Haven't posted in a while. Since the last one, the Armstrong team has played two of the best teams in the division, Kilkenny and Phibsboro. Kilkenny was a bit of an ugly result:
Tim and James doing well being the high points on a bad day.
However we rebounded excellently with a great win against Phibsboro:
On boards 7 and 8, Jack and John were making debuts on the Armstrong team and both overcame rating gaps in great wins. On board 1 John played his usual everything-under-control game and finished with a nice combination to win the queen. Hugely satisfying result.
The Ennis team are going to have a tough second half to the season. Laurence and Anastasia finished their Erasmus so we're a couple of players down there already. On top of that they're in a relegation place at the moment too. But we're always optimistic here, they won their last game 5-1 (!) against Wicklow who are probably in more danger of going down. This should take them out of the bottom two and there's a great chance of a few more good results like that.
Finally, probable blitz tournament in a couple of weeks at the club, keep an eye on the blog for news.
See you at the club,
Stephen