XII CHESS OLYMPIAD

The 12^th Braille chess Olympiad was held from the 3^rd Nov. to the 11^th in Tarragona Spain. 33 teams took part including Ireland. The format of the event was nine round team Swiss played over 4 boards with board points deciding the order.

The Irish Team consisted of: 1. Philip Doyle 2. Michael Delaney. 3. Ernie McElroy 4. Eamonn Casey 5. Joe McAloon, with a support team of John Crowley, Kieran English, Noreen Cleary and Rose McAloon. The extra player allowed us the luxury of resting someone every round, which proved very useful over such a long event.

What follows is a day-by-day look at the Irish teams performance, which I hope captures some of the flavour of a very enjoyable event.

the Irish Group enjoying a spot of Dinner

Day 1, 2^nd Nov.: 

We arrived in Tarragona just after nightfall. The venue for the event was the

Palas Pineda Hotel. While we all felt the 4 star rating was perhaps over stated it was comfortable and rooms on the ground floor was a real bonus. 

The town itself was a nice seaside resort, which was very quiet in the off-season (the term ghost town perhaps coming to mind!); certainly there were few distractions from chess here!  The weather was good for the event with only one rainy day and a walk along the beach was often the best preparation before a round. I think Joe was the only one that braved the sea.

Day 2, 3^rd Nov. Round 1

Our days started with breakfast at 9. All the meals were buffet style, which once you got used to was fine if a little bland after 10 or so days. 

At 10 Ernie and myself attended the captain’s meeting this was fairly brief really just a reminder of the rules, we did however find out there were 33 teams and not 34 (it was unclear who was missing), so the dreaded spectre of a bye would hang over our heads for the entire event. Ireland was seeded 26^th (actually 25-33 as we had no rated players).   

The first round started at 3:30 this would be changed to 3 for the rest of the event. We knew that our first match would be tough with our low seeding and we were drawn with 10^th seeds Lithuania. 

Ireland v Lithuania

Philip on board one faced a 2280 and never really got going. A move order mistake was punished and while at the end Philip blundered his position was already losing. Michael on 2 was a similar story with his opponent understanding the King’s Indian style position better. Eamonn on board 4 also lost but gave an excellent account of himself, unfortunately rejecting a sequence he had seen which would have left him well placed to win the game. After that it was downhill. So it was left to Ernie to get us on the board with a hard-fought draw. Ernie and myself both felt his opponent should have won the game but the analysis afterwards proved it was not so clear.

1	Philip Doyle	0 - 1	Boris Rositsan
2	Michael Delaney	0 - 1	Anatolij Kuvsinov
3	Ernie McElroy	½ - ½	Gediminas Rutkauskas
4	Eamonn Casey	0 - 1	Romas Pakalniskis

 The early leaders in the event were Romania, France and Kazakhstan all starting with 4 nil wins.

Day 3, 4^th Nov. Round 2

Today we had Slovakia another team with a strong board one and the rest were certainly no mugs.

A totally unacceptable level of noise marred the end of this round. The playing room was a large hall that unfortunately was also where people accessed some of the hotel facilities such as the swimming pool. A steady stream of older French and Spanish ladies walked through the playing room oblivious to the fact a chess tournament was going on. The organisers seemed unable to do a lot about this, some signage hardly seemed like rocket science!    

Once again Philip was up against it (this time his opponent was 2321). He played much better today however, being at least equal for most of the game, but missed his opponent’s clever plan at the end, which led to a winning attack.  Michael also had a much-improved performance playing very well to draw a difficult rook and pawn ending. Ernie’s game was wild.  He made a big error in the middle game but his opponent totally lost his head in the complications and was overwhelmed. Joe never really got going in his game and needed to shake off the rust of inactivity to get himself into the event. Overall it was a good result. 

Ireland v Slovakia 

1	Philip Doyle	0 - 1	Ivan Novak
2	Michael Delaney	½ - ½	Vladimir Orvisky
3	Ernie McElroy	1 - 0	Stanislav Skultety
4	Joe McAloon	0 - 1	Imrich Kovac

 Romania now leads the way with 7.5 from Spain on 6.5 with a large group on 6.0 

Day 4, 5^th Nov. Round 3 

Today we played South Africa. The same score as yesterday but not an equal performance this was a match we should have won.  

Philip got himself on the scoreboard with a solid performance in a long game. Michael obtained a big edge early on, perhaps missing the killer blow, but his opponent later blundered, giving him his first win of the event. Eamonn and Joe both made big errors in superior positions so a possible 3½ turned into 1½  

Ireland v South Africa 

1	Philip Doyle	½ -½	Johan Grove
2	Michael Delaney	1 - 0	Lucas Melvin
3	Eamonn Casey	0 - 1	Cleenners Cyster
4	Joe McAloon	0 - 1	Gregory De Jager

Day 5, 6^th Nov. Round 4

Ireland v Greece

Today was a very good day, the luck that deserted us on board 3 and 4 yesterday returned for our match against Greece.  Philip got his first win; he was always in control and delivered the full point in a well-played ending.  Michael’s game was a steady draw. Ernie’s on the other hand was far from steady, a blunder in the opening left him just a piece down but Ernie just kept playing and was rewarded with his opponents blunder under pressure. A revamped Joe played with great energy and concluded his game with a nice mating attack. 

1	Philip Doyle	1 - 0	Cristos Papadopoulos
2	Michael Delaney	½ -½	Filippos Boudalakis
3	Ernie McElroy	1 - 0	Ioannis Syromachus
4	Joe McAloon	1 - 0	Dimitros Dovas

Day 6, 7^th Nov. Round 5

Ireland v Finland

While the Finns only had 2 rated players we knew from the past that they had a tough team. Mr. Wikman on one had not lost to this point and proved just too strong on the day. Ernie once again saved the whitewash with a tight game that went the distance. Eamonn gave us all a scare by feeling unwell during the game but he decided to play on. I think his position got worse after this so the result was not a surprise. Joe was doing well but unfortunately lost on time.  

1	Philip Doyle	0 - 1	Bengt Wikman
2	Ernie McElroy	½ -½	Ari Tonteri
3	Eamonn Casey	0 - 1	Kari Holmela
4	Joe McAloon	0 - 1	Makela Reijo

Day 7, 8^th Nov. Round 6

Ireland v Austria

I had actually already got to know the Austrian coach a nice man with a very dry sense of humour. He kept assuring me their board 2 would blunder so I waited to see. Michael had his go on board one and played well getting a strong position before agreeing a draw, perhaps he could have played on but he was facing a strong opponent. Ernie made a mistake in the opening and dropped a pawn. However his opponent began to lose his way and Ernie went from bad to being clearly better before the promised blunder arrived! We were just over matched on 3 and 4 but 1½ point was a good result for us especially with Philip rested.  

1	Michael Delaney	½ -½	Hartmut Kauzky
2	Ernie McElroy	1 - 0	Arnold Gerold
3	Eamonn Casey	0 - 1	Johann Pasteiner
4	Joe McAloon	0 - 1	Gerhard Zipko

Day 8, 9^th Nov. Round 7

Ireland v Peru

It was decided that we needed a big result today to avoid the bye. Peru only had 3 players so we fielded our top 3 against them.

Philip won well a game he always looked better in, his opponent playing on to nearly mate. Michael’s opponent seemed unaware of the clock, letting his flag fall with a lot of moves still to make. The position was about equal. Ernie’s opponent provided some humour by behaving in a very erratic way. He kept moving the clock much to Ernie’s annoyance and when Ernie took his queen he tried to take one of his own pieces with his own pawn. Thankfully when this was explained to him he resigned. This result meant we would now avoid the bye altogether. 

1	Philip Doyle	1 - 0	Marcos Segura
2	Michael Delaney	1 - 0	Rodolfo Aguilar
3	Ernie McElroy	1 - 0	Salazar Antonio
4	Eamonn Casey	1 - 0	Bye

 Day 9, 10^th Nov. Round 8

Ireland v India

This was a hard fought match between two evenly matched teams. One and two were close draws with Michael missing a good chance for the full point. Ernie won a pawn early on and ground down his opponent. Joe had a wonderful position at one point but sadly blundered a piece late on.  

1	Philip Doyle	½ -½	Ganrav Godida
2	Michael Delaney	½ -½	Patil Shirish
3	Ernie McElroy	1 - 0	Jadhav Charudatta
4	Joe McAloon	0 - 1	Shah Swapnil

Day 10, 11^th Nov. Rest Day

A trip to Roman Tarragona was arranged and we all attended. It was a lovely day and we enjoyed a bit of history to break up the chess! Our lady guide’s English was not the greatest and she seemed to take a long time telling us about stone!

After this Eamonn had the pleasure of attended the IBCA congress a very long drawn out affair by all accounts.

Day 11, 12^th Nov. Round 9

Ireland v Colombia

In some ways this was a slightly disappointing way to finish, we had been above our seeding for most of the event but losing the last match dropped us back down. The top two Colombians looked good players and we can have no complaints about the results. Julie from the English team had told me Ernie was in the running for a medal, so we had fingers crossed. Ernie didn’t let us down getting his sixth victory of the event to score 7 out of 8 a wonderful performance.  Eamonn fought back well in his game, but his resistance was finally over come as he got into time difficulties.  

Michael Delaney v Rodrigo Rusinke (Columbia)

1	Philip Doyle	0 - 1	Saulo Torres
2	Michael Delaney	0 - 1	Rodrigo Rusinke
3	Ernie McElroy	1 - 0	Fernando Daza
4	Eamonn Casey	0 - 1	Jaime Rodriguez

The event was won by Poland on tiebreak from Russia, with these teams leading the way for nearly the entire event. Ireland finished in a tie for 25^th, which I feel didn’t reflect how well we played. The prize giving was well done and brief compared to the congress! Ernie had won the bronze medal on board 3, which is the first medal in Braille chess an Irish player has ever received. It gave us all great pleasure to see Ernie get his medal and to see the massive grin he sported through out! We departed the next morning with perhaps a few sore heads but a feeling the team had performed well.  

Ernie McElroy with myself and his medal

Kieran English