There were six games played in the Ladder this month, a slight drop from the seven in each of the previous months.  You could even say that we managed only five, given that the month started with Brian forfeiting to John.  The first actual game of the month saw Colin exact revenge on me for a defeat in May.  Without the comedy of errors that marked the previous game, Colin managed a comfortable ten-point victory.  At the top of the table, Ian saw off Julien’s challenge - quizzed about it afterwards, Julien commented with characteristic French insouciance “I lost it.”  On the 25th I played John.  With so few games played it was evident that whoever won would jump substantially in the ranking at the end of the month, possibly as high as 5th.  In a tense showdown, the piles of empty pint glasses spread to cover several surrounding tables.  With the bonus points for correctly naming the year in which Stephen Roche won the Tour de France, I emerged the winner. A brief flurry of activity ended the month - Michael successfully challenged Daniel, leapfrogging Claas to whom he had lost the previous month, and Peter managed a win against Colin which secured him a further jump upward at the end of the month.

With five months left to play, everything is still pretty open and hopefully this summer lull will be broken by some cut-throat action in the run up to the finale.

Some clarifications have been made to the rules, and I suggest you all take a quick look at them.  Minor changes to unify terminology have not been marked but all the substantial stuff is marked in red.  There are no changes to the intent of the rules, and these largely describe how the rules have already been interpreted over the last four months of the competition.  If you think that they change the terms of the competition, please bring it up with the committee and we’ll be happy to discuss it.

I leave you with the current standings (you can find the full spreadsheet here):

Noel (white) beat John last night in their Top 8 game in the Pembroke by a fair margin.

This result has been reflected in the Championship Table.

The Ladder Committee is please to welcome Eoghan Barry as a new member.

As a reminder ladder participants should forward challenge invitations to one or more ladder committee members. Current Committee members are:

• Olivier Deme: secretary at irish-go dot org
• Stephen Flinter: stephen at flinter dot com
• Ian Davis: ian dot davis at durge dot org
• Eoghan Barry: oldrottenhat at gmail dot com

Ireland failed to win the World Amateur Championship again this year.
Ian managed only 52nd place with 3 wins from 8, beating Peru, Bulgaria and Azerbaijan. Hopefully some games will be added shortly.

You can find some photos of the event at flickr .

Noel (white) beat Brian in their Top 8 game on KGS by resignation. Brian was unable to get a good enough compensation after Noel’s invasion in the late opening. 

This result has been reflected in  the championship table.

Hereby announcing the launch of the IGA mentoring scheme.  The idea is that the scheme should act as a kind of clearing-house, putting interested students in touch with willing teachers.  Obviously for this to work, I will need a supply of both.  If you’re interested either in teaching or being taught, please get in touch with me (oldrottenhat at gmail dot com) with the pertinent details - whether you would like to teach, be taught or both: your rank; your contact details and anything else you think might be relevant.

What would be the level of commitment? I’d hope to see teachers and students meeting for a teaching game once a month, either across the board or on one of the servers.  Alternatively, a teacher might review one or two games a month, and generally be available to answer questions and advise on the direction of study.  In large part, how the relationship develops will be up to the two people involved.

Given that this is an experiment, somewhere down the line I will ask everyone participating to give an assessment of how things are working out, and I’d welcome any advice or suggestions about how it should be organised and how it should develop.

Claas continued his wining on time trend with a defeat of Justyna Kleczar in the final of the Online Championship. Mark Webb and Robert Muldowney shared 3rd place.

Full results can be found on the tournament page .

Ian lost last night to John after ripping himself off in the endgame.

This result has been reflected in the Championship Table

Noel lost to Claas on time in their Top 8 game in the Pembroke

This result has been reflected in the Championship Table