17th March, 2003

TOP o' the mornin' to you! And with today being St. Patrick's Day, I
thought this would be an ideal opportunity to look at one of two
international tournaments held in Ireland, the Bunratty Congress.

Bunratty is situated near Limerick in the west of Ireland (some 200km
from Dublin), and each year enjoys a "friendly" chess rivalry with
Kilkenny for the title of Ireland's top tournament. A mere ten years
ago, the thought of a grandmaster visiting Ireland to play in a
weekender was unheard of. Ireland's top players had to pack their bags
and travel to foreign lands to get the opportunity to play titled
players. Now things have changed - the Kilkenny Congress and the
Bunratty Chess Festival regularly provide this opportunity to Ireland's
elite.

This year the Bunratty Congress, held 21-23 February at the Fitzpatrick
Hotel in the shadows of Bunratty Castle, set a record for chess
tournaments in the Emerald Isles - with 317 players competing in four
different sections. While most of the field was Irish, there were
visitors from the UK, Netherlands, Spain, Slovakia, U.S. and Austria.

Three GMs headed the pack in the Masters Section: Dr John Nunn, former
British Champion and multi-Olympiad gold medallist; Three-time US
Champion Joel Benjamin, and Irish No.1 Alexander Baburin, originally
from Russia. In a tense struggle, the Masters ended in a five-way tie
on 4.5/6 between IM Brian Kelly, GM John Nunn, Dr Yuri Rochev, GM
Alexander Baburin and Lorin D'Costa, each receiving 350 euros.

The Irish eyes were smiling as last year's winner, Brian Kelly, defeated
top seed John Nunn in convincing style in round four and looked set to
retain his title. Unfortunately the luck of the Irish ran out, as Nunn
got his revenge in the five-way blitz playoff to win the title and the
Tipperary Crystal trophy.

B Kelly-J Nunn
Bunratty Masters, (4)
English Opening
1 c4 g6 2 Nc3 Bg7 3 g3 Nf6 4 Bg2 0-0 5 Nf3 d6 6 0-0 Nc6 7 d3 a6 8 Rb1 b5
9 Ne5 dxe5 10 Bxc6 Rb8 11 cxb5 axb5 12 b4 Bh3 13 Re1 Qd6 14 Bf3 c5 15 a4
bxa4 16 b5 Rfc8 17 Qxa4 c4 18 dxc4 Qd4 19 Nd5 e4 20 Nxe7+ Kh8 21 Nxc8
exf3 22 Qa7 Ne4 23 exf3 Qc3 24 Qe3 Rxc8 25 fxe4 Qc2 26 Ba3 Rxc4 27 b6
Bd4 28 Qe2 Bg4 29 Qxc2 Rxc2 30 Rf1 1-0

JOHN B HENDERSON