Flanagan wins Belfast South tournament
Flanagan, Murphy and Morrison with prizes at the South Belfast
The first Belfast South tournament kicked off on 22nd October last year and has been running more or less every Monday evening since then; a total of 19 weeks competition - with a break at Christmas. Organised as a Flexible Tournament, Neil Green presided over board assignments providing well-balanced competition.
Chris Armstrong, was on good form and at the Christmas break, led the field by a good distance; almost an unassailable lead. Come the New Year the field opened up with a number of players creeping up the leader board closing the gap and eventually passing the early leader. Competition went right to the wire. Sam Flanagan finished with an excellent score of 10 from 11 games (90.9%) to take the over 1600 and overall prize, narrowly beating Cathal Murphy who finished on 90%. Both players were unbeaten and "neck and neck" after 10 games played, but Cathal, who couldn't make the last round, finished on 9 out of 10 and had to settle for the intermediate 1200-1600 prize when Flanagan won his final round game. Apart from Ray Devenney (who only played 3 games) Sam was top seed throughout his games, while Cathal had beaten higher rated opposition throughout the tournament including double wins against Bernard Jaffa and Chris Armstrong and other victories against John Bryars and Martin Kelly.
Philip Morrison took the under 1200 prize with a final score of 5 from 12 games - a respectable 41.6%.
Senior: Sam Flanagan
Intermediate: CJ Murphy
Junior: Philip Morrison
Full competition results are available via the Results Service
Much appreciation goes out to Neil Green for an excellent tournament with over 30 players taking part. Another similar format is scheduled to take place in the Autumn. In the meantime, the club will continue to offer competitive, friendly chess in a similar format every Monday night from 8th April until the Summer Tournament starts up in May.
