The 2016 National Club Championships are taking place in the Red Cow Hotel in Dublin April 23rd and 24th. It's a 4 round team event with 6 players per team competing and up to 2 subs each. First round in underway and the team draw is below. I will update this on an on-going basis as results come in. I will also post a link here later to the games, I hope to have a complete pgn of each round downloadable but I will be at least a round behind so please bear with me !

Also, please note that in a surprise ( and very recent ) change to the ECC rules, the top 3 teams now qualify for the European Club Cup. With three places now up for grabs, things will get very interesting this weekend.

Round 1

Round 1
1	Gonzaga	5.5-0.5	Rathmines
2	Balbriggan	0.5-5.5	Trinity
3	Adare	4.5-1.5	Elm Mount
4	Enniscorthy	1-5	Blanchardstown
5	Bray	4.5-1.5	Ballinasloe

Balbriggan have only 5 team members so the last board for Trinity got a walkover Bray's top board, Colm Daly arrived too late to play the first round game so Ballinasloe's win on top board was also a walkover.

International Master, Sam Collins, playing board 1 for Gonzaga. This picture was taken during Sam's second round game against John Delaney.

Round 2

Round 2
1	Blanchardstown	1.5-4.5	Gonzaga
2	Trinity	5-1	Adare
3	Rathmines	3-3	Bray
4	Elm Mount	1-5	Enniscorthy
5	Ballinasloe	4-2	Balbriggan

So, there are no 6-0 whitewash results in round 1, that's a good thing. Round 2 draw gives Adare ( many times winners ) and Blanchardstown a crack at the top teams. With a few young and up and coming players on the Blanchardstown team, the games will be interesting. I will be posting the results with the pgn games from round 1 as soon as I can.

The young guns of Elm Mount and Enniscorthy in action in round 2, Alex Goss ( left ) playing Will Sidney of Enniscorthy.

Round 3
1	Gonzaga	3-3	Trinity
2	Bray	2-4	Blanchardstown
3	Adare	5-1	Ballinasloe
4	Enniscorthy	1-5	Rathmines
5	Balbriggan	2.5-3.5	Elm Mount

The much promised games form the first two rounds are not complete but if I wait for them to be complete, the event will be over long before you see them ! So I have decided to publish them with some games not yet input, apologies.

See here for team standings and rounds 1 and 2 pgns are also upload. Just click on the Games (pgn) down arrow on the top of the page, choose round 1 or 2, click go and the round will download for you. I will keep this as updated as I can, enjoy.

Stephen Moran, playing for and captain for the Trinity team at the 2016 National Chess Club Championships, seen here playing Bernd Thee of Adare.

After a very exciting 3rd round, the final round of the 2016 NCC looked like this;

Round 4
1	Trinity	4.5-1.5	Blanchardstwon
2	Adare	0.5-5.5	Gonzaga
3	Elm Mount	1.5-4.5	Bray
4	Rathmines	4-2	Ballinasloe
5	Balbriggan	3-3	Enniscorthy

Round 2 games pgn is now complete, if you want to re-download them, the work continues !

Final standing for this year's NCC show a very close finish indeed. The first 3 placed teams will be offered a place in this year's European Club Club and should any of them decline, a place will be offered to the 4th placed team. Should 2 teams decline, a place will be offered to the 5th place team but it will go no further than 5th. This is because the ECC rules declare that the representative teams from any country must have finished in the top half of their federation's NCC.

The happy runners' up team, Trinity, L to R Karl McPhillips, Christopher Young, Tim Harding, Ioana Gelip, Stephen Moran, Alexiei Bottino and Rory Delaney.

The even happier winning team, Gonzaga, L to R David Murray, Gordon Freeman, Sam Collins, Henry Li, Conor O'Donnell, Killian Delaney and Carl Jackson.

Here is the final table;

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Created 2016-04-21 ◦ Last updated 2016-04-25 ◦ Editor GG

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