The Kilkenny Congress, one of the monuments of Irish chess, took place over the final weekend of November. Numbers playing were definitely up on the recent past, but was it a record-breaking renewal? The news item at the ICU website claimed “it was a record event with over 230 players playing” while the express report there went for the more conservative take that Kilkenny 2015 had “one of the largest entries in each section for many years. A total of 234 players turned up to compete for the 4 titles at stake.” Over at Boards sinbad68 queried the organisers’ arithmetic by listing the players actually competing in each section:
Masters 28 players Major 60 players James Mason 53 players Challengers 86 players
That makes a total of 227, not 234, as we also reported over at our updated Kilkenny page. This is still a very impressive figure, but how does it compare with the historical record? The Kilkenny Congress has been going since 1977. In its early years numbers fluctuated with the 148 competing in 1980 probably the best attendance until the 1990s, when numbers rapidly went up:
1990 110 players 1991 138 players 1992 170 players
In 1993 the Congress took a further leap forward both in quantity and quality. Over 230 competed in the Congress, with Alexander Baburin winning the Masters and British champion Michael Hennigan having to settle for a share of fifth place. I don’t have the figures for all the years in the 1990s so I can’t say whether the 1993 total number was exceeded, but the stats from 1999 show just how strong Kilkenny had become:
1999 Kilkenny Masters leading scores: 1=2. GM Bogdan Lalic, GM Julian Hodgson 5.0 3=5. GM Mark Hebden, GM Jan Timman, FM Paul Delaney 4.5 6=8. GM Michael Adams, GM Alexander Baburin, Uri Rochev 4.0 (221 in the Congress overall)
We can, however, provide the overall number competing in every year of the new Millennium. Looking at the figures, they make an interesting comparison with how the Irish economy was performing. From probably the ultimate record-breaking year of 2002 to the crash and burn of 2009 and finally to 2015, not a record-breaker but definitely going in the same direction as the economic indicators:
2000 199 players 2001 223 players 2002 251 players 2003 238 players 2004 230 players 2005 201 players 2006 210 players 2007 208 players 2008 214 players 2009 162 players 2010 189 players 2011 205 players 2012 194 players 2013 195 players 2014 199 players 2015 227 players
Irish Chess History 