Portadown Rapidplay

Usually I would act as a Tournament Controller at about half a dozen Ulster chess tournaments a year. However this season other commitments have got in the way and it was therefore a pleasure to get back into the swing of things at the rapidplay event organised by the Portadown club at the weekend.

When I arrived, the Portadown players already had the tournament room fully prepared so all I had to do was plug in my computer and start taking the names of those wanting to play. There was a very good turnout from the host club and while Belfast players were conspicuous by their absence, there was a contingent from Bangor and Lathish Nair had made the journey all the way from Letterkenny.

The theoretical high point of the tournament was the refutation of the infamous "Proctor gambit." For those unfamiliar with this beast, the gambit is deployed by Bangor player Richard Proctor in time scrambles. It consists of Richard making a non-obvious check. If his opponent fails to notice the check, he is met with the time-honoured words "That's an illegal move, I claim two extra minutes." On this occasion the gambit was sprung on Tony Redden, who was somewhat bemused by the claim, particularly as Richard had not in fact made a checking move. When he pointed this out to Richard, I stepped in to inform the players that in fact Tony would get extra time because his opponent had disturbed him. Richard, who was lost on the board anyway, then promptly resigned, making profuse apologies and keeping repeating the phrase "I was sure it was a check." All this accompanied by general hilarity among the bystanders, with Richard seeing the funny side of it as well.

Players from the Portadown club took three of the four prizes on offer, but the winner of first prize was Adam Giermaniuk, competing in his first Ulster tournament. Adam is from Poland but now works in Northern Ireland. He beat Gerald Rogan in their individual encounter in Round 2 but conceded draws in Rounds 3 and 5 to Lathish Nair and John Canning, allowing Rogan to catch him up. But Germaniuk had faced stronger opposition and therefore was awarded the victory on tiebreak.

Tom Clarke

Today a Memorial Service was held for Tom Clarke in St Patrick's Parish Church, Upper Malone, Belfast. Tom had moved to Wales, where his wife Chrissie hails from, not long before his untimely death, so this was an opportunity for Ulster chess players to pay tribute to him. It was wonderful (but hardly surprising considering the respect in which Tom was held) to see so many people there.

Also present were many of Tom's work colleagues, including Val Srewart, who gave a fine eulogy. Damien Cunningham, Tom's friend and Clifton House teammate, also delivered a heartfelt tribute in his own inimitable style. Damien had us all laughing about a journey to the famous Kilkenny Congress, when anything that could go wrong did.

As well as the local chess players, too many to mention individually, who attended the Service, two of Tom's international colleagues and long-time rivals, Mark Orr and Keith Allen, had travelled respectively from Scotland and the Isle of Man especially for the occasion. Making the journey from Dublin was Gearoidin Ui Laighleis, a member of the ICU Executive Committee and one of Ireland's top women players.

Chrissie, with the help of David Blair has located all the score-sheets Tom had kept and given them to the UCU. Currently there are about 500 of Tom's games in the public domain and I expect this will bring the total up to something like 1350. I am in the process of transferring the games into a database and hopefully in the not too distant future Ulster chess players will be able to see many fine previously unpublished examples of Tom's play, particularly from his early career.

The photograph shows me presenting the Dr McSparran Cup to Tom (on the right), after his win in the 2003 Ulster Championship.

Another Malahide raider

Kevin O'Neill also ventured south to compete at Malahide - in the Challengers (under 1600) section. Kevin has only been playing competitive chess for about 2 years, but has already won a tournament - the Fisherwick 50th Jubilee Handicap, where he made good use of his time advantage in every game.

With a rating of only 919, Kevin could be expected to find it hard going at Malahide, but he punched well above his weight scoring 3 points from 6 games against much higher rated opposition, including draws against players rated 1224 and 1315.

Malahide raiders

A quartet of Northern raiders visited Malahide for the annual May Bank Holiday weekender, with three of the four ending up in the prizelist. Stephen Scannell, Nicholas Pilkiewicz and Gareth Annesley tied second on 4.5 points, just a half-point behind perennial weekend king Colm Daly.

Danny Mallaghan, the fourth member of the Ulster contingent, told me at the Civil Service tournament last night that he had his worst tournament in a long time - he kept losing his Bishops apparently. Still we agreed it was better to get your bad games out of the way in a single tournament.

Danny will be hoping for better luck when when he heads for Las Vegas early next month for a big weekender in the company of fellow Ulster players Sam Moore, Cecil Sloan and John Bradley. Danny is competing in the under 2000 event, while the other three all get into the under 1800 section.

Danny said if his luck is still out, he'll try a few hands of Texas Hold'em, which you blogmaster considers one of the most boring variants of Poker.