Sir Patrick Moore Cup 2018

Sussex vs Ireland, Crawley, 3rd-4th February 2018

After an excellent event hosted by the Irish Chess Union in Dublin last year, it was the turn of Sussex to return the invitation.

The format this year was 4 rounds of standardplay over 16 boards, with a pizza-and-blitz tournament on the Saturday evening.

Both teams had a mix of experienced international players with some playing FIDE rated chess for the first time. For some of the older players it was a chance to renew friendships made in Dublin last year and at the Glorney-Gilbert International.

Congratulations to Ireland for a convincing win in the blitz:

• 1st – Tom O’Gorman
• 2nd – Mihailo Manojlovic
• 3rd (on tie-break) – Utkarsh Gupta

However, the long journey and late night took it’s toll on Ireland’s very young team as after scoring very well in rounds 1 and 2, they allowed Sussex to establish a lead in Round 3.

The whole event was played in excellent spirit with the players enjoying analysing their games together…so much so in fact that two players swapped team shirts in true football style!

Headline Results – full results are on Chess-results.com – A Section and B Section.

Board Prizewinners:

• Ireland: Sean Murphy
• Sussex: Dominic Miller

This type of event takes an enormous amount of organising, so huge thanks are due to:

• Debbie & Mike Forster for masterminding the whole event
• Arbiters Sue & Chris Howell
• Mahesh Gupta, head of the Irish delegation
• Balvinder Ahluwalia whose true vocation is organising catering
• Rhys Cumming & Dave Graham for post match analysis on Sunday
• Tom Borland, famous in Sussex for his ability to deliver prizegiving at short notice
• The Arora Hotel for an excellent venue & warm welcome
• Pizza Express, Crawley for allowing us exclusive use of their upstairs room and coping admirably with our myriad orders and staggered arrival times

Photos from Rounds 1 & 2

Photos from the Pizza-and-Blitz

Photos from the Rounds 3 & 4

Photos from the prizegiving

[Show slideshow]