Welsh Chess Union (Undeb Gwyddbwyll Cymru)

The event was well organised in Ireland this year, with the only obvious glitches being the live boards sometimes being wrongly attributed, and a problem for one group in getting from arrival at Dublin airport to finding the transfer bus, where when we did find it, the driver was expecting to take groups of French and Welsh golfers to the excellent Carrickdale hotel on the outskirts of Dundalk.

Our girls are often competitive with the other countries, England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Netherlands, and although finishing 5^th on 6.5/15 were unlucky not to score more, with amongst other disappointments, Susanna Fraser losing on time trying hard to win with Q+K v R+K (Susanna showed remarkable strength of character to recover from this result) and Rachel McIntosh losing on time in a holdable position with K+R+P v K+3Ps, having missed a winning line in a R-ending a few moves earlier.  

Gilbert:  Shayanna Sivarajasingam 1W 3D 1L  – 2.5   Susanna Fraser 1W 1D 3L  – 1.5   Rachel McIntosh  1W 1 Forfeit 1D 2L  – 2.5

The other events are all open (i.e. mixed boys and girls) and it is evident from results that at the moment, the older the players are, the further we are falling behind the other countries.  This is clear from the ratings of the players and the results.  Although all our players played a lot of good chess, with some occasionally good individual results, the ratings don’t lie, and what often happened was that generally higher rated opponents were eventually able to overcome stout resistance, sometimes recovering from lost positions to triumph in the end.

Stokes (U12):  Ethan Chung 2W 2D 1L  – 3   Daniel Chung  3D 2L – 1.5  Yuxuan Wu  2D 3L – 1 Bence Szakmany  1W 1D 3L  – 1.5  Milo Davies  3W 2L – 3  Tom Davies  1W 1D 3L -1.5

Total 11.5/30   6^th Position

Robinson  (U14):  Venetia Sivarajasingam 2W 2D 1L – 3   Madeleine Smith  1W 1D 3L  – 1.5  Ellison Smith 1W 5L  – 1  Neil Stevenson 5L – 0   Joel Chung  1W 1D 3L – 1.5   Harrison Postans 5L – 0

Total 7/30  6^th Position

Glorney (U18): Chirag Guha 2D 3L  – 1  Imogen Camp 5L – 0   Hugo Fowler  1W 4L  – 1 Ifan Rathbone-Jones 1W 2D 3L – 2  David McIntosh  5L – 0

Total 4/25    6^th Position

The players were supported by a number of parents, along with team manager Ian Eustis and coaches Nick Evans and John Thornton

Full results and games using the live games link can currently be found via www.glorneycupchess.org.

Report by John Thornton