English Chess Forum

Interesting article on what the Irish Chess Union intend to do at the forthcoming Irish Championship. This was cited by Tim Wall and Malcolm Pein at the ECF Council meeting on Saturday. Kudos to the Irish Chess Union for their efforts but I'd like to ask some questions: - Why shouldn't face coverin...

We will have daily events on lichess.org this week. Full details below: ICU Blitz 3/0 PW: ICUBlitz https://lichess.org/tournament/KyFb4QGX ICU 3 Checks Championships PW : 3Checks 24/03 6pm https://lichess.org/tournament/G59q672O Irish 960 Championships PW: 960 25/03 6pm https://lichess.org/tournamen...

Irish Chess Union

Tough times ahead but we'd like to extend an invite to you, our neighbours, to our online events over the next few weeks as many of us prepare to work from home, for self isolation or whatever else may come.. We’ll be running the ICU Bullet Championships on LiChess on Monday, 16 March at 7pm. https:...

An update on these events: There are a couple of spaces left in the norm events for players rated 2250+ in the GM and IM norm events. The 50+/65+ event looks very competitive with 40 entries already and the 10 player all-play-alls have a handful of places left in each section. There are also over 10...

Thanks Alex

Cheating incident in the Irish International Open was sent to FIDE but we never heard back like with the 4NCL case. Was dealt with at a national level though. The results suggest that the culprit was not Irish, so how effective is that going to be outside Ireland? Well, he lives in Ireland for a st...

The FIDE Ethics Commission have finished their deliberations on the Rausis case and given him a six year ban and stripped him of the GM title though he keeps the IM title. The unanswered question would have been what would have happened had the 4NCL cheating been perpetuated and detected in the Ope...

One in Dublin in January: https://www.icu.ie/events/1296

I believe 3Cs' Adam Ashton finished on 7/9 as well. Anyone know if that got him anywhere near an IM norm? They aren't using the chess-results site, so no rating performances are quoted. Looking down the list of finishers, there are several British players or those playing in the UK. Apologies if I ...

Another Iranian vs Israeli pairing today. Gholami was kicked out of the tournament for refusing to play the same opponent. There was talk of a 5-year ban but unclear if this is from junior fide-run events or all fide-run events - the ban was supposed delivered by Arkady himself via email. Hearing th...

The ICU will be running a FIDE Arbiter Course (in English) from the 31st January-2nd February. IA Alex McFarlane will be the lecturer. The course will take place in Gonzaga College SJ, Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin. This has been signed off by FIDE who'll be publishing once the site reconstruction...

The Irish Chess Union will be running our annual New Year Festival from 2-6 January in the Talbot Hotel, Stillorgan, Dublin. The Festival includes: Three norm events (one GM Norm and two IM Norm) - https://www.icu.ie/events/1275 A 50+/65+ event (open to any nationality) - https://www.icu.ie/events/1...

The Kilkenny Congress 2019 will take place from the 15-17 November in the Club House Hotel & the Ormonde Hotel. Entries can be made here: https://www.icu.ie/events/1126

For those in need of some chess viewing after the British... The Irish Championship enters day 5 today with plenty of fascinating games over the past few days. All games are broadcast here: https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/irish-championship-2019/5/1/1 Fiona Steil-Antoni will be comment...