Courtesy of Fearghal O’Boyle and Diarmuid Reddan, we had a very high-quality invitational Swiss Teams challenge featuring the top Irish players and an overseas guest or two on BBO on Sunday 3 May.
The quality of the field is demonstrated by the fact that it boasted more than twenty grandmasters and every single player had either played in national trials and/or won a national championship event.
The winners were Team Moran, the current Irish Open Team consisting of Mark Moran, John Carroll, Tom Hanlon, Hugh McGann, Adam Mesbur & Nick FitzGibbon, who won all five of their matches and beat Louise Mitchell, Derek O’Gorman, Dan McIntosh & Tommy Garvey into second place.
It is hoped to make this virtual event a regular monthly feature of the lockdown calendar, and Fearghal is also promising us a virtual Sligo Congress from 7-9 June, including all the usual competitions – Mixed Pairs, Gala Pairs, Congress Pairs, Intermediate A Pairs, Intermediate B Pairs, Novice Pairs, and Congress Teams. While the participants will miss the traditional warm Sligo welcome, as long as the organisers can supply the usual generous array of sweets, and the sausages and sandwiches on the Saturday evening, we are sure the turnout will be as big as ever!