BRITISH CHESS CHAMPIONSHIPS - THE GAMES

[Nicky Chorley]

Game of the Day : Howell v R Pert is now posted. I hope you enjoy it!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkXfzKAnAns

Thanks for that. I was following the game yesterday and this analysis helped (despite me not understanding everything).

[Christopher Kreuzer]

In round 4:

(4) Howell-Gordon - have they played before?
(5) Short-Conquest - have they played before?

For Howell-Gordon, chessgames has two games:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl ... er2=gordon

Gordon beat Howell in 2008 in the 4NCL.
Howell beat Gordon in 2009 in last year's British Championships.
White won in both games.

For Short-Conquest, chessgames has five games:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl ... 2=conquest

Short won all five games (2 Whites, 3 Blacks).
Dates are 1981, 1984, 1987, 1987, 2008.
The game from 2008 was the European Championships (in Liverpool, I think).
The event for the second 1987 game is "BL 8687 ;BL", which I can't make head or tail of.

[Paul Cooksey]

Is is obligatory for good players to play badly v really good players? Summerscale and Buckley kind roled over to Adams and Howell playing the type of game you would not want to show your kids.

I think convential wisdom is that it just looks like they are playing really badly, when the wave of their strategy breaks on a rock of deeper understanding instead of sweeping away a weaker player. Keres famously looks likea patzer in several games against Botvinnik, for example.

I don't want to overcorrect and say Summerscale played on Keres' level But I thought that was an impressive game from Short.

[IM Jack Rudd]

I don't want to overcorrect and say Summerscale played on Keres' level But I thought that was an impressive game from Short.

Summerscale is probably of comparable strength to Keres at his peak, I reckon. The difference is that there weren't hundreds of players better than Keres at the time.

[Mike Truran]

I think some might argue with you there, Jack!

[Roger de Coverly]

The event for the second 1987 game is "BL 8687 ;BL", which I can't make head or tail of.

Deutsche Bundesligua

Chess league of the German Federal (Republic).

This was a style used by many of the institutions of the western half of the divided Germany. Deutsche Bundesbahn for the railways for instance.

[Roger de Coverly]

[quote="Christopher Kreuzer"]
For Howell-Gordon, chessgames has two games:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl ... er2=gordon

Gordon beat Howell in 2008 in the 4NCL.
Howell beat Gordon in 2009 in last year's British Championships.
White won in both games.

ChessBase Light has 4.

Howell 1-0 Gordon from the British 2009 Torquay
Gordon 1/2 Howell from the 2009 British rapidplay
Gordon 1-0 Howell from the 2007-08 4NCL
Gordon 1/2 Howell from 2003

This is described as a rapid-play open in Blackpool. More likely, I would have thought to be the usual Blackpool Chess Conference, unless anyone can recall a Blackpool rapid-play with sensory boards.

[Paul McKeown]

Jack,

I assume you meant "Summerscale, at his peak, is of comparable strength to Keres", but can it really be so?

You say "hundreds of players". According to Aaron Summerscale's FIDE rating, there are 1887 "active" players with a higher FIDE rating than Aaron S. Looking at Jeff Sonas's Chessmetrics for Paul Keres, it would appear that Keres was out of the world's top ten on only three fleeting instances from 1935 to 1965, and indeed was ranked in the top five for most of that period, with long periods at number two. Jeff Sonas's site reckons that Aaron Summerscale's peak was #473 in the world (Sonas's site may be out of date), with a peak CM rating of 2610, well short of Keres normal CM rating of mid 2700's.

I know that this is the age old argument as to whether players now are better than then, and Aaron Summerscale, standing on the shoulders of giants, undoubtedly knows a huge amount, much of which must have been entirely unknown to Keres, but surely, Keres had a huge innate ability which would have seen him safe no matter what Summerscale could throw at him?

[For the avoidance of doubt: none of this is meant to belittle Aaron S, nice guy, great chess player.]

[IM Jack Rudd]

I know that this is the age old argument as to whether players now are better than then, and Aaron Summerscale, standing on the shoulders of giants, undoubtedly knows a huge amount, much of which must have been entirely unknown to Keres, but surely, Keres had a huge innate ability which would have seen him safe no matter what Summerscale could throw at him?

I don't know. Innate ability only gets you so far; if Summerscale were to play a magically-revived Keres, I'd expect him to try to steer the game into positions about which he knew much more than someone who wouldn't know anything past 1975. Chess strategy has moved on a lot since even Keres's death, let alone his peak playing era. I think it would be a difficult one to call.

[Alex McFarlane]

Accelerated Pairings – Pros and Cons

For
Stops first round pairings with large rating differences. This means more meaningful games with potential sponsorship benefits.

Potentially more clashes between top players throughout event, enhancing spectator interest from beginning of event.

Minor places more accurately decided.

Arguably enhances norm chances.

‘Swiss Gambit’ of early draw and then easy ride is less likely to be achieved after opening rounds.

British system of acceleration can reduce ‘yo-yo’ effect of winning against low rated, losing to high rated, winning …. Some accelerated systems certainly do not seem to do this.

It gives chess players something further to debate/argue about!

The argument of reducing the number of rounds required for an outright winner on maximum points obviously doesn’t apply to the British Championship.

Against
System not well understood by players or spectators who puzzle at different scores playing each other.

Top players can meet earlier in the event.

Possibility of large downfloats for leaders in later rounds

No suitable software available. (Though both Swiss Master and Swiss Manager have recently been confirmed as not pairing to the rules for seeded pairings anyway.)

[Jonathan Bryant]

Accelerated Pairings – Pros and Cons

Hi Alex,

Might it be the case that all the "pros" could be better fulfilled by limited the size of the field like the Americans have been doing for their national championships (27 places in their top event is it?) and then pairing 'normally'?

The other 60-70 players could then be combined with the major open to produce a very decent secondary tournament with qualification places for next years main event and so forth. I realise that the price of this would be missing games like Atako-Adams - which are most certainly a benefit of the current system - but the advantage would perhaps be a better version of all the pros which you have listed?

I know there might be a funding issue with regards to securing a sufficient number of £200 entry fees etc, but leaving that question aside for a moment, what do you think about the limited field system per se?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Another useful link:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=74711

[David Shepherd]

You could even have an event where for example the top 2 players after say 6 or 7 rounds enter the main championship with their scores carrying forward, which might help solve any entry fee issue.

[Justin Hadi]

Chino Atako - Adams should be instructive for how to play against this anti-siclian setup, whatever the result is.

[Maxim Devereaux]

I'm not really convinced that the Closed Sicilian will get anywhere against Mickey, particularly not with 6.Nf3, which doesn't strike me as very critical. I'd be cheering for the little guy generally, but I think this one might be very one-sided.