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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
3 March 2026
The recent run of tournament successes by Uzbek FM Oleg Artemenko was extended last Saturday when he won the Irish Universities Open, a 7-round rapid tournament. Oleg is studying at Griffith College in Dublin.
FM Adam Collins (Queen's University Belfast) finished second while joint third were Jan Thomas Nordgreen (University of Galway) and Lara Putar (College of SUrgeons) who won the top women's prize.
The previous weekend (20-22 February) Oleg won the DCU Open with 4/5/5. Second equal on 4 points were IM David Fitzsimons and Oisin O'Cuilleanain.
Cahit Furkan Sallan (Turkey) won the DCU Major with 5/5. In the Challengers there was a three-way tie on 4.5/5 between Jayden Amrolan (born 2013) and Oliver Dunne (both IRL) and Alexandros Sykaras (Greece).
The ICU website now has full details of the National Club Championships which will be held at Colaiste Eanna, DUblin, on the final weekend in April.
The extended Sligo chess and culture festival was held in Enniscrone earlier this month, with a weekender over the bank holiday followed by a 9-round FIDE-rated Open.
The top seed, Austrian GM Felix Blohberger, won the main event with seven and a half points, conceding just three draws. There were 40 competitors of very mixed strength but including several titled players.
Clear runner-up on 7 points out of nine was Irish FM Adam Collins (including a draw with Blohberger). This was an excellent result for the young player. Two foreign IMs were joint third on 6.5, namely Alexander Krastev (Germany) and Emil Risteski (North Macedonia).
The Master section on the opening weekend finished in a four-way tie on 4/5 between CM Jacob Flynn, FM Shane Melaugh, Yannick Woods and Oisin O'Cuilleanain. There were also numerous subsidiary events.
The next event on the Irish calendar is the Irish Intervarsity Championship this coming Saturday (28 February). The next weekend congress will be in Cavan over just two days (7-8 March). An Easter Festival at the Talbot Hotel from 2-6 April is provisionally scheduled but there are no details as yet. Apparently there will not be a Galway congress this year.
Three Irish teams have been entered for the World Senior Team Championships in Durres, Albania, in late April. You can see the names of the declared players if you go to the link to chess-results from our Seniors news page but changes to teams can be made up to the last minute. As it stands, one of our 65+ players will have to play on the "junior" (50+) team unless another eligible player enters late. Contact Gerry MacElligott if you are interested in being a member of either squad.
Details of the European Senior Team Championships, to be held in Crete in late August and early September, have just been released and can be found on our Seniors calendar page. So again please contact Gerry if you are interested. We hope it will be possible to at least send a 50+ team and one 65+ team to that competition also.
The annual Gonzaga College charity festival in Dublin was played from 16-18 January. So far as we aware all the overseas competitors were actually people currently working or studying in Ireland and who have been frequent players in Irish events in recent months.
Egyptian WGM Wook Shrafa was the early leader with 3/3 but she lost both her games on Sunday and was overtaken by Oleg Artemenko who had been held to a draw in round one by fast-improving Ukrainian teenager, WFM Maryna Petrenko. Artemeno won his other four games.
Joint second on 4/5 were three Irish players: Oisin O Cuilleanain, FM Shane Melaugh and Darun Govindaraju.
The second section, styled the Championship, ended in a tie on 5/6 between Vivian Verlekaar and Dutch player David Kiszkiel. Shane Corry won the Major with 5.5/6 and Aarvi Bharadwaj won the Challengers, also with five and half points.
The usual New Year Festival organised by the Irish Chess Union took place from 1-4 January at the Talbot Hotel, Stillorgan, featuring many tournaments including the traditional senior championships (50+ and 65+) about which we reported on our Irish seniors page.
The Open tournament, which had 46 competitors, ended in a three-way tie on 5.5/7 between Andrey Ivanov, Shane Melaugh and Pratik Mulay (India).
The festival concluded with a blitz tournament which was won by Uzbek FM Oleg Artemenko (9/11) ahead of IM Andrei Rakhmangulov (Ukraine) 8.5 and Hungarian GM Attila Czebe 8pts. There were 47 competitors.
There were also the Leinster Junior Championships and a 20-player round-robin IM Norm tournament. That was won by an English FM with 6/9 but I don't know whether this was a norm score. The leading Irish scorers achieved 5 points.
The ICU calendar is also now showing provisional dates but no further details for several other tournaments later this year including the 2026 Irish Championships, which are likely to be from 1-9 August, perhaps in Dublin. This means yet again a clash with the British Championships.
If you are over 50 years old, please check out our Irish Seniors page and other information services for older players.
If you are involved in organisation, please also read our page for chess arbiters. We are aware the page is somewhat out of date and intend to update it eventually.
For further information on Irish chess, including ratings, how to join, a tournament calendar and a list of officials, please see the Irish Chess Union website.
IRLchess: Sean Coffey's Irish chess history and news site
Chess discussions on boards.ie (not very active)