First, may I wish all our members, past, present and future, a Happy New Year.
My chess year began as the previous had ended, losing games and playing poorly! In February, I had the pleasure of meeting GM Nigel Short, who gave a lecture and a simul in Dublin. He continued on to Cork, and then on to Bunratty, where he found the 3 games in one day very tough. GM Gawain Jones won the event. Hat's off to Gerry Graham and his merry men. Each year they are able to attract more and more top players to Bunratty, and this coming year looks as if it will be the strongest weekender in the world! I had more success in the Blitz after the main competition. I warmed up for it by beating Mark Heidenfeld, who showed suitable deference and respect for the chairman, but none to the other players, and he deservedly won the competition beating Gawain Jones in a long final.
I continued my losing ways until July, when after 3 rounds of the Irish, I found myself leading with Stephen Brady. Sadly, my winning ways stopped at that point, but Stephen won for the 6th time. Congratulations to him on being a worthy champion.
A week after the championship, the junior four nations (the Glorney) started in Dublin City University. Pat Fitzsimons organized it perfectly, and he was ably helped by Rory Delaney and Herbert Scarry amongst many others. My thanks go to all of them.
My personal highlight was in October, when Veselin Topalov visited Ireland and played a clock simul against four of our best players. Due to the fighting spirit of Alex Baburin, Sam Collins, Alex Lopez and Mark Quinn, the match ended in a 2-2 draw.
This coming year is our centenary. I am not one who can tell you much about our history. For that you should browse IRL Chess.
It seems appropriate to look at how we organize chess in Ireland, and think about how we can improve this. A long term goal has been to get chess recognized as a sport in Ireland. This is still our goal, but as is often the case, the journey is more important than the destination. The Irish Sports Council have two pages of requirements for recognition as a sport. Most of these are sensible ways of running any national organization. However, where we are lacking, is in medium to long term planning. This is one area the ICU will have to change, and I believe it will make us a better organization.
We are an amateur organization, with all the strengths and the weaknesses that that entails. If we were 3 times as big, we might be able to afford a fulltime adminstrator, but our current finances do not allow it. As such, our one hope is to automate as many processes as possible. We have been blessed with the programming skills of Mark Orr, and he is doing a great job with the rating web site. In the coming year, we will also automate the invitation system. Of course, not everything can be automated. Here we must rely on the efforts of our volunteers. If you have never been involved in chess organization, then start with your club. You'll find that the one or two people who are doing everything will be delighted to accept your help. If you want bigger challenges, then get involved in your provincial union, or even better offer your services to the ICU committee. We are still looking for a treasurer, a development officer and a tournaments controller.
We have made a start in asking the membership for ideas on the future of the Irish Championships. My thanks to everybody who has written. I will be publicising those ideas in a forthcoming article. As our members have many hidden talents, I am asking those of you who have been involved in other national organizations to let me know what works well in those organizations and what works poorly.
As this coming year is our centenary, we should celebrate it! At the moment I have two ideas. Firstly, Alex Baburin has told me he would be willing to attempt to break the current record for blind simultaneous games. This is held by Zukertort who played 12 games simultaneously blindfold in the 1880's in Dublin. We will be looking for players of around 1500-1600 strength, and the games are likely to take 4-6 hours. A blind simul should bring lots of TV coverage, something that is missing from most chess events.
The second idea was one Sean Coffey suggested as part of the input on the Irish Championships. He thinks the next Irish Championships should be a 10-player all-play-all, with 8 of the players being former winners of the Irish, and then two qualifiers, possibly we could add our best junior. However, this is an expensive tournament to run, as we would be offering accommodation for the players and the controller, and we would need a reasonable prize fund too. However, if we renamed it the Champion of Champions tournament, it might be possible to get the necessary sponsorship.
My final idea is to organize an event specifically for advertizing Irish businesses abroad. The Topalov-Ireland games were watched by over half a million people world wide. If we brought one or more players from the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) we could go to Irish companies and ask them for sponsorship with a promise of a large number of web spectators from those countries. For the first time, we would be offering a deal which could actually benefit the sponsor, rather than accepting their charity.
There are lots of ideas out there, not just the ones I have mentioned here. If you have further ideas, please email them to the committee, or better still start organizing. The ICU will be delighted to help in any way we can.
Once more, happy new year to you,
Jonathan O'Connor
Chairman, Irish Chess Union