Galway Chess Congress moved to a new venue this year, in the Loughrea Hotel and Spa, and also a slightly later date, the weekend of the 4th to 6th April. Perhaps for those reasons, entry numbers were considerably lower than last time the Congress was held, in 2023. Nevertheless, participants said that they enjoyed the tournament, and considered that the venue was at least as good as our previous one (which is no longer available). However, some expressed disappointment that they could not really go out on the town in Galway on Saturday night – though how on earth people have managed that whilst also playing in a gruelling tournament beats me!

The tournament saw a good number of twists and turns, perhaps aided by the accelerated pairing which ensured that the usual first round massacre of the innocents did not occur. By the Saturday evening there was a clear leader, with four straight wins: Hamilton Mandeya. However, in the fifth round he came up against Padraig Mac Carthaig, who early on sacrificed a piece for two pawns and the semblance of an attack; the attack soon fizzled out, but Padraig nevertheless plugged away and eventually got to an ending where his extra pawns had some prospects against Hamilton’s extra bishop. In what was now the last game remaining, Hamilton successfully blocked Padraig’s passed king-side pawns, only to watch in horror as Padraig marched his king to the queenside and created an unstoppable passed pawn there, whilst the bishop could only look on helplessly. By contrast, on board two, in the second-last game to finish, Oliver Barnes converted his better ending to join Padraig in the lead. Their game in the final round was a relatively speedy draw, which allowed them to be caught by George Fearnhead, who convincingly beat the now tiring Hamilton Mandeya, creating a triple tie for first place. By our rules the prize money was shared equally between the three of them, but the Galway Congress Shield was won, narrowly, on tie-break by Oliver Barnes, who thereby added his name to a prestigious list of winners which include Grand Masters Gawain Jones (twice), Bartosz Socko, Dorian Rogozenco, Oleg Korneev, and Alex Baburin (no less than five times).

In addition to the place prizes, there were a total of fourteen rating prizes, plus the Connaught Champion Trophy – won by George Fearnhead – and the Hugh Finan Memorial Cup (which was originally given to the highest under-1200 finisher, now converted to under-1600 after the ICU’s rating change last year) which was won by Kevin McInerney. See here for a full list of prize-winners, including photos of the delighted winners receiving their prizes, and the standings and cross-table.