Report from Maura Osborne on the super results by Rathmines in the recent Leinster Junior Chess Championship.
Just want to let you know details of the recent success of the Rathmines juniors at the Leinster Junior Chess Championships
see full report on lcu site at http://leinsterjuniorchess.wordpress.com/leinster-schools/
Winners from Rathmines Juniors
u10 champion Cillian Scallan on a score of 7/7
u10 1st, 2nd ,3rd and 4th was won by Rathmines, 2nd James Prenderville, 3rd Felix Jordan, 4th Sanjay Menon.
u12 Dayna Ferguson and Sean Hunter joint winners, Dayna is the first female winner since 1996.
u14 Henry Li on a score of 5/5, retained his title.
Rathmines Chess Club 
Playing in gonzaga today ,disappointed at low turn out from rathmines in top section when so many rathmines players qualify and don’t have far to travel , mind you ,top section is now packed with 1600-1700 rated juniors , I am sure couple of them will do well ,as they say ,throw enough mud at the wall and some if it will stick.
yes , congratulations to rathminors who did so well in leinster competition thingy , well done
Disaster in gonzaga for more than one rathmines player , couldn’t focus, played rubbish and found door closer slamming door extremely annoying , here the only game I won which I should have resigned after 20 moves , includes a knight and bishop checkmate.
http://www.chess.com/emboard?id=2378998
Yes, There must be an emergency club committee meeting and I should be sent into bodley division with immediate effect !
Shahram, you are always welcome to the Bodley team 🙂 It is not as bad as you think, you’ll see challenging opponents for your degree.
There is no good game or bad game, there is always more experience. So enjoy your every single mistake and chess as a sport.
Also i’d like to congratulate Henry Li here especially for his very well played game against Colm Daly. Colm was very lucky to save the draw from him.
Arda ,unfortunately The LCU rules prevents me from joining your team , simply because I’ve already played more than 3 games in heidenfeld and also due to 150 point rule, my rating is too high to be able to join at the moment , perhaps in couple of years 😉 .
Well done in gonzaga , I see you have gained 80 points ,on saturday morning if you remember before the start of round 2 as I was talking to you and sotorios , I said to watch out for kevin burke as he may win the championship and he did !! . If you look at article below this one under heading ” rathmines winter blitz ” you see I gave a lecture of how I beat kevin burke in gonzaga 2 years ago and won the competition and I appeared to be giving a lecture to rathminors ,but was actually schooling kevin how to win the competition by believing in himself , have ambition and not settle for early draws and he learned the lesson and went on and won the competition ! , I actually posted on another blog what opening his 1st round opponent will go for , even though there is no database with his 1200 rated opponent name on it , Yes , I am an amazing guy helping someone who actually dislikes me ! .
What gives me advantage in chess is my paranormal extrasensory perception , I look at a name of chess player and can see what opening he will go for and can see into a game ,sometimes up to 20 moves before the match happens ! but during games I suffer from poor concentration and easily distracted and can’t focus, in round one was playing carl jackson and these kids( not playing in the room ) kept coming into the room distracting me and I blundered and went down hill after that .Daniel dwyer from blanchardtown was the most frequent visitor as this was the section he wanted to play in , and I’m sure john delaney did his best to get him in but conor odonnell rightfully wouldn’t budge , anyway I am sure the kid will play in senior section irish championship this summer using the absurd motion passed in the last icu agm ,Anyway arda if you want to play few rounds in the club let me know .
As regarding the game I’ve shown above in comment 3 , move 20 when I aimlessly moved my queen to allow it be forked I was about to resign when jack killane walked into the room , looked at the board and then me and saw how hopeless my position on board was and walked out without saying a word . I felt so sad that I said to myself as this being my last game I was going to fight til the end and turned a totally lost game into a win ! .As regarding bishop,+ knight checkmate , it was more unique as I don’t think many people realised that you could be checkmated even if your king hangs around the corner square which is opposite colour to checkmating bishop .
Any news on rapid play competition in the club I’ve been hearing about for weeks ?
Haven’t had too much time to post here as I’ve been on boards.ie . The strangest character over there is one of the moderators called ” reunion “, he chose his name at the time when he was involved in the task of organising some kind of student reunion .reunion’s has significantly impaired cognitive function and usually there is a family history .
On thursday night went to go to eddie rockets bought a chocolate shake and drove to the club afterwards ,I tell you Rathmines doesn’t seem to be having much luck this season , good news was that jack finally scored a win in armstrong after a few years.
I don’t really know why I am wasting my time posting on boards.ie as not many bright people there, and a senseless argument is always just around the corner , I managed to video a typical argument between two boards.ie members which I post below
First let’s get silly part out of the way
Yes, I’ve been suspended from boards.ie for one month instead of getting my account closed ( banned) as I requested !.After my confrontation with reunion ,aka ( kevin o’flaherty ) it was time for sinbad to die on his feet in a blaze of glory rather than live on his knee in a forum with a retard as a moderator .Only two regrets I had ,one was I wanted cdeb ( kevin burke) to be my executioner on the forum and secondly they deleted the humble bit when I said I was member of mensa ( high IQ society ) . I managed to identify the real identity of every poster there and freak out a few people !. I was amazed to find out there are actually blind arbiters in chess ! , one of which played against niall doran ( Lucena ) in france !.
Looking at new icu rule regarding membership is a proof of rash and unintelligent decision making .Icu wants to raise money by forcing every player in an icu rated tournament to be a full paying member of icu . First , regarding overseas players who are not resident in ireland , you thought they’ll be given incentives to come and play in ireland and not be forced to pay a fee to join icu . Resident players ( regardless of federation ) are a different story ,in a tournament , if a player is not an icu member they should be charged 10-15 euro extra by organisers on the behalf of icu .That is the best and easiest solution. I went and played in British championship , if I was forced to join the English chess federation and pay a fee I wouldn’t have gone .The new Icu rule could also backfire as instead of collecting all these fees , the organiser may decide it would be alot cheaper to get his competition fide rated only and bypass icu rating altogether.
Tomorrow have to go to a freezing inchicore ( no heating there ), hopefully it would be a fast game and be able to get out of the place before I get pneumonia ! .
Mensa have become very interested in me recently ,even though I barely managed to pass the test and be considered to be in the top %2 population in intelligence !, and now engaged in research project with them and with my work haven’t even had time to go over my disastrous gonzaga games yet , I will explain at the weekend .
Forgot to say , It’s good to be back here ,for me better a big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond !.
Very sad things are going on at the moment ,firstly a higher rated rathmines heidenfeld lost to inchicore B in a snowy night in sub- zero temperatures ( inside the venue ) ending the slimmest hope of promotion and now we have this open warfare between icu and tournament organisers.For visitors coming to ireland to play chess to witness this open quarrel as posted on icu & bunratty website is utterly disgraceful and very damaging to irish chess .%83 of the blame lies with icu & %17 with organisers like bunratty .The organisers for ignoring the fact that non icu members are regularly allowed in their tournaments ( though I think if a person playing in a tournament first time ever should be exempt to join icu on their debut ).Icu is supposed to promote and help irish chess but currently doing terrible job with their rash decisions ,discouraging foreign visitors and newbies , icu executive current power structure reminds me of early 17th century france with louis 13th at the helm being played by cardinal richelieu , problem is that there are No musketeers around to save us ! .
Yes, I am such a great guy always helping people and alot of time it is a thankless job, Look at this character “Lucena” on boards.ie ,under the title of ” chess in your dreams ” he dreams that he an arbiter and wonders why, in order to solve his dream I end up having a short ” lucid dream ” to solve the mystery and in my dream ( low pixel resolution ) I see him playing against a blind player who is an arbiter ( which he has never mentioned before ) and I solve the mystery and tell him so, instead of thanking me, he types some nonsense imagining that I said he was playing white against a blind arbiter and he was actually playing black and as a result , I was wrong in my interpretation !! That’s gratitude for you ! .
In case if you are wondering what are lucid dreams .
In lucid dreams , you have some say on what you want to dream about and also aware in your dream that you are dreaming and have a degree of control on what you want to do in your dream ( walk or run in direction you want to go, etc), I need them to combat frequent nightmares ! .
I talk about my project with mensa during the week , too tired .
Looks like icu blinked first and agitators have suffered a setback , this whole situation of open conflict between parties should have not risen in the the first place, instead differences should have been ironed out in timely manner .
Had another Lucid dream last night , I was walking ( it’s hard to rent a car in dreams )in a wildlife park but instead of animals ,there were dinosaurs ( just like jurassic park ) on other side of the fence , saw a brontosaurus and was getting excited as I knew I was approaching a T-rex but when finally spotted it , instead of roaring at me , it had a big grin on it’s face ( totally ruined the dream ! ).
Yes, later tonight , I will give an important lecture on using DECEPTION in chess , very useful for rathminors
Internet connection baaaad tonight , don’t want to risk type too much and not get posted , will post tomorrow.
Ok , Internet much better now . Yes , topic was using “Deception ” to help you in chess , I think it’s best to use a real living example to demonstrate this concept . If you look at who has been sitting on board 1 of Rathmines A heidenfeld this season you will find this unscrupulous character ( shall remain anonymous ) lets call him sinbad ( SIN ful + BAD man) . Sinbad has been using smoke and mirrors to make others think that he is a very strong player with great potential ( he is patzer in reality !) which has resulted in him been placed on board 1 all season , when should be really sitting nearer to the bottom board than the top based on his rating !,sinbad’s problem is that he can not continue to keep this illusion going if his rating doesn’t rise soon,…to compensate himself for lack of chess skills sinbad sometimes resorts to ” deception ” to help him , for example he makes his move and hits clock when opponent is looking away , here couple of more examples .One day sinbad hears ireland’s ex junior chess champion is doing charity chess blitz in grafton street , he goes down to the location and finds ex champ siting on a chair with a small group of supporters around him telling passerby that he has beaten every opponent so far today , so sinbad asks if he can play and before sitting to play he asks one of champ’s supporters in loud voice so that the champ can hear , “which piece is king and which is queen ? and points to the bishop and says “what is that pointy piece called ? ” causing the champ to under-estimate sinbad and be looking around during the game and only realising that he is losing the game when it’s too late . Ok , here another more recent example : sinbad is playing against benildus team , he goes on a blog ( boards.ie ) his scorecard tells him he played one of their player couple of years ago and it was a scotch game and sinbad states on the blog ,he does not want to play this player and this opening and knowing that he is disliked by their captain he will definitely get that player and the scotch opening ! , then in the blog he claims that he plays the rare 4…d5 in scotch game which is crushing but in reality he has never played 4…d5 and knows nothing about it and is preparing a different response the night before ! , just for good measure he does a blitz against engine where sinbad is white and lets engine play 4…d5 as black and the engine checkmates him in 18 moves or so and then he posts the game on the blog claiming sinbad was black ! so that his opponent wastes his time preparing for it ! .
P.S . Perhaps I’ve been too harsh on sinbad , as last season he was supposed to play in heidenfeld but insisted going into ennis league and helped the team get promoted to heidenfeld and have two teams in this league instead of one … sleepy … lesson over …z zzzzzzzzzzzzz
I was planning to learn how to play the berlin defence , ruy lopez , and as I don’t have a coach I rely on youtube video’s , but watching this video below has put me off from this opening !
Yes, I was in the club last thursday and had couple of interesting conversations .Talking to armstrong team captain ,there seemed to be an air of resignation in his voice about chances of his team surviving relegation which is sad to hear as I believe one should keep hope until the end , he asked me about chances of rathmines heidenfeld promotion to armstrong and I said if you multiply chances of heidenfeld promotion by x 1000 then you get chance of rathmines armstrong surviving ! . I reminded him that back in september , I advised him that since the 2-3 top players that were supposed to have come to rathmines armstrong ( excluding mel & killian ) did not come ,there should be a very strong rathmines A in heidenfeld ( strong on all boards ) bringing paul higgins and henry li to A team with a board rotating system so players rotate between boards as not to get the same 1700 rated stuck on board 8 all season , BUT my advise was ignored , mind you , couple of years ago if my advice of leaving couple of decent players in heidenfeld to help the team and act as reserve for armstrong team was accepted, rathmines armstrong would not have been relegated in the first place .
The best thing for rathmines to do if armstrong is relegated is to go for my idea of quasi-merger ( not sure exactly what it means ?!) in the leagues between rathmines and Dublin chess club , which I think is a good idea as they have several top players and gives rathmines access to a secure armstrong position and don’t have to watch our prodigies leaving nest and at the same time Dublin is weak on bottom boards armstrong and are a relegation candidate year after year and they don’t have to worry about relegation after this quasi-merger and also they have alot of geriatric players and since you have to be a mountaineer to be able to get to their club they can use rathmines club for their matches .
I am always trying to help my clubmates , was talking to our new member franklin and gave him advice as he is going to bunratty and t he said after bunratty he is planning to attend st benildus blitz and I asked him , was he aware that he will get 2 minutes vs 8 minutes against lower rated players and he asked ,was I joking ?and I said ” NO” , then he asked me then was the competition a joke ? I said ” YES ” ! , then he said if prize money was good ,he may go for the experience , I was going to tell him there is no prize money , just bottles of cheapest wine & chocolate and scrawny kids but got interrupted by someone and didn’t tell him . I did ask him why he didn’t let organisers know he was not showing up on sunday in gonzaga for his match , he said it was his birthday and was partying and didn’t get up till the afternoon ! .
Next will talk about mensa and me or is it mensa and I ?
This seems like unwarranted defeatism.The Armstrong team are currently ahead of Kilkenny and Elm Mount B, and have still to play both. A couple of good results in these matches should secure a place in the top division for another year.
PS: I regard any talk of a merger with Dublin as sheer heresy.
@ David . Kilkenny actually lead rathmines in armstrong , in league table they have 7.5 points currently deducted for unpaid fees , otherwise they are leading us by 4 points ( thanks to mark quinn and baburin ).
I was not talking about a merger between the two clubs but rather a symbiotic relationship just in the leagues for the mutual benefit of both and only suggesting that because with the large field of juniors that we have ,it would be a shame if the very talented ones left the club to go elsewhere to play in armstrong . As I’m not religious ,I believe more in hearsay than heresy ! .
Not going to bunratty this year , too far , costly and it’s in middle of nowhere and the organisers have No respect for their own rating bands ,as we speak they have a list of unqualified players hidden in their sleeves waiting to dump on their unsuspecting opponents on the first day of competition ( at least ,that’s what happened last year ) Bunratty has good turnout in all sections , the fact that so many top players come to play in masters section has helped boosts numbers in other sections ! , many people who are playing in the lower sections get excited by the presence of top players even though they won’t be able to play against them,which is strange , It’s like your neighbour having a barbecue and you be getting excited by the smell but not getting any meat ! .
hmm.. No sign of Leon fagan for sometime , he used to drop in here from time to time , his team doing well considering their top player seems to be not playing much for them , instead making good money coaching on chess.com .
Yes , Mensa have become interested in me since in the few meetings I went to , I’ve shown to be able correctly guess things ( hobbies ,interests ,items person may have at home ,experiences they had , etc ) about other members after a very brief conversations or even without talking to them !.So they are sending me ” articles, filled questionnaires , short videos, ” of mensa members and general public and I would report back and try guess things about their personality and experiences they had etc ,basically .After doing good few reports , I told them I am too lazy and got no time for these things and they have offered me $$’s ( not alot ) for my time ! . I will give 3 very brief examples regarding icu members
All the 3 section below are just pure guess work !
1. Instigator of crisis between icu & bunratty , This individual believes in strong leadership as a boy loved reading about roman empire and daydreamed about being a roman emperor ! , if you tell him Julius caesar was the most famous roman emperor he will correct you by telling you that Julius caesar was never an emperor it was his adopted son ,Augustus who became the first roman emperor. Strong leadership has to come with wisdom , otherwise it’s like a bull in a china shop and you get someone like president George w . bush ! .
Boards.ie suspended me unfairly so will talk about couple of the moderators there !
2. boards.ie , moderator , kevin burke , username –>( cdeb ) , username came from the name chris de burgh and reason it was picked was that it brings him nostalgic memories from ……..( I won’t divulge anymore!) ….No icu member checks this blog daily more often than he does to see the comments here !.
3.boards.ie moderator niall o’shea ( I’ve never met him ), username –> (cowboydreams) the reason he chose that cowboy “yosemite sam ” with thick bushy red as his avatar on boards.ie is that he is the opposite with a thinning red hair for long time, wondering whether to shave the head or leave it be ! .cowboydreams states he is going to win his section in bunratty ,a difficult task when you’ve got good players like mariusz of benildus playing in the same section .
I scored low in language skills ( my achillis heel )in mensa test, otherwise would have scored much higher in the test instead of barely passing it.
P.S . I’ve posted too much here recently and plan to take a rest for at least a week or two ( unless something interesting comes up ! )
Forgot to mention , I don’t type any reports to mensa , just talk mostly over skype .
See , I’m tormented by poor linguistic skills ! , in comment 24 , was supposed to say cowboydreams yearns for yosemite sam thick hair , that’s why that avatar was chosen !.
I see scallan family have entered bunratty , Nick , you took a risk by registering late, after gonzaga with rating bands and all , should’ve rushed in like my no 1 visitor here who wasn’t taking any chances and registered early . My best wishes to fiachra , henry li and sean hunter .
P.S , this time really taking a long break from posting here ( unless interesting stuff happens ! )
Great news for rathmines armstrong , just woke up from siesta and did NOT see a defeat against Dun laghoire tomorrow night ! , Time for cadbury hot chocolate to celebrate tomorrow’s result !
Yes, I asked Tony.b to take board 1 last night as I am not is best frame of mind for the past few months and should not be sitting on board 1 ,but he declined ! , yes when things finally get sorted out in my head ,I will come back with great vengeance to reclaim lost rating points .
YES ! , our armstrong team DEFEATED Dunleree last night 4.5-3.5 , first win of season as I predicted !.Well done.