The annual Kilkenny Chess Congress was played over the weekend of Nov 28th - 30th and the usual team of Jack Lowry, assisted by Maurice Buckley and Alan Dooley did the exemplary job we've come to expect from them in organising one of Ireland's leading weekend Chess events. There were a total of 205 players who turned up to do battle for the 4 titles at stake, no to mention the generous prize fund of nearly €5,000. The showcase event, the Masters boasted 5 grandmasters, three of whom all tied for first place last year - Gawain Jones (pictured right), Alex Baburin and Stuart Conquest. Peter Wells GM, who came fourth last year was also competing as was Tony Kosten GM, after a few year's absence from the event. There were few real surprises in the first round of the Masters as the top seeds imposed their authority on the "lesser lights" (game).

Round 2 saw the 3 defending champions held to draws: Jones v. IM Mark Quinn, Conquest v. FM Peewee Van Voorthuijsen and Baburin v. IM Carlo Rossi. Meanwhile on board 4, Tony Kosten beat Bram Van Dijk and Peter Wells recovered from a less than promising position against Karl Mc Phillips to claim the full point. In round 3 John Joyce blundered in a time scramble, giving his queen away for free while Cooper-Rossi was a fairly quick draw. Van Voorthuijsen vs Lopez was a long, hard fought draw while Brian Galligan went down to Stuart Conquest but gave a good account of himself in the process. Gawain Jones was just too strong for Steven Hanley and Alex Barburin managed to squeeze the full point from his game against his Irish International team mate, Mark Quinn. Peter wells was too strong for Ivo Timmwemans while on board 2 was an amazing opening by Tony Kosten (game).

Round 4 saw the top two boards feature all GM clashes, while Tony Kosten and Peter Wells had a quick draw, Stuart Conquest and Gawain Jones was a hard fight affair. Watching the post mortem, the players agreed that Gawain went wrong as early as move 9 (game).

In round 5, board 3 featured Gawain Jones getting back to his winning ways at the expense of Lawrence Cooper (game) while Tony Kosten beat Alex Baburin with the Black pieces. On top board Peter Wells vs Stuart Conquest, was a draw but certainly not a quick GM draw, it was one of the last games of the round to finish.

The draw for the last round was:

The top board was a fairly tame draw, leaving Tony Kosten (pictured right) on 5, but all the others were hard fought affairs. Alex Baburin overcame Ivor Timmersmans while John Joyce's game was one of the last to finish, sharing the point with his Dutch opponent. The all important board 2 game was actually the last game in this year's Masters to finish, Gawain winning a very tight game as Peter just ran too short of time. This left the final standings looking like this:

Masters

1. Tony Kosten GM 5; 2-3 Stuart Conquest GM, Gawain Jones GM 4½; 4-7 Peter Wells GM, Alexander Baburin GM, Peewee Van Voorthuijsen FM, Karl McPhillips 4.

Karl McPhillips beat Mark Quinn IM in the final round winning, in the process, the prize for the best non-titled Irish player with a fine score of 4. The trophy for this prize has been re-named the Philip Hogarty Memorial trophy, after the former Chairman of the Irish Chess Union who died tragically last year. Philip's mother was on hand to present the trophy to Karl, one of Philip's closest friends (photo at end). By the way, Karl's rating performance for the event was 2428.

The other events were all hard fought affairs as well, of course, I give the Prize winners below:

Major

1. Gareth Annesley 5; 2-6 Liam Porter, Seamus Duffy, Sylvester Sudolski, Pete Morriss, Jack Killane 4½. Grading prizes: 1 Aravind Menon, 2 Shane McCane, 3 Gabriel Mirza 4 Denis O'Connell.

James Mason

1. Kevin Burke 5½, 2-3 Killian Long, T.E. Kolenda 5. Grading prizes: 1 Atanas Kouhtev, 2 Eddie Humphrey 3 Paul O'Donoghue, 4 Fergus O'Connor, 5 Jack Hennessy.

Challengers

1-7 David Hobbs, Eoin Moran, Ben Pateman, Peter Gillen, John McKenna, John Flanagan, Seamus Carroll 5. Grading prizes: 1 Jonathan Kiely, 2 Jack McKenna, 3 Mary Faherty, 4 Stephen Li, 5 Patrick Young.

More pictures. Full tables: Masters, Major, James Mason, Challengers.

Great tribute was paid to the team that put this event together each year, Alan Dooley, Maurice Buckley and especially Jack Lowry. The members of the Kilkenny team, most of whom are also on the Irish team, made a special presentation to Jack of a pair of figurines playing a game of chess (picture, right). This was specially purchased for Jack at the recent Chess Olympiad in Dresden.

Kilkenny 2009 will be held in the 400th anniversary year of the city and the 40th anniversary year of the club, see you then.