British Championship Congress 2019

[Matt Mackenzie]

I'm thinking it was probably when Simon Small was an active professional

I confess that's not a name I remember at all.

Was based in Cumbria come the late 80s/early 90s.

[JustinHorton]

I was basically inactive about 1983-1990 so maybe I just missed him.

[John Moore]

There's an annotated game Small-Basman from a British Championship in one of the old B H Wood Chess mags. Can't remember exactly when and I can't get to them at the moment but I do remember thinking at the time who is Simon Small. I seem to recall it's one of the 1 e4 g5 rubbish but I might be wrong.

[John Moore]

Ah, of course it's on MegaBase - Torquay 1992 and starts 1 Nf3 h6 2 d4 g5. Now why didn't I remember that.

[JustinHorton]

Though Chessgames has 1992, Plymouth, Basman playing White and 1 h3 d5 2 a3 e5.

[John Moore]

Apologies, Justin, try Torquay 1982.

[JustinHorton]

Draw in Tan-Howell, so Mickey the clear leader after five rounds. Very tenacious performance by Justin to hang on.

[Paul Cooksey]

The top four England players are remarkably closely rated at the moment. From 2700chess:

41 ↓2 Howell 2694.2 −2.8
42 Jones 2692.0 0.0
43 Sadler 2692.0 0.0
44 ↑4 Adams 2691.5 +1.5

[Joey Stewart]

Macshane and short are probably not far behind those 4 either - its a pretty solid era for english chess right now, if we just had one world class GM then maybe we could start winning some team chess events.

[Carl Hibbard]

Draw in Tan-Howell, so Mickey the clear leader after five rounds. Very tenacious performance by Justin to hang on.

Another good watch that one I suspect Howell had the win but tight on time and hard even with lots of time.

[Carl Hibbard]

A comfortable Williams win I suspect the Ba3 was the loser wasting a couple of moves in the wrong direction.

[Carl Hibbard]

Adams looked in more trouble than clearly he was and time told.

[LawrenceCooper]

Macshane and short are probably not far behind those 4 either - its a pretty solid era for english chess right now, if we just had one world class GM then maybe we could start winning some team chess events.

The gap between five and six is actually bigger than between six and seven.

England (Active players)

# Name Title Fed Rating G B-Year
1 Howell, David W L g ENG 2697 0 1990
2 Jones, Gawain C B g ENG 2692 0 1987
2 Sadler, Matthew D g ENG 2692 0 1974
4 Adams, Michael g ENG 2690 0 1971
5 McShane, Luke J g ENG 2682 11 1984
6 Short, Nigel D g ENG 2630 0 1965
7 Hawkins, Jonathan g ENG 2580 0 1983
8 Nunn, John D M g ENG 2568 0 1955
9 Pert, Nicholas g ENG 2563 0 1981
10 Gordon, Stephen J g ENG 2520 9 1986

[John Reyes]

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

Macshane and short are probably not far behind those 4 either - its a pretty solid era for english chess right now, if we just had one world class GM then maybe we could start winning some team chess events.

The gap between five and six is actually bigger than between six and seven.

England (Active players)

# Name Title Fed Rating G B-Year
1 Howell, David W L g ENG 2697 0 1990
2 Jones, Gawain C B g ENG 2692 0 1987
2 Sadler, Matthew D g ENG 2692 0 1974
4 Adams, Michael g ENG 2690 0 1971
5 McShane, Luke J g ENG 2682 11 1984
6 Short, Nigel D g ENG 2630 0 1965
7 Hawkins, Jonathan g ENG 2580 0 1983
8 Nunn, John D M g ENG 2568 0 1955
9 Pert, Nicholas g ENG 2563 0 1981
10 Gordon, Stephen J g ENG 2520 9 1986

[Keith Arkell]

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).