British Championship Congress 2019

[LawrenceCooper]

Who will be the next player who will go above 2600?
Hawkins, Pert, Gordon or Someone like Ravi Haria or Daniel Fernandez

That question probably deserve a poll creating

[Bob Clark]

my memory might be deceiving me, but I wonder whether Small and Arkell played in the British in the early to mid 1980s, Small winning with f6-f7 discovered check?

I don’t know if the game was in the British, but it was published in Chess with some amusing annotations by Small.
He was also an active postal player at towards the end of the 1980s and early 1990s.

[Jonathan Rogers]

But most tournaments that 2400-2550s win are still not GM norms, for want of titled opposition or maybe because 2560 performances do the job.

Ask Keith how many Gm norms he has, even after he made the title in the early 90s!

I'll bite and answer Jonathan's question , though I'm slightly too inebriated after a good night out with Terry Chapman, Peter Cusick and Eggy to fathom whether my answer proves or disproves whatever point he is trying to make.

I can't be bothered to search through all the big Opens I played on the continent, eg at Cappelle, Montpellier and Ostend, but the following are 'GM norms' which I am certain would meet FIDE's criteria:

1) Ostend 1990

2) Parthenay 1993

3) French League 1995

GM title

4) Wroxham Category 7 closed GM tournament 2002 7/9

5) Hastings Premier 2002/3 Category 13 5.5/9

Next the period I'm really proud of - the 3 superfluous norms I got in succession at the end of 2014 to show that a 54 year old can become a GM from scratch ( ok, not from scratch, but I rapidly went from about 2420 to 2510).

6) Isle of Man , October 2014

7) World Senior Championship, Greece, November 2014

8 ) Hastings, at the end of 2014

9) Vienna Open 2015 - a super strong tournament full of GMs at which I scored 7.5/9 coming 1= ( 2nd on tiebreak).

Not sure either whether it proves or disproves my point (that GM norms are rare and that even most GMs don't have all that many). Nine (minimum) is actually a lot (and the four late ones very impressive) but I don't know how typical you are in terms of activity.

(The reason why I picked you as an example was that I remembered you writing in CHESS in the early 1990s that you were too consistent for your own good - it took you a long time to make 3 GM norms because you were consistently playing just a level below, and by contrast had 49 IM norms!)

Glad that you're better now (hopefully)

[Jonathan Rogers]

Who will be the next player who will go above 2600?
Hawkins, Pert, Gordon or Someone like Ravi Haria or Daniel Fernandez

That question probably deserve a poll creating

seems safe to say that If Nick was going to do it, he would already have done it - he is not exactly inactive, and he is not so young anymore. More generally, it seems to me that players who don't make 2600 early and then devote their time to coaching and DVDs, etc, may be caught in a cycle where it is harder radically to improve their own game and they do well just to make minimal gains.

[Keith Arkell]

Who will be the next player who will go above 2600?
Hawkins, Pert, Gordon or Someone like Ravi Haria or Daniel Fernandez

That question probably deserve a poll creating

If he was more active then Jonathan Hawkins would have a very good chance of soon achieving 2600 by normal mathematical fluctuations. For example, in his last 7 games he went from 2560 to 2580. (Edit - the quote/ post colour change seems broken!)

[JustinHorton]

(Edit - the quote/ post colour change seems broken!)

Usually involves people accidentally quoting rather than replying

[Matt Mackenzie]

my memory might be deceiving me, but I wonder whether Small and Arkell played in the British in the early to mid 1980s, Small winning with f6-f7 discovered check?

I don’t know if the game was in the British, but it was published in Chess with some amusing annotations by Small.
He was also an active postal player at towards the end of the 1980s and early 1990s.

He also mentioned that Keith had almost always beaten him before......

[Jonathan Rogers]

...and that keith arrived late and played something like 1...b6 in the hope that Small (who had left the board) would not notice ? what memories we have!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

In other news, IM Brandon Clarke has reached 5/5 in the Major Open - is anyone following that?

[LawrenceCooper]

In other news, IM Brandon Clarke has reached 5/5 in the Major Open - is anyone following that?

I am indeed. He's also on 4/4 in the AM Open.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

In other news, IM Brandon Clarke has reached 5/5 in the Major Open - is anyone following that?

I am indeed. He's also on 4/4 in the AM Open.

Thanks, I'd not noticed that. He will get £990 if he wins both tournaments, which is just less than 5th in the British (£1000)! Less the entry fee for the AM Open and any late entry fees, Clarke might be in danger of actually covering his hotel costs...

Chessbase report from GM Danny Gormally (who is also one of the commentators):

https://en.chessbase.com/post/british-championship-2019

"Have we already seen the last great British chess player?"

(PS. The 3.5/5 bit in that report is an error, it should be 5 players start with 3.5/4.)

[JustinHorton]

Top board interesting as Ravi has played one of those systems against Mickey's 1 e4 e5 - in this instance the Scotch Four Knights - in which Black can equalise happily enough, but can't really get much play without straying onto iffy territory. That's nevertheless the way he's gone, and after White's sixteenth the computer gives him a chunky enough edge.

I am sure that Rogers J pointed out eons ago that one of Mickey's issues was not having an alternative defence to 1 e4.

Probably, one can hardly miss it. Not sure I have seen him play anything else, not even his 1980s/early 1990s Caro-Kann, this century!

It may or may not be a good idea at the elite level. Wins as well as losses after all, and it wasn't all that long ago that he beat Caruana with the Berlin. And wins v both Howell and Jones in recent British Chs; understandably they try to play "proper" main lines against him too.

But against the sub 2600s, there is a very obvious risk that White players, very happy to draw, will play some lines which give Black little scope for safely playing for a win. Perhaps the best try has been 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 4 c3 Nf6 5 d4 exf4 6 cxd4 Bb4+ 7 Bd2, as played successfully for safe draw by Nick Pert a few years ago, and was also played by Jack in the first round this year - and here, after Adams tried to mix things, Jack had a great chance according to SF, before going on to lose. So today's game follows a pattern; and if Adams were to say what he likes least about playing the British, it would probably precisely be playing Black against lower rated players who have worked out what to do against him.

And....

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Justin appears to be referring to the news that Adams has drawn with Black again (with Justin Tan). If Howell wins against Wadsworth (looks likely) then he and Adams will be leading again on 5/6, unless Williams can make his unsound sacrifice work against Gordon.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Justin appears to be referring to the news that Adams has drawn with Black again (with Justin Tan). ...

and specifically, against an 1 e4 player (the real point of the previous post).

If Adams had played Palliser and Tan with alternate colours these last two rounds, he would probably have expected 2/2 (Palliser being a 1 d4 player) but as it is, he has had three Blacks against 1 e4 players in the event and cannot complain about having two points from those games (the first round could have gone much worse). Presumably he has Black v Howell tomorrow, though again, playing 1 e4 e5 is not such a problem when against an opponent is not so happy to draw: indeed it is not obvious that Howell will even play 1 e4.

Incidentaly we have another trivia question from today's pairings - who is the first player to be paired with four consecutive Blacks?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Incidentaly we have another trivia question from today's pairings - who is the first player to be paired with four consecutive Blacks?

Too easy: Richard Palliser (though defaults don't count for colour pairings, surely?).