The World Senior Championships took place in Bad Zwischenahn, Germany, in November 2008. There were 302 participants from throughout the world. The competition title was awarded to Larry Kaufman (IM) from the US on a tie breaker from Mihai Suba (GM) from Romania.

The published rules for the tie break if they had been adopted would have awarded the title to Souba but for some reason the organisers changed the rule and awarded the title to Kaufman who now becomes a GM.

I finished in joint 27th place with a score of 7/11 (games) which has to be seen as an excellent performance. Mark Quinn travelled over for four days to support me and he introduced me to several of the prominent Masters who were there.

I played my first international chess tournament in The Hague in 1961 and five of the competitors who played there met up. These were Alexander Kwindzhi (Russia) who is now a children's nurse in Moscow; Ole Jacobsen IM (Denmark) who is now a full time chess professional; Antonio Rossino from Venice who is a retired school teacher; Heikki Westerinen (GM) from Finland who is a professional chess player.

Below are photographs showing GM Jansa from the Czech Republic, Ole Jacobsen and Alexander Kwindzhi (the bald player). There is also a photograph of Mark Quinn, myself and Mihai Suba GM who was controversially second in the tournament.

Entry fee to the event was very expensive at €150 per person and the prizes relatively meagre at €9850. At these tariffs it would be very easy to organise such an event in Ireland during the off peak hotel seasons in Killarney or one of the other resorts.

Keogh and Jansa

Jacobsen and Kwindzhi

Keogh, Quinn and Suba