British Championship Congress 2021

[IM Jack Rudd]

Keith wins his game and therefore the tournament. Congratulations to him.

[David Sedgwick]

The game would be very unlikely to go beyond about 9.30 pm this evening.

It finished at 9,25 pm, so fair enough.

Well played Keith. Congratulations.

[Mick Norris]

Brilliant, well played Keith

[Kevin Thurlow]

Yes, well done Keith. Nice to see other people being tormented!

[Matthew Turner]

This is worth a watch

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1111217171

[PeterFinn]

Massive congratulations Keith, from the games I looked at you definitely played the best chess of the tournament and were a well deserved winner.

[PeterFinn]

The odds on board 2 are not as bad as the numbers would suggest - if the fide ratings were not a year behind AND completely broken Freddie would be more like a 2200 grade judging from his interview with Matthew saddler and Natasha Regan last night where he demonstrated some very good understanding of the game.

I have been playing 15+10 rapid games most weeks with Freddy since October. I am currently 29-25 down. 2200 is a good estimate, a little low if anything.

One of the nice things about a return to OTB chess will be seeing the improvement that lots of players will show due to hard work during lockdowns and the extended off season. I must apologise to Peter for claiming the opening he played against me at a recent OTB blitz was 'dodgy', it turns out he was simply much better prepared than I was!

There will also be players who do not reach to their online levels, or perhaps may not return at all.

No offence taken, I had prepared that line for my game against Daniel Fernandez at last years Online British via a different move order (3. Nf6) in the Rossolimo. I tried it then as a surprise weapon after seeing when preparing for round 2 that Bogdan Lalic often plays it on the black side and I thought it was interesting so would give it a go.

[Keith Arkell]

Thanks loads gents. Feeling very happy, but emotionally drained after so much drama!

[Wadih Khoury]

Congratulations Keith.

This is worth a watch

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1111217171

I am curious, what is the support and/or framework provided by the Scottish Federation to their top juniors like Frederick?
I am getting a vibe that there has been a recent strong push for junior chess in Scotland and am keen to learn more about the ideas and strategies used there.

[Ronnie Burton]

Freddy Gordon will have a brilliant future as a chess player and future British Champion.

[Matthew Turner]

Congratulations Keith.

This is worth a watch

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1111217171

I am curious, what is the support and/or framework provided by the Scottish Federation to their top juniors like Frederick?
I am getting a vibe that there has been a recent strong push for junior chess in Scotland and am keen to learn more about the ideas and strategies used there.

Wadih,
I don't know is the honest answer, but I very strongly suspect that Freddy won't have had any specific support from Chess Scotland other than general encouragement and invites to events etc.

For some time Scotland has had some excellent chess coaches and very strong young players have emerged, but they have basically all plateaued because there haven't been the opportunities for them to have very regular challenging competition. I suggested that we needed a serious online competition to help address this problem and as a creative idea that a youngster could set this up as an EPQ project.

I would suggest that the pandemic has changed everything and the Gordons have developed a different way of training, developing or perhaps more importantly enjoying chess. There are many interesting snippets from Freddy's interview, but for me the most interesting was the idea of him playing matches against Peter Finn each week. I got the impression that relationship went beyond somebody he plays chess with and Peter was a bigger brother/role model figure.

I know those advising and supporting the Carlsens were keen that Magnus would become a very strong chess player but "not Bobby Fischer"' it was important that he would be a well balanced individual too. Judging by the interview, I guess they would approve of how the Gordons are going about things.

[PeterFinn]

There are many interesting snippets from Freddy's interview, but for me the most interesting was the idea of him playing matches against Peter Finn each week. I got the impression that relationship went beyond somebody he plays chess with and Peter was a bigger brother/role model figure.

Once the pandemic hit last year I was already playing a lot of online chess including the ECF Online Events. At this time Freddy was also occasionally playing in these events but I didn't know who he was and certainly wouldn't have guessed he was 9, I just knew he was very strong and I think I was 3-2 down after 5 blitz games.

However at some point I came across some results that attached Freddy's name to his username and I became aware of his exceptional talent. I was looking to play some more training games around that time and remembered when I was about 13 always wanting to play strong players but struggling to get good regular competition. Hence I decided to get in contact asking if he wanted to play some practice games at a reasonably long time limit and his Dad replied and was keen.

I expected I would probably be slightly better than Freddy at rapid time controls. This idea was quickly put to bed when I lost with both white and black in the first two games we played. We continued playing every week with some very high quality games with some wins for me, some for Freddy and some draws.

Around this time I was quite surprised that Freddy wasn't performing better in the 4NCL online league for example where he was playing at a fraction of his true strength. However when the ECF online rapid grand prix started and he won the first event with a win over Lalic and a draw with Arkell I thought okay great it isn't just me he plays great against. He's only gotten stronger since then and now everyone can see how good he is after the recent British Online.

In terms of being a role model figure for Freddy I've never really thought about that. I know he follows how I'm doing in events and I suppose when I played well at last year's British Online it must have given him confidence that he could do the same. Really though I can't take much credit for his development. He's obviously working extremely hard on his chess and the main credit should go to his parents, coaches that he's worked with and even more so to himself.

[Chris Rice]

Leonard's column in the Financial Times with the headline "Arkell wins British online chess title at 60 — as 10-year-old Scot draws with England No 1"

[David Sedgwick]

Leonard's column in the Financial Times with the headline "Arkell wins British online chess title at 60 — as 10-year-old Scot draws with England No 1"

... and his column in the Guardian:

www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/13/c ... squalified

[Matt Bridgeman]

Someone is doing sterling work behind the scenes getting a number of the supposed ‘winners’ of the off-camera British events banned today. Too many weak chess players or non-chess players suddenly playing like FM’s to be believable. Bigging it up on Twitter seems to be a motivation for some.

I think as of 15th August, there’s at least 3 players who won 4 of the off-camera events who have been banned this weekend. I’m sure there’s plenty more but, for example, it’s hard to pick out the qualifiers who are prepared to win a set of 5 brilliant games and then lose every single game on camera more or less. Having of course denied many honest players the chance to reach that final.

The prize list but an early draft it seems with none of the off-camera player bans omitted. Probably it will never be updated, so the cheats skate as usual.
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/bocc-pr ... list-2021/