Skerries Chess Club

LCU Knockout Cup Team Competitions

William Brennan Cup 2021/22

If you hope to play in this Cup please fill out the:

♔ Cup Availability Form ♔

Skerries entered a team in the William Brennan Cup following our second place in the Hibernian Online Chess League. The groups are: Group A - Finglas, Skerries, Phibsboro, Drumlish; Group B - Bray/Greystones, Balbriggan, Knights of Éanna, Elm Mount. The top two in each group will qualify for the semi-finals. The knock-out bracket is: Winner A v Runner-up B (winner to host the final); Winner B v Runner-up A. The fixtures can be viewed on the LCU website: William Brennan Cup - Group A.

The time control is 75 mins + 30 secs/move increment. Games are played over the board and moves must be recorded. Teams are of six players and scoring is based on game points: 1 for a win, 1/2 for a draw, 0 for a loss. If we qualify from the group phase (11 Apr - 7 May) the semi-finals and final will follow 2 - 4 weeks later. While some team rotation may occur our priority is first to qualify so where necessary we will field our strongest team, based on Skerries and ICU ratings. The team may include the following: Andrew, Joe, John, Krishiv, Mark, Mary, Owen, Shane, Tom. Others have expressed an interest but have not yet rejoined or been revetted.

2019/20, 2020/21

None of the LCU Cups were held, due to COVID.

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Killane Shield and William Brennan Cups 2018/19

KillaneTeam2019

William Brennan and Killane Shield teams in final round Tom O'Neill of Dún Laoghaire (left) facing Dan Aldridge of Skerries, Nikolai Dimitrov behind Dan.

The Killane Shield and William Brennan Cup were combined into a five team round robin event due to only two entries for the Killane (Skerries and St. Benildus) and three for the Willie Brennan (Bray, Dublin and Dun Laoghaire). Round 1 was in the Talbot Hotel, Stillorgan on June 9th with the 5th and final round on 30th in Buswell's Hotel in Dublin. In the end Bray topped the group thus winning the Willie Brennan while Skerries won the Killane on tiebreak after a poor start. Going into round 4 we were 5 points behind St. Benildus so we needed a big win against them in our head-to-head. We won 4.5 - 1.5 leaving us 2 points behind them. In the final round Dun Laoghaire could only field 3 players against us thus giving us 3 points to start with. Then Dan and John won quickly leaving Nikolai stuggling. Benildus had conceded one walkover, as they did against us in round 4 but won 3 games with two left to play. They drew one and finally Nikolai won a close game. This left Ronan Sweeney trying to win on board 1 for Benildus to win the cup. He won a pawn but with only 2 minutes left on the clock he agreed a draw handing us the cup on tiebreak. So we finished on equal points but won on tiebreak due to our victory in our head to head in round 4. Our success was doubly sweet as we ended up narrowly as runners up to Elm Mount the last time the Killane was run in 2017 - see below. At the LCU AGM in July it was agreed that Bray and Skerries be considered joint winners of the Killane shield due to Bray topping the group as described above.

A major factor in Skerries winning the Killane was the way the players made themselves available and we managed to field a full team of six players from a large panel for four games in 21 days, organised by captain Dermot Murphy and assistant captain John Loughran. Thus credit is due to all those listed below the photo, some of whom won by default or were not needed but crucially made themselves available.

KillaneTeam2019

Winning Killane Team 2019: Standing(L to R) Nikolai Dimitrov, Joe Dunne, Dan Aldridge, Brendan Morrissey, Mark Allidine; Kneeling(L to R) John Loughran, Enda Joyce, David Llewellyn; Inset Dermot Murphy (captain), Marco and Aliseo Mancosu. Not pictured: Owen Johnston, Paschal O'Shea.

John collated the results and wrote an article on the ICU website as well as a full report with links to complete results of all games.

2017/18

None of the LCU Cups were held.

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Killane Shield 2016/17

Skerries entered a team in the Killane Shield which is a knockout cup competition with an initial group phase. Section A group phase was a 4 team round robin in which we came second to Elm Mount. We qualified to play the winners of Group A, Rathmines. We drew this match 3 - 3 winning on tie break on board count. We narrowly lost the final to Elm Mount as shown below. (We had entered the Killane a few years previously but had never got beyond the group stages).

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William Brennan Cup 2012/13

Teams are of six plus subs, open to adults and juniors. In the Willie Brennan Cup only players rated less than 1500 in the January ICU rating list or players unrated by the ICU are eligible to play. Home matches are on Tuesday nights at 7:30 pm and away matches are on the club day or night of the home team. The group phase is around 4 rounds in total with the group winner and best runners up qualifying for the semifinals and final. The default time control is 1 hour and 45 minutes each for all moves so each game could last 3 1/2 hours. Clocks are used and players must record their moves.

See the LCU link for more details and a fixture list, and results when updated.

Players will be selected to play based on their ICU ratings, Skerries ratings, activity and availablilty prior to each match. It is expected quite a few of the subs from a panel of about 8 to 10 players will get a chance to play. Some team rotation might be expected to give more than 6 a chance to play.

To play in the Leinster leagues players must register with the Irish Chess Union and pay a fee. This fee is paid by the club with a contribution of about half from the player. See the Membership page for details. One benefit of ICU membership is that the games played are then rated and players` ICU ratings are published on the ICU website. See Links > ICU > Ratings.

In the 2012/13 season the fixtures were as follows. 

William Brennan Trophy

Seeding
Group A
1 Elm Mount A (Mon)
2 St Benildus A (Wed)
3 Malahide (Mon)
4 Curragh (Sat)
5 Naomh Barrog (Tues)

Seeding
Group B
1 Bray/Greystones A (Mon)
2 Drogheda (Sat)
3 Skerries (Tues)
4 Inchicore (Thurs)
5 St Benildus B (Wed)

Seeding
Group C
1 Bray/Greystones B (Mon)
2 Dun Laoghaire (Wed)
3 Rathmines (Mon/Thur)
4 Elm Mount B (Mon)

The winners of each group will go through to the Semi-Finals, along with one Runner-Up. As Group C has only 4 teams the best Runner-Up will be decided by the average points scored per game (Game Points/Games Played) with the highest average going through. 

William Brennan Trophy – Draw for Groups A & B

Round 1 - To be played between 13th – 19th May
1 v Bye
2 v 5
3 v 4

Round 2 - To be played between 20th – 26th May
4 v Bye
5 v 3
1 v 2

Round 3 - To be played between 27th – 2nd June
2 v Bye
3 v 1
4 v 5

Round 4 - To be played between 3rd – 9th June
5 v Bye
1 v 4
2 v 3

Round 5 - To be played between 10th – 17th June
3 v Bye
4 v 2
5 v 1

Draw for Group C
Round 1 – To be played between 13th – 19th May
1 v 4
2 v 3
Round 2 - To be played between 20th – 26th May
4 v 3
1 v 2
Round 3 To be played between 27thth – 2nd June
2 v 4
3 v 1

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The Team 2012/13

The Willie Brennan Cup team consisted of a selection of the following players who expressed an interest in playing, listed in order of Skerries ratings. The board order and selection depended on current ratings etc. as described above, as decided by the captain, Enda Joyce. 

Tadeusz Szczesniak	1628
Enda Joyce	        1318
Brendan Morrissey	1311
Daniel Stefan	        1286
Cathal Joyce	        1254
Alexander Unguryan	1244
Alan Joyce	        1227
Marek Szczesniak	1123
Luke Doyle	         905
Leon Grant	         760

For fixtures and results see Links > LCU > William Brennan Cup.

For latest team results see Tournaments > Calendar.

If you have any news, pictures or links to other chess sites that you would like to see added to this website please e-mail them to See Contact for more details.

©Copyright Skerries Chess Club 2012.

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