The Irish Junior Chess Championships were held over the weekend of April 20th - 22nd in the Kilmurry Lodge Hotel in Limerick. The titles at stake were the under 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 19. A total of 114 players came from all over the country to compete for the titles and the competition was fierce.
Under 19
This turned out to be a 5 game match for the title between David Grzymek of Belfast and Jan Mueller of Limerick, both very strong junior players. In fact Jan is the highest rated player in the Limerick Chess Club this year and he's only 17. After the first two games were drawn, first blood went to David in the third after Jan let an advantage slip. Jan immediately got his revenge in the fourth, both wins were scored with Black! The fifth and final game in this match saw Jan win the toss for the white pieces and after the third Tromposky of the match, Jan took advantage of a tactical slip by David to claim the title for 2007.
12 players battled for this title, the top two seeds were miles ahead of the field in rating terms at least, Sam Osborne - 1922 and Oisin Benson - 1702. Oisin's title aspirations took a setback when in round 4 he lost to Sam and Sam never looked back after that, he won the event on 6 / 6 with Oisin Benson in second on 5. Third place was taken by Sarah Cormican.
24 players contested the under 14 competition with Ryan Rhys Griffiths from Kilkenny being the top seed by a country mile at 2003, Shane Manning, a club mate of Ryan's was the second seed at 1662 while the third seed was a local player, Kieran Young - 1324. Ryan was unexpectedly held to a draw by Daniel Cashin in round 5 and went on to beat Shane in round 6, winning the title on 5.5 / 6. Daniel's excellent performance in the event earned him clear second place on 5. Best girl prize was won by Ruth Cormican.
The largest of the competitions, the top seeds John Courtny, 1325 - Kilkenny and Hugh Doyle, 1288 - Cork clashed in the 4th round and both players played very well but Hugh got the better of the game in the end to reach a very impressive 4 / 4. In the 5th round, Kieran O' Riordan held Hugh to a draw but in the final round Hugh got back to his winning ways, this time against Jason Hurley. This earned him the title of under 12 Champion 2007. Best girl prize was won by Clare McCarrick.
The under 10's was a very close affair, jointly won by Ronan Fenn and Ronan Magee jointly on 6 / 7 but unfortunately, someone has to loose out on the tie-break and this time it was Ronan Fenn. That left the title in the hands of Ronan Magee and third place was taken, again on tie-break, by Connor Berney with Billy McKenna coming in fourth. Best girl prize was won by Emma Brehan.
This was a one day event which was won by Paula Mulee-Eglite on 6 / 6, second place was taken by Sean Mulooly on 5 while Stephen Ryan took clear third on 4. Typical of these young gladiators, there were only 3 draws in the whole event, and I believe all three were stalemates!
L to R - H.Doyle, Jan Mueller, Sam Osborne, Ryan Rhys Griffiths and Ronan Magee - Champions all.
U-8 winner Paula Eglite-Mullee with GM Baburin