As can be seen from the participants page, the 2002 event only attracted two out of the top ten Irish players available for selection for the 2002 Olympiad. However the winner of this Irish was still not offered a place on the Olympiad team, at least not until the usual politics and back room dealings within ICU politics created an opening. The details of this we won't go into here for now.

With the benefit of now being able to look at the games we are able to draw some conclusions and get a sense of how the tournament developed from a purely chess point of view. The main surprise to me was how close this contest was.

Up to the eight round any one of 5 or 6 players could have won the tournament. Had for example Stephen Brady managed to convert his winning position in round 8 against Sam he would most likely have defended his title and won the event. Phillip Short too might easily have won had he also converted his winning position against Sam, but it was Mel O Cinneide and John Joyce who I think had the most reason to feel disappointed that they did not make more of the chances they had.

In the case of Mel he also had a completely winning position against Sam but somehow failed to win. John Joyce as always showed what he was capable of with some fine play and deserved wins against Stephen Brady and Phillip Short , but unfortunately for him he fell down elsewhere and while losing to Mel was no shame, losing to Paul Dempsey was a result that put the title virtually out of his reach.

Nevertheless Sam did go on to play well in both the British Championships and the Politiken Open in Denmark, which saw him gain lots of ratings points. He also had a very competent result as first reserve on the Olympiad team when he showed great consistency in bunny bashing players much weaker than himself.

Since then it has been all pretty much all downward. He had rating losses at the World Junior in India, Linares Open, and this year in a big open event in the Las Vegas! Unlike the previous two or three champions he has not been a very good in his role as Irish champion, hardly playing at all domestically.

When he last did play in Ireland he failed to win the Gonzaga weekender in which he outranked the nearest contender by hundreds of rating points, losing to the third seed. In addition he has declined to keep up a venerable tradition of defending his title in 2003 [something which marks out the real class champions in my view] and apparently did not even bother his ass to insure that the trophy for the 2003 event was made available/returned in time for the event. {One can imagine that there would be all manner of ICU committee meetings if this humble commentator did that!}

PS: I take it all back! Sorry Sam! Having spent nine days trying to commute to Greystones everyday myself and wasted at least four hours each day in the process, I realize now that Sam would have been mad to play in the 2003 Irish. In his case he would have been the number one seed and as all logic seems to indicate, the number one seed almost never wins the Irish Championships. There is also little to gain and much to lose. [eg First prize in the 2003 Irish was 500 Euros- In 1992 it was 500 pounds!- While for three days in May I got 750 Euros at the Malahide tournament]

Also, as regards the trophy well it did make it to the event in time for the new (not so new really) Champion to receive it. Perhaps someone was reading this page during the week and decided that it was important after all for the trophy to be handed back. Also interestingly it was pointed out to me that while the engravings of the previous winners was pretty comprehensive and up to date the champion for 1999 was either not engraved or had been scratched off/torn off. It was pointed out to me that this was by no means the first time that attempts have been made to airbrush me out of Irish chess. Take note: I am still here! If someone is not willing to put a bullet in my head they should consider any future possible discrimination very carefully.

In conclusion: Irish champions and championships are not what they used to be! I will do my best to rectify this a little when I go for my third title this week.