The Leinster Chess Union is the body responsible for promoting and organising chess in the Province of Leinster, Ireland.

15-Jul-2010 The 2010 City of Dublin Championships will take place from Friday 3rd September to Sunday 5th September 2010. The Venue will be the Academy Hotel, 10-14 Findlater Place, Dublin1. The venue is centrally located just off O'Connell Street. There will be four playing sections - Masters (2000 and over), Major (1600-1999), Challengers (1200-1599), Juniors (under 1200 and unrated players).

26-Jun-2010 Next seasons fixtures for divisions one to five have been published and may be viewed by following the divisional links on the left. They are also available in Excel format, click on the 'LCU Fixtures 2010 - 2011' link on the left to download. A new feature Upcoming Fixtures has been added to the site. This will be updated weekly during the season and will list the fixtures for all divisions for approximately the following two weeks.

Elm Mount Chess Club have won the Armstrong Cup and are Champions of Leinster for the very first time. In a very tense and exciting finish the team from Drumcondra in North Dublin defeated St Benildus 6 - 2 during the final round of matches played on Sunday 14th March in the Esplanade Hotel Bray, Co Wicklow. When pre match favourites Kilkenny beat a weakened Dublin University team 7 - 1 the signs were ominous that Elm Mount or St Benildus who had shared the lead on 51 points entering the last round a point and a half ahead of third place Kilkenny, could garner enough points to ensure victory. In the style of champions they battled hard in every game where even a draw conceded could have meant the difference between winning and losing. In the end they recorded their best win of the season winning six of the eight games, losing just two with no draws. After four hours of play and watched by his very nervous team mates and a large crowd, the winning point was secured appropiately by the Elm Mount captain Ciaran Quinn when he defeated Tim McCarthy in the last game to finish.  This victory was Elm Mount's tenth of the season, their only defeat occurred in the second round when they lost 4 ½ – 3 ½ to eventual third place team Gonzaga. The win was achieved as a result of a great team effort by all the Elm Mount players as witnessed by the fact that they only needed to use one sub during the whole season (Terry Creighton contributing a very valuable point in round 8). Seven of the panel played in all eleven rounds and the eight member played in ten rounds, missing only one game due to illness. The Elm Mount team was Ciaran Quinn (Capt.), Bernard Boyle, Oliver Dunne, David Fitzsimons, Zygimantas Jakubauskas, Alan MacDonagh, Gerard MacElligott and Adam Spirek.

The final standings were - 1st Elm Mount A 57 Pts., 2nd Kilkenny 56½ Pts., 3rd Gonzaga 53½ Pts., 4th St Benildus 53 Pts. Spare a thought for Kilkenny who have finished runners-up in four of the last five seasons. At the other end of the table Elm Mount's second team were unable to hold on to their Division 1 status and were relegated along with Celbridge to play in Division 2 next season.

After being relegated from the Armstrong (Div1) last season, both Malahide and Rathmines have bounced right back at the first attempt by winning and finishing second respectively in the Heidenfeld Trophy (Div2). The relegation spots were filled by Rathhmines B and Wicklow.

In the Ennis Shield (Div3), victory and promotion went to St Benildus. Balbriggan secured promotion for the second year in a row by finishing second. Phibsboro and Finglas finished in the bottom two and will play in division 4 next season.

Rathmines secured a second promotion for the club by winning the O'Hanlon Cup (Div4) title. The second promotion spot is still undecided. Portmarnock finished second but face a challenge from Naomh Barróg who finished 3rd a ½ point behind. Naomh Barróg have the right to challenge Portmarnock under rule 4.4 of the Leinster Chess Union league rules.

The BEA Cuothp (Div5) was won by Celbridge, second place went to Naomh Barróg. Both teams are promoted to division 4 next season. As there were only eleven teams in the BEA this year only one team gets demoted. Inchicore were the unlucky team here.

The Bodley Cup (Div6) had only seven teams competing for the title this year. There were two new entries to the leagues this year. Cavan rejoined the ranks after many years absense and Ballinasloe became the Union's newest member. Both teams proved too strong for the rest of the opposition and cruised to promotion. Ballinasloe won the individual battle and secured the title at their first attempt.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the controllers of the various divisions for their help and dedication during the season. Without their assistence the leagues would not run as smoothly as they do. To Mervyn Honner, John Crowley, Gerry Smith and Denis Dempsey thanks for a job well done.

The LCU blog is up and running. Your webmaster has set up this great facility to get all you enthusiastic chess players discussing and debating all things chess. It is also a great location to post notices and reminders of upcoming chess events. To start blogging or if you just want to peruse other players rambles or grumbles click the link on the right hand panel.

We are delighted to announce that J.J. Walsh, Irish Times chess correspondent, has agreed to provide us with puzzles from his Irish Times columns. He will be dipping into his puzzle archives stretching back 30 years. These will be put up here for our entertainment and edification!

We have plans to expand the use of this website so that it incorporates more than just fixtures and results. Our plans are to publish news stories, annotated games, player profiles, club profiles etc... and to encourage players to visit and use the site and give some wider exposure to chess activity. To make this a success and a website we all share in and benefit from, we are asking for input from clubs and players. The long term aim is that each club would have an individual login through which they can submit content without needing action from the webmasters. While this is under construction we would like people to submit news stories and annotated games (in pgn format), reuslts with a short report of matches etc... which we will manually place on the website.

At present on the website we have information regarding each club here. Can you all please review the section relating to your own club and ensure the details are accurate and sufficient? This information can be a valuable resource to people looking for chess clubs and attracting new players. It is important that it contains contact details and accurate up to date information.

If there is anything you want updated or added or have any comments please email the secretary, Bryan Tobin