Future England Grandmasters?

[LawrenceCooper]

Congratulations to James and also to Yang-Fan Zhou who made his second GM norm.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Yang-Fan Zhou's results for his 7.5/10 (confusingly when trying to find the results, he played for both Guildford 1 in pool B [first two games] and the rest of the games for Guildford 2 in pool A and the Championship pool):

R1: win against FM Peter Batchelor
R2: win against David Grant
R3: loss against GM Christian Bauer
R4: draw against FM David Pires Tavares Martins
R5: win against GM Jacob Aagaard
R6: win against IM Vladimir Hamitevici
R7: win against Brett Lund
R8: loss to GM Edouard Romain
R9: win against IM Florian Grafl
R10: n/a
R11: win against IM Simon Ansell

4 ENG, 2 FRA, 1 POR, 1 DEN, 1 MDA, 1 GER.

That is presumably a 10-round norm? Any reason he didn't play in round 10? Was it to improve his norm chances?

[IM Jack Rudd]

I think he may have been ill. That's the impression I got from his Facebook posts, anyway.

[LawrenceCooper]

I think he may have been ill. That's the impression I got from his Facebook posts, anyway.

Indeed, I don't think he'd mind me quoting him here: "Got my second Grandmaster Norm at 4 Nations Chess League whilst suffering from food poisoning! Big thanks to my captain Roger Emerson and Gemma Liu for taking care of me"

[Christopher Kreuzer]

And to add to this:

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/adair-an ... -the-4ncl/

Matthew Wadsworth got an IM norm. Maybe discussing future IMs in this thread would be missing the point (do all IMs aspire to be GMs?), but I'm mentioning it here anyway. Matthew played for Guildford 2 this season (I wonder which teams have been most successful in fielding players who get norms?).

R1: win against Svetlana Sucikova (SVK)
R2: draw against IM Lorin D'Costa (ENG)
R3: draw against Daniel Abbas (ENG)
R4: win against Henrique Rui Neves Aguiar (POR)
R5: draw against FM Jesper Morch Lauridsen (DEN)
R6: draw against GM Simon Williams (ENG)
R7: win against WGM Sheila Jackson (ENG)
R8: draw against GM David Smerdon (AUS)
R9: win against George O'Toole (ENG)
R10: win against FM Iain Gourlay (SCO)
R11: n/a

As far as I can tell, Matthew didn't play in round 11, so he scored an undefeated 7.5/10 against a field that included a WGM, two FMs, an IM and two GMs. Five players were ENG, then one each from SVK, POR, DEN, AUS, SCO.

[Mick Norris]

Matthew Wadsworth got an IM norm. Maybe discussing future IMs in this thread would be missing the point (do all IMs aspire to be GMs?), but I'm mentioning it here anyway.

Firstly, well done Matthew

Secondly, if our younger players can get to be IMs, then they have time to get to be GMs, so lets hope some of them make it

[Jim Wadsworth]

As far as I can tell, Matthew didn't play in round 11

He didn't. He took Monday "off" given his GCSEs started Tuesday....

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Ah, that explains it (hope they are going/have gone well).

There were another two norms achieved:

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/five-nor ... -the-4ncl/

ENG James Jackson (Barbican) – 2nd IM norm.
IRL David Fitzsimons (Wood Green) – 1st IM norm.

No time to do a breakdown, but congratulations to both James Jackson and David Fitzsimons (both born 1991).

Anyone want to speculate on future IRL (Ireland), WLS (Wales) and SCO (Scotland) IMs and GMs?

[IM Jack Rudd]

My guesses for Scotland's next GM and IM would be Andrew Greet and Clement Sreeves.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

James Jackson's first IM norm was 2.5 years ago in October 2013 at the e2e4 London Gatwick Masters:

https://ratings.fide.com/apps/231451.pdf

Was that really 2.5 years ago now? He beat you there, Jack!

(He also beat Latvian GM Miezis and drew with GM Cherniaev and beat IM Slavin.)

[LawrenceCooper]

Ah, that explains it (hope they are going/have gone well).

There were another two norms achieved:

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/five-nor ... -the-4ncl/

ENG James Jackson (Barbican) – 2nd IM norm.
IRL David Fitzsimons (Wood Green) – 1st IM norm.

No time to do a breakdown, but congratulations to both James Jackson and David Fitzsimons (both born 1991).

Anyone want to speculate on future IRL (Ireland), WLS (Wales) and SCO (Scotland) IMs and GMs?

Ireland: Sam Collins for GM & one of Jessel (3), Ryan-Rhys Griffiths (2), Fitzsimons (1) for IM.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

R5: [James Adair] loss against GM Matthew Sadler

Possibly of interest, Matthew Sadler annotated his win over James Adair here in a blog on 'Castling queenside in the Ruy Lopez':

http://matthewsadler.me.uk/openings/cas ... -tiviakov/

[Tim Harding]

Ah, that explains it (hope they are going/have gone well).

There were another two norms achieved:

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/five-nor ... -the-4ncl/

ENG James Jackson (Barbican) – 2nd IM norm.
IRL David Fitzsimons (Wood Green) – 1st IM norm.

No time to do a breakdown, but congratulations to both James Jackson and David Fitzsimons (both born 1991).

Anyone want to speculate on future IRL (Ireland), WLS (Wales) and SCO (Scotland) IMs and GMs?

Ireland: Sam Collins for GM & one of Jessel (3), Ryan-Rhys Griffiths (2), Fitzsimons (1) for IM.

Of course none of the top Irish players (except GM Baburin who is a coach, newspaper columnist and and chess book dealer) are professionals. Nor are the people mentioned students with plenty of spare time. (Except maybe Griffiths whom I haven't seen in a while but I think he still plays sometimes?)

The olympiad could be the best chance for Collins and Fitzsimons to get another norm and for Jessel to increase his rating but the team is not selected yet so far as I am aware.

Stephen Jessel (who lives in France) got hsi third norm earlier this year. He just needs to get his rating up for the IM; he lost some points a few months ago but 2400 is not out of reach for him. He won the Cork congress in March, beating Sam Collins and myself on the way.

Sam's win against Nigel Short shows he is still capable of getting the GM but he does need another norm which won't be easy as he works full time in the law.

We have several under-18 players who are good long-term prospects (including our under-16 champion Diana Mirza who will be probably chasing a WIM norm at the olympiad) but they don't get the same opportunities as the English juniors on the whole.

[Alistair Campbell]

Anyone want to speculate on future IRL (Ireland), WLS (Wales) and SCO (Scotland) IMs and GMs?

My guesses for Scotland's next GM and IM would be Andrew Greet and Clement Sreeves.

Next GM will be Andrew Greet, or the next foreign GM who settles in Scotland. I'm not sure the next Scots-born GM has actually been born yet.

Next IM? I think Neil Berry has the norms and just needs the rating. I think Alan Tate is in a similar situation although I can't see evidence. Next one might be Iain Gourlay, since he has the rating and seems to be playing well enough. Other than those, maybe Clément as stated.

Next FM? Maybe Calum McQueen. Maybe Joe Redpath. Maybe Murad Abdulla. Maybe they haven't been born yet either

There have been plenty of players with the talent or ability, but they get to 2200 and then seem to run into a brick wall. Lack of international opportunities is often given as a reason - the longevity of the previous 50 something generations is one factor here.

[Alistair Campbell]

Anyone want to speculate on future IRL (Ireland), WLS (Wales) and SCO (Scotland) IMs and GMs?

My guesses for Scotland's next GM and IM would be Andrew Greet and Clement Sreeves.

Next GM will be Andrew Greet, or the next foreign GM who settles in Scotland. I'm not sure the next Scots-born GM has actually been born yet.

Next IM? I think Neil Berry has the norms and just needs the rating. I think Alan Tate is in a similar situation although I can't see evidence. Next one might be Iain Gourlay, since he has the rating and seems to be playing well enough. Other than those, maybe Clément as stated.

Next FM? Maybe Calum McQueen. Maybe Joe Redpath. Maybe Murad Abdulla. Maybe they haven't been born yet either

There have been plenty of players with the talent or ability, but they get to 2200 and then seem to run into a brick wall. Lack of international opportunities is often given as a reason - the longevity of the 50 something generations is one factor here.