The Mulcahy Memorial Chess Tournament, held recently in the Aula Maxima in University College Cork, had a capacity entry field (80) which included three titled player – two IM’s (Davtyan and Lopez) and an FM (Quinn). Chess players travelled from all over Ireland for the event and there was also an international contingent who made their way to Cork. These included International Master Artur Davtyan (2429) from Armenia, Albert Gevorgyan (1927) also from Armenia and UCC student Ivan Carballo (1479) from Italy. Top seed IM Alex Lopez (2442) was hoping to win his 15th Mulcahy title but out to stop him were the above three as well as a contingent of strong Irish domiciled players. These included Fide Master Rory Quinn (2159) from Ennis, Dutchmen Simon Provoost (1880) and Henke De Jonge (1842) both Cork Chess club players, CCYMS players Kieran O’Driscoll (1990), David Geaney-O’Brien (1838), Paul O’Donovan (1681), and rising star Adam Collins (2159) from Carlow.

The Mulcahy Memorial Chess tournament commemorates Dr Noel Mulcahy a graduate and lecturer in UCC, and one of the strongest chess players to come out of Ireland. Mulcahy entered the Irish Chess championship on seven occasions and either won it or was runner-up five times. He played chess with his beloved UCC Chess club and had the enviable record if never having lost a game while playing with UCC. He won the strongly contested University Championship a record three times.

Noel Mulcahy died tragically in 1968 and his chess friends in Cork decided to run an annual tournament in his name. One of the founder members of the ‘Mulcahy Memorial’ committee, formed in 1968, was Maurice Coveney who played in most, if not all, of the ‘Mulcahy’ tournaments including the this, the 2024 edition. Most of the first-round games went according to seeding – one of the few upsets was a win by the unrated Franco Brito against Cork Chess club stalwart Barry Foran. Round two again mostly went according to rating but in round three the top seed IM Alex Lopez was put under severe pressure by Piotr Leichert (1721) who seemed to have a strong, if not winning, position on the board but did not find the best continuation which allowed Lopez to turn the tables and emerge with the full point.

Round three and things were beginning to heat up with Lopez due to play Quinn and Davtyan playing rising Carlow player Adam Collins. On board two Davtyan proved too strong for Collins while the game on board one was an exciting affair and ended with the offer of a queen sacrifice by Lopez which Quinn declined but Lopez still gained the full point (see game Here– notes by Alex Lopez).

Going in to the penultimate round only two players (Lopez and Davtyan) were on full points with 5 players (Gevorgyan, Provoost, De Jonge, Geaney-O’Brien and O’Sullivan) trailing a half-point behind. With the two top players meeting it was felt that the result of this match would determine the winner of the tournament. Could the young visitor from Armenia put a stop to Lopez’s winning streak in the Mulcahy tournament? As they sat down to do battle a large crowd had formed to watch the proceedings and they were not disappointed as the game came to life in a spectacular fashion. Entering the late middle game the position on the board was unclear and both sides seemed to be on the verge of mating attacks. However, when the smoke cleared, Lopez emerged with a decisive advantage and gaining the full point entered the last round with a half-point lead over his nearest rival, Simon Provoost (see game Here). Lopez (5) and Provoost (4.5) were followed by 10 players on four points which meant for an exciting last round to determine who would end up taking the trophy and the €600 first prize.

A quick draw in board one in the final round meant that IM Alex Lopez brought his winning streak to 15 in the Mulcahy Memorial chess tournament. Six players shared second place on five points and they were IM Artur Davtyan, FM Rory Quinn, Albert R Gevorgyan, Kieran O’Driscoll, Adam Collins and Simon Provoost. There were three rating bands with three prizes in each and the winners were Rating band ‘A’ – 1st Ivan Carballo, 2nd Aidan O’Sullivan and 3rd Arthur Moull. In rating band ‘B’ the winner was David Creedon followed by Cathal O’Regan and Denis Lynch. Rating band ‘C’ saw Franco Brito take first place followed by Matej Zivny and Maksym Saltykov. The Gerry McCarthy prize went to Hubert Machowski.

At the prize giving Chief Arbitar Mark Watkins thanked everyone for their attendance and congratulated Alex Lopez on winning his 15th Mulcahy, having played 90 games in these tournaments and emerging with 80 wins 10 draws and no losses, a record that will be hard to beat. The evening was brought to a conclusion with a gracious speech by Alex as he thanked those involved in organising the ‘Mulcahy’ and looked forward to participating again in 2025.