The club is delighted that our Diana Mats has won the Irish Women’s Championship.
She did it the hard way. She lost her first round game against Stella Li, who is rated over 400 points
below her but who had a very good tournament, finishing joint fourth out of 12 players.
A loss like this in the first round in a tournament having only 5 rounds would have signalled the end
of any winning prospects for most players. It is extremely difficult, well nigh impossible, to recover
from such a setback.
But Diana drew on all her considerable abilities and determination to win her next four games and
edge out the current champion Antonia Gora on tie break.
It was not easy. She had to beat the very strong Diana Mirza, a former champion, with Black in the
penultimate round and then faced Antonia in the final round.
It was a must win game for Diana. Antonia had four points, a point ahead of Diana. The only way for
Diana to win the title was to beat Antonia as she would then win the tie break having won their
individual game.
It was a very tough and tense game which was in the balance for quite a while. Diana played, as she
had to do, an aggressive line against Antonia’s Sicilian Defence. For a long time Antonia defended
very well and actually went a pawn ahead although this was balanced by Diana’s strong King side
pressure. Finally, Antonia made an error and Diana finished off the game in ruthless and unerring
style.
The game can be found here on LiChess It is well worth playing over.
The club is very proud of Diana who was also a first place finisher in last year’s championship but
considered ineligible for the title. Since joining our club, she has made a great contribution to the
club and is always willing to play games and discuss their chess strengths and weaknesses with any
player irrespective of their strength. We are certain that many further successes await her.
