The Mulcahy 2017 tournament was held last weekend from the 6th to 8th January at the Metropole Hotel here in Cork. There was a large entry and I think it's fair to say it was a big success and great credit must go to Pat Twomey for organizing this. You can read his report on the ICU website. I enjoy playing in this tournament as the rooms we're in are nice and compact - it creates a good atmosphere.
They place a particular emphasis on having young people play - they give a medal for junior players under 16. Which sounds grand until you start getting beaten by them! What about us adult cannon fodder Pat. Where's our medals!
I didn't have a great tournament - I finished with 50% but lost rating points. I've put my games from the tournament up here - I had a travelling bye in the first round. My results were all over the place. I won a game where my opponent missed a tactic to win my bishop. I lost a game I possibly could have drawn and also lost a game where I was better at one stage. It all evens out I suppose.
I had two engrossing endgames on the last day. I won the first one but lost in my last game of the tournament. It's really dispiriting to do it that way around as I walked away on a loss. If I'd lost the first game but won the second, I'd have felt not too bad as I would have retrieved something from the day.
I'm trying to compare it to my first entry in this tournament two years ago to see if I've made any progress in the intervening two years. Going on results, I'd be hard pressed to say so! I did have a better idea of what I was doing in the games - especially with black - but this time I made a few more blunders. The previous occasion I was able to draw a few more games. I wonder if playing with a rating affected me - last time I was unrated so I didn't have any expectations before the games of what the result should be. I'll have another chance to compare progress in a couple of months at the Cork Congress. I had bad tournament last time dropping over 100 points so surely I can't do as bad again!
The overall winner was Alex Lopez who I follow on his Youtube channel. The ratings are out for the tournament as it's crazy the level he must perform to. He gets 0 points for beating 1700 players and only gets 1 for beating 2000 rated players. If I beat one 1700 player I'd consider the tournament a great success!
→ posted on January 15, 2017chess