Irish chess continued to grow in 2024

Last year I wrote a blog asking if the boom in online chess had been converted into growth in over-the-board chess. By looking at the tournaments in Ireland, I found that there were 50% more participants in chess tournaments in 2023 than in 2019. But did this growth continue in 2024?

I trawled through the website of the Irish Chess Union and compiled a list of every chess tournament that was larger than just a local club event and compared how many players participated each year since 2018. I broadened the criteria from last year to include some events that I missed and made a separate list for rapid/blitz tournaments. It must be remembered that most players participate in multiple events during the year, so I don't know if the number of active players has grown.

What are the takeaways? There has been a slight growth in total participants since last year, which means 2024 was probably the most active year for chess in Irish history. There was a lot of variation but most events saw growth in the number of participants. Most events attract between 100-250 players and it's noticeable that the 2nd largest event is the Junior Championship.

There were two major new events, the Dublin International Open and the Eanna Classic, while four events from last year didn't run, the John Bolger, CUS, UCD and Galway Congress. The Cavan Congress, First Weekender and Open Weekender saw major drops in participation, but the City of Dublin, DCU, Malahide and Sligo tournaments all had strong growth.

One disappointment is the lack of growth in the Women's Championship which has had almost the exact same number of players every year since 2018. It seems The Queen's Gambit has not brought more players to Ireland's sole women-only tournament, in fact it's possible that the percentage of women playing chess has fallen since Covid. Anecdotally, my local chess club has doubled in size since 2020, but all of the new joiners are men.

Midway through last year, the ICU gave almost all Irish players a ratings boost to compensate from the rating deflation caused by so many new chess players. This doesn't seem to have impacted the number of people playing but it has impacted the level they are playing at. Tournaments have adjusted their rating bands and instead of the lowest section outnumbering every other section combined, there is a more even distribution. The Irish Championship is a good example where the adjustment has lead to three sections with almost even numbers of players.

Rapid and blitz

It is harder to find data for rapid/blitz events as organisers don't always post the number of participants and unlike for classical chess, the ICU doesn't rate rapid or blitz games so there isn't a definitive source of all event participants. For example, the Galway Rapidplay is an annual event but the links for previous years are dead so I only have numbers for 2022 and 2024.

There has been a boom in rapid and blitz tournaments since 2020. Pre-Covid these were minor events, but since so many players spent lockdown playing online chess, there has been a huge growth in interest (although they are still much smaller than classical events). The Irish Rapid and Blitz Championships have trebled in size since 2019. There has been several new tournaments set up and it is becoming common for classical events to have a rapid and/or blitz event on the final day. These events usually only take half a day so are far less of a time commitment than classical tournaments. The downside is that most of these events are not FIDE rated and the ICU doesn't rate rapid or blitz events.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Irish chess is continuing to grow and it seems unlikely that the Covid boom was a passing fad. Several of the events that were cancelled last year are scheduled to take place this year (such as Galway and CUS) and the new events have established themselves (as I write, the Sligo tournament has announcedit will soon hit its capacity of 210 participants). While classical chess is solidifying its position, rapid and blitz chess is undergoing massive growth, transforming from a minor sideshow, to sizeable events in their own right.