CRH Group Kilkenny Chess Congress Report

The recent 2024 Kilkenny Chess Congress was the 46th annual Kilkenny Chess Congress in all, and the second to be generously sponsored by the CRH Group. It attracted over 240 players in all, over 3 events instead of the normal 4 sections. This is because of a recent ICU ratings adjustment which saw most active Irish Chess players gaining rating point overight, and the lower rated players getting more points added than the higher rated players. This had the effect of leaving a very much reduced number of players being rated below 1200. Because of this, the normal "James Mason" and the "Challengers" events were combined to form the "Stars Barred". This event was limited to those players whose rating is currently under 1600 and was hosted in the traditional home of Kilkenny Chess, the Club House Hotel. This unique, historic Georgian building is also the oldest hotel in Kilkenny and is full of charm.

The Major event was for those players whose rating is between 1550 and 1999 and this section would normally attract about 80 players, but this was a record year for the Major, it broke the 100 player barrier for the first time.

The Kilkenny International Masters event is restricted to those players who's rating is over 1950, and this event attracted 6 grandmasters, 4 international masters and a few FIDE masters too with a total of 28 players competing.

The Masters and Major was hosted by the Ormonde Hotel, pictured above. The winner of last year's Major was a player from the Netherlands, Simon Provoost, but he was not here to defend his title. As the top twelve seeds were all over 1900, there would almost certainly be fierce competition for 1st place. I promise I am writting this before the start of round 2, and I'm going to have a go at picking out the winner of the major this year, last year's second place, Henk De Jonge, from Cork Chess Club! Let's see.....

The 2023 Masters winner was Sebastian Maze GM from France and he was here to defend his title, but would he manage it? This year, he is the second seed, behind Gawain Jones GM from England. My pick for this event is Gawain Jones, no surprise there.

Hold the press! The results of the first round in the Masters were so unusual, I've never seen anything like this before. As most readers will know, the first round in most Swiss events pits the top seeds against the bottom seeds, and it's not unusual for almost all games to be decisive in favour of the higher rated players. Out of the 13 games played in round 1, 7 were draws, and all hard fought draws too. Indeed the top 5 boards were all drawn, with Gawain Jones GM sportingly admitting after the game that he was the one fighting for the draw at some point. Great game from his opponent Paul Wallace, (pictured left) a regular for the Irish senior international squad and you can play through the game here.

Adam Collins held Sebastian Maze to a draw while Jason Liu shared the point with Matthieu Cornette GM from France. Patryk Bronzynski drew with our English GM, Matthew Turner and just for good measure, on board 6, Peter Hayes held Lawrence Trent IM, from England to a draw.

On board 7, our own IM, Tarun Kanyamarala was held to a draw by WFM Hong Nhung Nguyen and Irieland's only GM, Alexander Baburin had to settle for half a point from his game with Atharva Paibar. All the other games went to seeding.

This lead to a very unusual look pairing for round 2 where the highest seed on the first 3 boards was our 6th seed, IM Kevin Terrieux from France.

1	Kevin Terrieux IM	1	Kavin Venkatesan FM	1
2	Sophie Milliet WGM	1	Trisha Kanyamarala WIM	1
3	David Fitzsimons IM	1	Jacob Flynn	1

Sophie Millet at the CRH Kilkenny Masters

While the top board, once again, saw a draw, Sophie (pictured right) on board 2 beat Trisha and you can see that game here. David on board 3 claimed the full point against Jacob in this game. Gawain Jones won a nice game on board 4, I really liked the finish of it! Sebastian Maze won on board 5 but his countryman and fellow GM, Matthieu Cornette, once again shared the point with his opponent, Peter Hayes. The Irish club players in the masters are giving a good account of themselves!

In round 3, at least some of the top seeds started to make it back to the live boards, here is the draw for the top 3 boards of round 3.

1	David Fitzsimons IM	2	Sophie Milliet WGM	2
2	Gawain Jones GM	1.5	Kevin Terrieux IM	1.5
3	Lawrence Trent IM	1.5	Sebastian Maze GM	1.5

David Fitzsimons lost to Sophie Milliet on top board, unfortunately, I'm not sure all the game was recorded by the live board, the final few move or two may have been lost in the time scramble, I'm afraid but you can see the moves I have here.

Sebastian Maze at the CRH Kilkenny Masters

Gawain Jones had a second win in a row at the expense of French IM Kevin Terrieux, another game with a very pleasing finish from the current British champion. I do have all that game and you can view (or download) the game here. Lawrence Trent vs Sebastian Maze on board 3 was such a short game, it's not worth presenting it here, suffice to say, they shared the point.

Like most non-FIDE rated Irish weekend Chess events, there are 3 rounds on the Saturday of the Kilkenny Chess Congress and round 4 began at 7:30pm. A lot of people ask me, why don't organisers of some large weekenders in Ireland FIDE rate their event, what's the downside. That's a very simple question to answer, the GMs and IMs, especially those from abroad, view this as much a social evet as a Chess event, and they are here for the "craic". This normally, though not always, involves a few drinks. If this were FIDE rated, the athmosphere would be very different.

Case in point, the photo on the left features Sebastian Maze GM from France, the defending Kilkenny Masters Champion, pictured just before his 4th round encounter with Alexander Baburin GM. If this were a FIDE rated event, the drink to his right would not be there.

It's not just about the drinking either, many of the players here enjoy trying out new opening ideas without risking their FIDE rating points in the attempt. Some just enjoy the freedom non-FIDE rated Chess allows them to experiment, but the point is, for whatever reason, I believe that not all Chess events need to be FIDE rated.

The draw for the 4th round, at least for the top 3 boards, looked like this.

1	Sophie Milliet WGM	3	Gawain Jones GM	2.5
2	Sebastian Maze GM	2	Alexander Baburin GM	2
3	Matthew Turner GM	2	Kavin Venkatesan FM	2

This was a very important game on board 1, if Sophie could manage a win, she would be in a great position for the final two rounds tomorrow with a 1 point lead. If Gawain manged to win, he would over-take her score in the event and lead by 1/2 point going into the final day. It was indeed, all to play for.

Gawain, pictured right, had black for this crucial encounter and was in the mood to take a risk or two to push for a win. He did point out to me after the game that 30.....Nxa4 was certainly a bit risky but he obviously felt obliged to "go for it". You can see this exciting game here.

Sebastian Maze vs Alexander Baburin on board 2 was another, of many, exciting games between these two. I'm not sure how the score between them is balanced, but I'm guessing that the advantage of the white pieces is significant in their encounters. Here is this game.

On board 3, Matthew Turner proved a bit too strong for Kavin Venkatesan, as you can see here.

Another noteable result from this round was that former French Chess Champion, Matthieu Cornette GM scored his first victory of the event, beating Rory Quinn of Ennis on board 7! Matthieu's form has been a bit below par recently (by his own admission) so after this victory, given his seeding, he was destained to be back on the top boards for the next round.

Matthieu Cornette at the CRH Kilkenny Masters

Round 5 is the Sunday morning game and it began at the un-godly hour of 9:15am, and this was the draw for the top 3 boards in the masters.

1	Gawain Jones GM	3.5	Sebastian Maze GM	3
2	Sophie Milliet WGM	3	Matthew Turner GM	3
3	David Fitzsimons IM	2.5	Matthieu Cornette GM	2.5

Before I give the results from the boards above, I feel I should point out that Lawrence Trent, on board 4 had a great finish against Jacob Flynn. It was a very appealing game, reminiscent of the sort of "caveman" or "coffee-house" chess of the 19th century. For those of you who enjoy miniatures, have a look here.

Mathieu Cornette (pitcured left) enjoyed a return to the live boards this morning at the expense of our own David Fitzsimons, current Irish champion, you can see that game here. Spohie Milliet drew her encounter with Matthew Turner while Gawain Jones continued to dominate the event with another win, making it 4/4 since his round 1 draw with Paul Wallace.

The final round pairing looked like this:

1	Matthieu Cornette GM	3.5	Gawain Jones GM	4.5
2	Matthew Turner GM	3.5	Lawrence Trent IM	3.5
3	Tarun Kanyamarala IM	3.5	Sophie Milliet WGM	3.5

Board 3 was a long game, in fact, it was the last game to finish and was an exciting king and pawn ending, this game can be viewed here. Matthew Turner and Lawrence Trent was the first game to finish, also a draw and not worth posting here!

The Gawain Jones train kept on steam-rolling as he won in style with black against Matthieu Cornette. Here is that game, enjoy. He ended upn 1.5 points clear of the pack. He won the Kilkenny Masters for the first time 2011, also on 5.5/6 but he was "only" 1 point clear then.