Chess Club 2021/2022
This year Mrs Duffy set up a Chess Club after school for pupils in 6th class interested in learning how to play chess. New chess boards and a demonstration board were purchased by the school. Starting on Monday, 27th September the club met every Monday between 2:45pm and 3:30pm. The pupils were taught how to play chess using the tutorials set up by ficheall.ie. After the ten weeks we played a mini Swiss Tournament over three lunch breaks. Each pupil played 3 games in total with each game lasting no longer than 20 minutes. Finishing on top was Naomi with 7 points with Bia closely behind with 6 points. The winners of our Marshes vouchers for playing in the tournament went to Amy, Eva and Athi.
From January to March Chess club continued on Mondays after school and during lunchtime on Thursdays for those looking to get extra practice playing chess. Some pupils from 4th and 5th class, who could play chess, attended the club. The club helped us to practice for the school online tournament set up by ficheall.ie which took place between 1:25pm and 2:25pm on Wednesday, 9th March with a practice tournament on Wednesday, 2nd March.
Now that the club is at an end and we've played the online tournament I hope the girls continue to play chess in the future and even teach someone else how to play the game. Who knows, we may have the next Queen's Gambit star chess player in our midst!
CHESS TOURNAMENT - Lá Fichille
On Wednesday, 2nd March we played in the practice team tournament. 14 girls from the school played. They were: Beyonce Daphney-Omede, Bia Rashid, Glory Olofinyo, Nazaret Prieto-Bacho, Amy Watters, Athi Nightingale, Chloe Gartlan, Eva Keenan, Gia Flynn, Kaisa Pukkonen, Naomi Prasad, Orla McCourt, Clodagh Degan and Aoibheann Degan. This was the first online tournament for most of the girls and it wasn't until near the end of the tournament that they began to find their stride. There were 14 teams playing from around the country and we finished in 12th place with 55 points. The girls got to play numerous games over the 55 minutes and once one game was finished another game started pretty quickly. It was brilliant to see that all girls scored points. The link to the tournament can be found here: Masters Tournament - In-School Mar 2nd @1.30-2.25pm (click here) (8 leaders)
On Wednesday, 9th March between we played in the Lá Fichille tournament. 12 girls played this week (two were absent). This time 30 teams took part with 383 pupils from around the country playing. This time we finished in 17th place with 60 points. All the girls played extremely well with everyone once again scoring points for the team. The link to the tournament can be found here: Masters Tournament - In-School Mar 9th @1.30-2.25pm (click here) (8 leaders)
Here are some photos from the practice tournament. We got into the spirit of the team event by wearing our Friary jerseys :-)
Here are some photos from the Lá Fichille tournament. Once again we put on the school jerseys to get into the spirit of playing as a team.
How to set up an account to play in the online tournament:
Step 1: Register an account on lichess.org and enable KID MODE. Click on the following link https://lichess.org/signup and complete the steps. You need a Username, Password and Email address. Once your account has been set up, click on your Username on the top right hand corner of your screen and click on Preferences. Then on the left hand side of your screen you will see KID MODE. Click on this, enter your Password again and enable KID MODE. In KID MODE, the lichess logo gets a :) icon, so you know your kids are safe.
Step 2: Join the St. Malachy’s GNS online Chess Club (link) and click JOIN TEAM - https://lichess.org/team/st-malachys-gns-chess-club
Step 3: Complete this Form to join the St. Malachy’s GNS Chess Club – Registration Form Link below:
https://forms.office.com/r/s4w7jaG7Az
Pupils can avail of practice sessions on lichess.org by clicking on LEARN and Chess Basics. Also there are tutorials available on how to play chess from ficheall.ie. Click on the following link for the tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjMGqkD90yk&list=PLk59VQzwMYtZkQsZ6X0F4YTL0q-eKac6h
Ficheall Weekly Online Chess Tournaments
Here are the results from the Ficheall Weekly Online Chess Tournaments. The tournaments took place every Wednesday night at 6:05pm and lasted for 55 minutes. We registered to play in this tournament under the team name: St. Malachy's GNS Chess Club. The tournament was set up for schools all around the country to play against each other and to get some practice playing on the online platform lichess.org. Amy, Naomi and Chloe from 6th class were regular players in these tournaments every Wednesday night and did extremely well.
Week 13 Masters Tournament - Paul Morphy Tournament Feb 17th @6.05pm (click here) Fantastic team performance by Naomi, Chloe and Amy. The trio all played their part to finish in 8th position over all with 24 points. Well done girls. Good games played tonight. |
Week 12 Masters Tournament - Irina Krush Tournament Feb 9th @6.05pm (click here) (Berserk Enabled) Naomi and Amy were back in action tonight with both getting to play 8 games each. They scored 11 and 8 points and put in a great performance. Well done to the two girls. |
Week 11 Masters Tournament - Elisabeth Pahtz Tournament Feb 2nd @6.05pm (click here) Naomi, Chloe and Amy were back in action tonight with the trio combining their scores to finish in 4th place overall. All three won some great games putting their chess skills to great use. Some games were won by players giving up early and some games were lost by time running out. Some good use of stalemate when it looked like they should have lost. A great performance with all three girls finishing in the top 25 of the 53 players that competed. |
Week 10 Masters Tournament - Anna Rudolf Tournament Jan 26th @6.05pm (click here) Fantastic performances in this tournament tonight by Naomi, Amy and Chloe. They won games, drew games, lost games, won with Scholar's mate and the Lawnmower, had games were they had the king fighting a lonely battle and even fightened their opponents into giving up early. Overall the team finished in 7th place out of 25 teams competing tonight. Great chess playing. Well done to the trio! |
Week 9 - Wednesday, 19th January 2022 Anatoly Karpov Tournament Here Naomi and Amy were back in action this evening. They played really well winning 5 and 3 games between them. Games they lost were against players with higher rankings but they put up a good performance against them. Tonights points were counted with 5 players but we only had 2 players. Hopefully in the coming weeks we'll get more players on board. Well done to the two girls for a super performance! |
Week 8 - Wednesday, 12th January 2022 Naomi was flying solo tonight and put in a super performance winning 4 out of her 6 games. Overall she got 10 points, finishing in the top third of all players playing tonight. Well done Naomi. |
Week 7 - Wednesday, 15th December 2021 This week there were 3 tournaments taking place with 10 schools assigned to each tournament. On the night only 4 teams joined our tournament. The points were counted from 4 players in each team. We only had 2 players playing - Naomi and Amy. Despite this, the girls finished in 2nd place with 8 points. Well done to Naomi and Amy. |
Week 6 - Wednesday, 8th December 2021 Naomi and Amy played in tonight's tournament and what a performance by both girls. We finished in 10th position with 10 points. Both girls were in winning form with Naomi winning 4 and drawing 2 and Amy winning 3 and drawing 2. We even had some Scholar's Mates wins. Well done to both girls for a super performance. |
Week 5 - Wednesday, 1st December 2021 Naomi, Amy and Chloe were back in action tonight. They scored eight points for our team. We finished in 20th position. It was one of those nights when things didn't seem to go our way. A lot of close games and missed chances to win. We'll get practicing next week and try out the Scholar's Mate. Well done to the three girls flying the flag for our fledgling club. |
Week 4 - Wednesday, 24th November 2021 Once again Naomi and Amy took part in this week's tournament, but unfortunately, Amy had to leave after playing just 3 games. This left Naomi on her own playing 11 games. She won, lost and drew her games. She was unlucky to miss out on streaks to bring up her points score. Overall we got 8 points finishing in 18th place. Well done! Another great performance. |
Week 3 - Wednesday, 17th November 2021 Naomi and Amy played in the tournament this week playing 7 and 9 games respectively. Together the girls got 16 points for the team, finishing in 10th place. Super performance by both girls. Well done! |
Week 2 - Wednesday, 10th November 2021 Naomi, Amy and Chloe took part in the tournament this week and once again got 7 points for our team. This week we finished in 15th place. There were some high scores due to the Streak button being used and giving extra points. Well done to the girls, especially Chloe who played from her sick bed. Get well soon Chloe. |
Week 1 - Wednesday, 3rd November 2021 Naomi, Amy and Chloe took part in the tournament and got 7 points for our team. We finished in 10th place. All of the girls played really well and each of them won at least one game. |