Irish Championship 1968 | IRLchess

The first Irish championship held under the newly introduced rules discussed in the last post was the 1968 event, held in Dixon Hall in Trinity College, Dublin.

The field of 21 included the defending champion Wolfgang Heidenfeld, previous champion and perennial contender Brian Reilly, additional selected member of the Olympiad team Ken O’Riordan, and the newly crowned Ulster champion Matt O’Leary. There was also a large cohort of 11 players making their Irish championship débuts, including Ray Byrne, Paul Cassidy, Oisín Ó Siochrú; four members of the team selected for the Glorney Cup team, Peter O’Kane and David C. Wilson of Belfast, and Edward W. (“Teddy”) Lewis and F. Ballance of Dublin; and two more strong juniors, David Cox of Dublin and Tom Ireton of Cork.

However, several strong potential contenders were absent, including the 1966 champion John Moles, the 1965 champion Michael Littleton, and, from the previous Olympiad team, Ray Cassidy and Eamon Keogh. In the Cork Examiner, “The Knight” thought that the championship, “though decidedly weak at the top, was certainly not so in the middle of the field” (July 22, 1968).

In the event, Heidenfeld was on form, and recorded emphatic wins against Frank Doyle of London, Byrne, Eugene O’Hare, Reilly, and Wilson to reach 5½/6, having conceded only a short draw against Paul Cassidy. However, this was sufficient only for the joint lead, as Cassidy had also won all his other games. Newspaper reports indicate that he had enjoyed a slice of luck against Wilson in round 5, when the latter resigned in a level position.

In round 7, Cassidy was held to a draw by Peter O’Kane, while Heidenfeld won again, against Cox O’Riordan, so that Heidenfeld led by half a point.

In round 8, fortunes were reversed, and Heidenfeld was held to a draw by Cox, while Cassidy won against Edward W. Lewis, so the two were tied again.

In the final round, Heidenfeld beat O’Kane, while Cassidy lost to Cox, giving Heidenfeld his fifth title, and Cassidy clear second place, one point behind. Ray Byrne and David Cox shared third and fourth, a further half point back.

Though it doesn’t seem to have been remarked on at the time, under the system prior to the changes introduced earlier in the year, i.e., eight rounds with ties broken by “sum of opponents’ scores”, Cassidy would have won narrowly on tie-break, assuming all other results stayed the same.

Three games survive. One, Byrne’s emphatic win against O’Leary from round 3, is missing from the ICU games archive, and possibly from all databases, as of the date of this post. The other two, Heidenfeld’s wins against Byrne and Reilly, were published in BCM and Informator respectively, and later analysed in detail by Heidenfeld in Lacking the Master Touch (South African Chessplayer, 1970).

A full tournament report has been added here. J. J. Walsh has very kindly lent me his copy of Lacking the Master Touch, inscribed with a dedication by Heidenfeld, for which many thanks, and copies of the relevant pages are included in the report.

Here is one crucial moment, discussed in detail by Heidenfeld.

Reilly – Heidenfeld, Irish Championship 1968
28. ?

In the diagrammed position, Heidenfeld has just played 27… Nf3 (from d4). How should White respond, and how does the game stand? (See playable game for further discussion.)

[Click to replay the full game.]