Winton British Problem Solving Championships 2025

[John Upham]

The 2025 Winton British Problem Solving Championships took place on Saturday, February 17th at The Butler Centre, Harrow School

Here is my gallery of HD images.

The larger the screen you can view them on the better.

https://johnupham.smugmug.com/Chess/BCPS/

A special prize if you name any OTB GMs who had not previously competed in the BCPS finals

[Joey Stewart]

There were some surprising omissions in the open section, I thought guys like Nunn, spielman etc were world class problem solvers and would have been chomping at the bit to play something like this.

[John Upham]

There were some surprising omissions in the open section, I thought guys like Nunn, spielman etc were world class problem solvers and would have been chomping at the bit to play something like this.

JDMN has been there and got the T-shirt many, many times before and now resides in Cornwall.

Jon Speelman is not, to my knowledge, known as a problem solver although, no doubt, he would be most excellent at it.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I think this may be a case of conflating Speelman with his contemporary and lifelong friend Mestel, who *is* very big on problems.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Is the winner of the Closed Championship, David Hodge, the player who is rated 1822 OTB? I'd have guessed that Mestel, even a 66 year old Mestel, would have won the event easily.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Could be, or it could be this guy, last ECF grade 186: https://www.ecfrating.org.uk/v2/new/pla ... de=151848D

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I recognise the name David Hodge from CUCC (Cambridge University Chess Club) days, from just before my time but featuring reasonably heavily in the club magazine (called Dragon). Might even have been its editor (I really should remember that). He featured (if I recall correctly) in various student chess jaunts, and was among those that wrote about them (possibly, my memory may be faulty).

From John Upham's photos, if you hover over the ones he has identified, you see some are "IM" and "GM", which I believe are their composition titles, unless you have separate titles for problem solving?

More on David Hodge's successes over the past few years here:

https://arves.org/arves/images/PDF-Awar ... ly2023.pdf

I am, however, struggling to work out which of the many(!) David Hodges out there he is...

The photograph helps in theory. But in practice it is difficult.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The photograph helps in theory. But in practice it is difficult.

I was being stupid. It is the Nottingham School of Mathematics David Hodge (either that, or he has a doppelganger):

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/exper ... hodge.aspx

Expertise summary: Probability; games of chance; interpreting chances and risks presented numerically. General discussions of mathematics and statistics, interpreting results of surveys and studies presented numerically. <snip rest>

EDIT: Apologies (university pages are invariably woefully out of date). It appears he is no longer at Nottingham, and he was at Cambridge, but later than I thought, so I either recognise the name from later, or am thinking of someone else entirely. Bit of a brain fail there.

Now at Glasgow: https://www.gcu.ac.uk/staff/davidhodge

PS. The ECF rating card Jack linked to is the right person. Last rated OTB game was beating Harriet Hunt in the Cambridge College League. Also played in the 4NCL back then (not checked for which team). It will be embarassing if we played on the same team and I have forgotten them...

[IM Jack Rudd]

Yes, that's definitely the David Hodge who was there in our day. Year below mine, I think.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

But his LinkedIn says that he did his Cambridge maths from 2000-2004 then PhD at Cambridge from 2004 to 2007. How is that the year below yours? Maybe I am mixing up my timelines here. It feels about right but not quite right. Maybe best to go back to watching the chess...

(I did enter the British Problem Solving Championships one year, and did well enough in the postal round to be able to go to the Final, but never felt it was the right time. Should have done it at least once, and it is on my bucket list to do one day!)

[IM Jack Rudd]

Ah yes, he was in the first year when I was in the second year, but that's because I attempted the second year twice. Light dawns.

[Roger de Coverly]

But his LinkedIn says that he did his Cambridge maths from 2000-2004 then PhD at Cambridge from 2004 to 2007.

You can find him at John Saunders' britbase coverage of the Varsity matches of that period. Jack too is featured in the same teams.

[John Upham]

Ah yes, he was in the first year when I was in the second year, but that's because I attempted the second year twice. Light dawns.

I remember too that it was easy to forget that I had completed the second year.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

But his LinkedIn says that he did his Cambridge maths from 2000-2004 then PhD at Cambridge from 2004 to 2007.

You can find him at John Saunders' britbase coverage of the Varsity matches of that period. Jack too is featured in the same teams.

Thank you, Roger. I should have thought to look there! I had forgotten that there are some interesting aspects to that, and ways to jog the memory.

(I had somehow confused Andrew Hon with David Hodge.)

I had forgotten that Jack's appearances were relatively far apart. He was a stronger player later as well, though I think the team was weaker as well. He was board 6 in 1998 and then board 2 in 2001.

David Hodge was ever-present from 2002 to 2007, playing 6 times and playing board 1 on his final appearance (as low as board 5 in 2003).

James Vigus had a very similar progression from 1999 to 2005. Rafe Martyn also played 6 in a row from 2012 to 2018, being board 1 in his first year and board 5 in 2016.

For Oxford, Kieran Smallbone (1999-2002 and 2005 and 2006) and Steffan Schaper (2007 to 2012) played 6 times. Schaper was a consistently low board, but Smallbone has the distinction of having played both bottom board (board 8 in 2000 and 2002) and top board (board 1 in 2001).

Then there are the 5 players who have played for both Cambridge and Oxford. I list the number of appearances for Cambridge first in the details below.

David Douglas Alexander Lawson played 6 times (3+3). Ronald Leslie Johannes played 3 times (1+2). Eddie Dearing played 3 times (2+1).

Imogen Camp has so far played 5 times (4+1). Daniel Gallagher has so far played 3 times (2+1).

Gallagher and Camp may well break records here, as they may well be still active/eligible players (they both went from Cambridge to Oxford and both made their most recent appearance in 2024).

I apologise that this segue is not on the statistics of the British Problem Solving Championships. In an effort to get this back on track, I wonder how many participants over the years have overlapped with other areas of chess? Holding both OTB titles and other chess titles is relatively rare. Nunn and Mestel are obvious examples, but there will be others as well.