Two promising Irish juniors were involved in the 2016 Reykjavik Open which took place from the 8-16 March. Tom and Alice O'Gorman performed tremendously, scoring 6 and 4 points out of 10 respectively in an extremely challenging field.

Alice added 117 points to her FIDE rating with wins over three 1900+ players and draws against two 2050+ players. Her score is even more incredible when you consider that she was outrated by over 300 rating points in every single match. Her FIDE rating now rises to 1737 while her ICU rating climbs 156 points to 1863.

Likewise, Tom had an excellent tournament scoring 6/10 points (or 5/9 as his opponent in round 1 defaulted) and gained 95 FIDE points with a 2280 rating performance. His tournament was a tale of two colours in one sense as he scored remarkably well with white (5.5/6) and struggled with black (0.5/4). However, that ignores the fact that the players he faced as black were on average 200 points higher rated than those he faced with white. Tom enjoyed wins over 3 players who outrated him by over 150 points and secured draws against a 2350 and a 2250. His 3 losses were against IMs with an average rating of 2400. His FIDE rating now rises to 2162 while his ICU rating climbs 28 points to 2161.

A final crosstable of the event can be seen here.