Conor ODonnell (on the left in the photo playing against Fiachra Scallan) is the new St Benildus charity blitz champion after a night with maybe even more drama than usual for the club blitz!
Conor lost his opening game to me, then beat Henry Li by virtue of an illegal move when completely lost to scramble into the quarters as a best runner-up. He then drew in the final when taking his opponents final pawn with one second left on his clock, having earlier been a whole rook up, and won the replay.
But it wasnt all about Conor; there were 48 participants in total, with the mock exams this week hitting numbers. Only two of those players managed 7/7 with one, Dylan Boland, subsequently withdrawing before the quarters to go home and study for the mocks in the morning
Group C was mine, and the only one I was really watching. Despite my woeful form of late, I managed to shock Conor ODonnell in the first round, winning an exchange and then delivering a queen check which meant Conor had to lose his queen for a bishop. However, I threw my group advantage away two rounds later when losing to unrated Vinayak Unnithan from a piece and two pawns up I was actually even losing the final position, having completely lost my way in time trouble. I did win all the remainder of my games some fortuitously, such as against Tim Casey when I started to play the magnificent move Kd8-g5+, realising just in time that I had picked up a king, not a queen, and so castled instead; the check would have been an instant loss on the illegal move rule!
Conor had to beat Henry Li with two minutes against eight to join me in the quarters. He did, just. Henry was running passed a and b pawns, got them to a2 and b3, with a rook on b2 and Conors rook on a1. With seconds remaining, Henry went looking for a queen to promote but the queen was nowhere to be found. Valuable seconds ticked by before he placed an upturned rook the queen, it transpired, was in Henrys hand; hed picked it up a couple of moves previously! He then sacced the rook completely unnecessarily to queen the b-pawn at the expense of the a-pawn, Conor threw in a hopeful check, which Henry missed completely, so Conor took the king for a remarkable escape.
To the quarters so. Conor ODonnell accounted for Michael Donnelly after the latter made an illegal move. Defending champion John Connolly scraped past Gerry OConnell on time after Gerry had only been a rook up; he said he dwelt too long on missing the chance to go a queen up and suddenly his time was nearly gone worse, his opponent was having the temerity to fight back a bit! Luke-Andrew Feeney lost to Fiachra Scallan, the other player to win all his group games, while I was a piece and two pawns up and cruising against Mihailo Manojlovic before accidentally swapping off to a N+4 v 4P ending, with all pawns on the same side, which was quite tricky with 30 seconds left We ended with knight versus king, and had to go again with colours reversed. This time, I built up a strong queenside attack, having both castled queenside, hung a piece (which Mihailo missed) and then hung my queen (which he didnt miss).
That made Mihailo the lone Benildus player left, and he took on Conor in the semis. Again, Conor won on the basis of an illegal move, though he had outplayed Mihailo and was a couple of pawns and easily winning by at the end. Fiachra did for John Connolly and so, as last year, it was Gonzaga v Rathmines Juniors in the final.
Also as last year, the final looked like it would be a fairly short-lived affair when Fiachra hung a piece around move 15; when he lost an exchange a short while later to go a whole rook down, he could have been excused for resigning. But when your opponent has two minutes, theres always a chance, and so it was here. Fiachra got a piece back, and suddenly had his king amongst Conors pawns, reaching B+2 v R with Conors virtual flag hanging. Amazingly, Conor got across to pick off the last of Fiachras two pawns with literally one second on his clock, and we had a replay. Conor won that with relatively little fuss and so added the one title that was really glaringly missing from an impressive roll of honour!
The important business of the night was the confirmation that E600 or so had been raised for the Simon Community and the Samaritans, and with the school usually adding a donation to about match whats raised on the night, that should add up to around E1,200 raised for charity overall.