Huge congratulations to Joe Ryan who has earn his third (and last needed) IM norm in the 4th Montcada IM Tournament. Joe now "only" needs to achieve a rating of 2400+ to become Ireland's 8th International Master but this tournament made that far more likely after he gained 79 points! His performance is made all the more impressive when you consider that he was the bottom seed and yet finished in a tie for first place on 6.5/9.

Many thanks to our friends in IRLchess for bringing this to our attention. As they point out, as a non-Spanish FM living in Barcelona he naturally has had many opportunities to participate in IM norm events there. He has gone close to a norm before. But more recently he seems to have hit a run of bad form and discouraging results, with corresponding fall in rating. At 2149, he was the lowest-rated player in the event. Of course, this result would see him comfortably rise back above 2200 with a rating of 2227.

In the tournament itself, Joe raced to a score of 5/6 with terrific wins over 3 of the top 5 seeds and 4 wins against 2300+ strength opponents. That allowed him the luxury of drawing the remainder of his games to secure a rating performance of 2484, including a 15 move draw in the last round against Eric Sos Andreu which meant that both players achieved IM norms. You can play through all of Joe's games here.

In what has been an excellent year so far for prospective Irish IMs, Joe joins Stephen Jessel (currently leading the Irish Championships) with three IM norms. Stephen achieved his third earlier this year. David Fitzsimons also achieved an IM norm in the 4NCL this year which was his first. As mentioned in several articles this week, David is hoping to achieve his second IM norm in Budapest this week and is progressing well on 3/5 - his target being 5.5/9. David has of course already been over 2400 which makes his task slightly easier. John Hughes and Ryan Griffiths are other players who have achieved IM norms in the last few years.

It will arguably be far tougher for Joe Ryan to get to 2400 but if he keeps up this form, its by no means out of reach!