John O'Hanlon (chess player)

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

Chess career

Among the circumstances O'Hanlon is relatively little known. As for his youth, he is described as an all-round athlete or successful rowers and long distance swimmers.

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

In addition, O'Hanlon also acted in numerous chess tournaments in the UK. For international events, however, the then performance disadvantage of the Irish 's top players was visible. With a smaller tournament in 1928 in Hyères O'Hanlon won points with Marcel Duchamp and Vitaly Halberstadt. When the Master Tournament in Nice in 1930, the Savielly Tartakower before George Alan Thomas and Eugène Snosko - Borowsky won, O'Hanlon, however, was under twelve participants with only half a point last (so he was four points behind Duchamp, the ninth reached ). He also belonged to the unsuccessful Irish teams at the Chess Olympiads in 1935 in Warsaw (third panel ) and 1939 in Buenos Aires ( first board ) to - Ireland was in Warsaw last and arrived in Buenos Aires in 1939 on the 23th place among 26 teams. O'Hanlon scored on this occasion only 2.5 points from 24 games ( 1-20 = 3).

Schachlich he focused on the Irish Championships. With the exception of 1927 O'Hanlon took part in all national tournaments throughout 1913-1956, most recently as octogenarian.

His historical highest Elo rating was calculated with 2374 for February 1925.