Bits and Bobs

I didn't put up the result from the Elm Mount game, so I'll do that now. 7-1 is not a nice scoreline to be on the end of, here's the scorecard:

We also held a blitz last night. The bad weather may have been the reason for the low turnout, but it was still good fun. Results of the round robin were as follows:

Look out for the LCU Christmas Blitz coming up in a couple of weeks, you can find details on the ICU website and I'll mention it on here again closer the time.

Next post will probably be after the big Kilkenny match, hopefully we'll have some good news.

Stephen

Tournament Tomorrow

We'll be having a blitz tournament tomorrow to get in practice for the upcoming Leinster Chess Union Christmas Blitz in a couple of weeks. Come down if you fancy sharpening up, it's always good fun :)
See you then,
Stephen

Looking to Improve?

Tactics tactics tactics. That's all you need. If you get your tactical sharpness up, you spot opportunities to go for the kill a lot quicker, and patterns that crop up time and again on the board will become easy to see. Chess Emrald is a particularly good site for training yourself in tactics. You create an account so it can track your progess with a rating, then you do a few problems. It quickly gets to understand your standard, and so gives you problems that will just about challenge you. You really do notice your standard getting better and I really can't overstate how handy the site is.

Here's one to get you started, it's a little tricky ;) White to play and checkmate in 2 moves:

Also, club night tomorrow night at 7 as usual. Check the sidebar ==> for directions.
See you there,
Stephen.

DU -v- Rathmines B

In the Armstrong, we got our second win of the season on Monday night against a good Rathmines B team.

Myself and John had nice wins, Alan and Fabian (super-sub!) had VERY nice wins. Overall, our bottom boards did well against higher rated opposition again which is great to see.

Next Tuesday the club will be back on after reading week. We'll be doing analysis that night. So if you've played a game recently in the leagues for one of our teams, or at home or online or anywhere else, I encourage you to bring it to the club and one of the more experienced players will have a look through it with you. I cannot stress enough how important this is for the player who is looking to improve. Analysing your own games shows you the strengths and flaws in your thinking processes and shows up any blind spots you might have.

If you don't have any games, you can still come down and play as normal, or even sit in on an analysis session for a few tips.

Final random piece of info: this page has been viewed once from Malaysia...just thought that was interesting :)

Till next week,
Stephen.

Blitz!

We held a blitz tournament on Thursday night in the club. Due to the club night being moved, numbers were down, but I think everyone enjoyed the round robin style this allowed us to play. This is how it finished:

The David versus Goliath prize (just pride I'm afraid) goes to Charles for his win over John. Very impressive all round tournament from Charles.

There won't be a club night on next week due to it being reading week for most people, and it'll be back to Tuesday nights from then on. I'll look at having another blitz the week we get back, or maybe the week after.
See you in a couple of weeks,
Stephen