I'm posting this on behalf of Igor Martynov who is having some system issues posting on the forum.
http://www.visitballyliffin.com/
The sun, rain and rainbow - at the same time
The staff of the hotel was very pleasant. In the mornings when I ran for the morning gymnastics to the coast they always welcomed me, during the day they were interested in my progress and were always ready to help if there were any problems. One morning after my jogging they asked me:
- "How are you?"
- "I’m fine." I said. "I wanted to swim, but I could get in only to my knees and went back."
- "And why?"
- "The water was cold."
- "John!" she addressed to her colleague, "Somebody says that the water is cold here. Is it true?"
- "No, it‘s not cold at all."
John answered and grinned. (It was the end of October.)
When once suddenly my glasses jumped out of my pocket and from the first attempt got precisely into a gap between the elevator and the floor (you will try many times and will never get it so accurately!), they promised me to call a special service and then to send the glasses by mail. I thanked them and refused – the glasses were not worth it. However I asked them to find them during the annual control and to keep them – it might be a good reason to come back here again! They offered me a choice of any glasses from a big collection previously forgotten by their customers once.
Right after our match there started the main Checkers event in Ireland —
the Irish Open, which was also the final 8th stage of
the European Cup 2016. The competition was held in 3 groups: masters, intermediate and seniors. In addition to their own Irish players the participants from neighboring England and Scotland arrived as well as me from Germany. Earlier in different years many famous people participated in the Irish Open: Alex Moiseyev from US, Ron King from Barbados, the Italian Sergio Scarpetta and the big family Durdyev from Turkmenistan.
In the first round of the masters tournament a lot joined us with
Shane McCosker again and we continued our dispute. Our combat reached its culmination:
«the blood spilled» again, unfortunately it was mine. In our first game in a complicated position Shane understood better than me and with a series of tactical threats moved it into the winning endgame which I didn't begin to play, to keep more time for the next game.
And here the miracles have begun! In our second game we both made very strange blunders. Apparently to some extent fatigue and stress affected after our match. In the opening
Shane sacrificed a man but his position had an adequate compensation. Then my rival chose a wrong plan but in the heat of battle both of us
(!) did not notice that the second man was sacrificed as well. When a peace agreement followed, on my proposal
, we both
(!) were confident that the game was equal. Only when the surprised spectators asked us (they knew how to count the number of pieces!), why it was a draw,
Shane with surprise and I with horror found out that I had one extra man more and a technical win didn't represent any particular complexity. Such a tragicomic incident happened for the first time in my whole practice and at Shane's too. It was an amazing case of mutual blunders!
However, in nature everything is balanced — sometimes you lose and sometimes you win — and what I didn't get in the first round I found in the second against
Paddy Doyle (and even more) where in the course of our play I could lose both games but at the end I received 3 points instead of 0. Further I lost also to the Irish player Nb 2
Myles Hannigan but won all other matches and as a result I finished in the honorable 3rd place. If I spent all my power in the match and in the tournament I was often mistaken,
Shane was warmed up very well and he confidently won the Irish Open, beating all his rivals. At the same time he won the European Cup 2016 in the overall standings as well.
Bravo!!! As befits his rank
Myles Hannigan got the 2nd place. The only woman ex-World female champion
Patricia Breen played pretty well in the masters tournament and took the respectable 9th place. By the way, all results and crosstables can be found on my site
http://home.arcor.de/checkers64/.
It is a surprising tradition in Ireland in their tournaments in the Swiss system to hold a so-called "re-pairing" in the last round, when the players are forcibly coupled regardless of whether they have already played each other or not - first with second, third with fourth etc. In my opinion, it is a decision, which may be correct only for the definition of the first and last places. For the other prize places it can have fatal consequences. For the Irish, the most important is – to establish the strongest. However, in this tournament the re-pairing had no effect on the distribution of the top 3 prizes and they remained in their places.
The president of the Irish Draughts Federation,
Joe McGuire, told me about the history of Checkers in Ireland. The game was extremely widespread here since the early 18th century. It was played everywhere — on streets, in pubs, in theaters. The game acquired a special popularity at the beginning of the 20th century thanks to
George Flaming — the owner of cinemas and theaters, the patron and great fan of Checkers. He did a lot for the development and promotion of this game. After the brutal suppression of the Irish revolt against England in 1916 there were many crises including, alas, in Checkers. The game endures its
Renaissance since 1970 when in Dublin alone there were thousands of active players and competitions were held even in 4 leagues. Sadly, a steady decline in interest in the game can be seen from 1995 up to today. Unfortunately, the youth prefers hunting Pokemons to playing Checkers.
At the closing awarding ceremony I received two crystal cups for the match and for the 3rd place. They are the most beautiful in my collection of sports trophies I have ever had and they decorate my room now, pleasing the eyes and warming the soul.
Bill Dobbins made donations to the participants of the match and, together with prize money for the Irish Open, I got back all my travel expenses. I also made a speech, thanked the hosts for the warm welcome, talked a little about Russian draughts, expressed a confidence that in a couple of years
Shane will still play the match for the World title and our match was helpful for him. In my opinion, Shane is the only player in Europe who can really resist the domination of Italians in English-American Checkers.
Shane McCosker - the winner of Irish Open 2016 and the European Cup 2016
Final photo
My return flight Dusseldorf — Dublin was next day in the morning. In the evening, I was driven up to the nearby city of Derry lying in another country — the UK, where casually dressed and decorated young people loudly and cheerfully celebrated
Halloween. From there I took the night bus to the airport. Tired but satisfied I came back home but after a few days I had already the next trip. Together with my wife we visited our old friend
Michel in Paris. A Russian proverb says:
«Have not 100 rubles — have 100 friends!». However, that is already quite another story.
The same report in Russian you can find on the site of
Ivan Trofimov:
http://64-100.com/chekers-match-za-1-ev ... ughts-club
.
Our hotel
I am - on the right
Typical Irish-British breakfast
Shane McCosker and Checkers fans
The northernst point of Ireland
The exciting game
Look at the checkersboard with drawers!
