gram of fish !! and he said don’t worry many people make this mistake !.
Going to Ennis today but don’t feel like going or playing but my accommodation is booked and I’ll be charged anyway , just looked at ennis website and apparently titled players are dropping out of it like flies and with my luck it probably will be packed with underrated juniors looking for a scalp .
Jaysus, Shahram, but you are a devious bastard (in Ireland, this is a compliment of the highest order).
Peter Lynch, you have no business playing in an international tournament in Sardinia alongside such giants of the board as myself, Tony Bermingham, and, er, Jack Killane. Get some lessons, man, so you don’t fall for any more cheapos
nice trap shahram you beat my record for fastest win by one move.you
@ John burns , Leave peter alone , he is a gentleman , wish there were more of people like him in chess instead of the lunatics running around at the moment , my second game against pete morris snatched defeat out of jaws of victory in the last moment , depressed right now . venue not great here