John O'Hanlon

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John J. O'Hanlon (born April 23, 1876 in Portadown , County Armagh , † February 20, 1960 in Dublin ) was an Irish chess player . He was a pioneer of Irish chess for decades and won a total of nine national championships.

Chess career

Little is known about O'Hanlon's living conditions. As for his youth, he is described as an all-round athlete or a successful rower and long-distance swimmer .

The passion for chess ran through his whole life. Since 1902 he was considered the Master of Ulster . O'Hanlon was defeated in 1912 in Portadown in a competition by the German-English master George Shories with 7:11 and a draw . The following year O'Hanlon won the first championship of the newly formed Irish Chess Federation. In the period up to the beginning of the Second World War , he won the national championship title a total of nine times (1913, 1915, 1925, 1926, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1936 and 1940).

In addition, O'Hanlon also participated in numerous chess tournaments in Great Britain. At international events, however, the backward performance of the Irish top players became apparent. At a smaller tournament in Hyères in 1928 , O'Hanlon won tied with Marcel Duchamp and Vitali Halberstadt . At the championship tournament in Nice in 1930, which Savielly Tartakower won ahead of George Alan Thomas and Eugène Snosko-Borowsky , O'Hanlon was last among twelve participants with only half a point (so he was four points behind Duchamp, who reached ninth). He was also one of the unsuccessful Irish teams at the Chess Olympiads in Warsaw in 1935 (third board) and in Buenos Aires in 1939 (first board) - Ireland finished last in Warsaw and came 23rd out of 26 teams in Buenos Aires in 1939. O'Hanlon scored only 2.5 points from 24 games in these two tournaments (+1 = 3-20). In 1924, O'Hanlon took part in the unofficial Chess Olympiad in Paris . In terms of chess, he focused on the Irish championships. With the exception of 1927, O'Hanlon took part in all national tournaments between 1913 and 1956, most recently as an eighty-year-old.

Its highest historical rating was calculated to be 2374 in February 1925.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Irish Chess Union: Irish Chess Champions ( Memento from June 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ John O'Hanlon's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
  3. ↑ John O'Hanlon's results at unofficial Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
  4. ↑ David McAlister: O'Hanlon's First Two Irish Titles (English)
  5. ^ Entry by John O'Hanlon at Chessmetrics

Web links

personal data
SURNAME O'Hanlon, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES O'Hanlon, John J.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish chess player
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Portadown
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1960
Place of death Dublin