English Chess Forum

The UK Open Blitz Championship returns in 2025, featuring an expanded format with 16 qualifiers in 14 cities around the United Kingdom. Eldar Gasanov will be aiming for a hat-trick of titles after winning back-to-back in 2023 and 2024, while Eunice Hng will look to defend the Women’s title.

Full details for the tournament can be found here: https://www.englishchess.org.uk/uk-open ... hips-2025/

August 30 – London 1 (Hampton) White House, 45 The Avenue, Hampton TW12 3RN
September 06 – Newcastle Sandman Signature Newcastle Hotel, Gallowgate, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4SD
September 07 – Nottingham Nottingham High School, Waverley Mount, Nottingham NG7 4ED
September 07 (10am) – Glasgow Wellington Church, Glasgow University, 77 Southpark Avenue, Glasgow G12 8LE
September 13 – Cardiff Mercure Cardiff North Hotel, Circle Way East, Llanedeyrn, Cardiff CF23 9XF
September 13 – Southampton Barton Peveril Sixth Form College, Chestnut Avenue, Chestnut Ave, Eastleigh SO50 5ZA
September 13 (12pm) – Sheffield Sheffield Chess Centre, 329a Coleford Road, Darnall, Sheffield S9 5NF
September 14 – London 2 (Harrow) Harrow High School, Gayton Road, Harrow HA1 2JG
September 20 – Bristol St Michael’s Centre, North Road, Stoke Gifford BS34 8PD
September 20 – Liverpool North Liverpool Academy, 120 Heyworth Street, Everton, Liverpool L5 0SQ
September 20 – London 3 (Golders Green) St Luke’s Church, Kidderpore Avenue, Golders Green NW3 7SU
September 21 – Belfast NICS, Maynard Sinclair Pavilion, Stormont, Upper Newtownards Road, Belfast BT4 3TA
September 27 – Birmingham Quinborne Community Centre, Ridgacre Road, Quinton, Birmingham B32 2TW
September 28 – Edinburgh Edinburgh Park Novotel, 15 Lochside Avenue, Edinburgh EH12 9DJ
September 28 – Leeds Crowne Plaza Leeds by IHG, Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL
September 28 – Manchester Bolton Arena Sports Village, Arena Approach, Horwich, Bolton BL6 6LB

Online entry to the qualifiers can be found here: https://britchess.wufoo.com/forms/2025- ... pionships/

The Finals will be 16-player Round Robin tournaments, once again taking place at Woodland Grange in Leamington Spa, on Saturday, 22nd November.

GM Danny Gormally has made some salient points about qualifying from the Newcastle Blitz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTatRMI0QqI

See: https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1240759 ... 0&SNode=S0

I see that the prize-winners from this weekend's Qualifiers have already been posted:

https://www.englishchess.org.uk/uk-open ... zewinners/

Congratulations to all.

Clearly, the objective for the top male and female players was to win the coveted single spot in the Final in November in Leamington Spa. Having just one place for each, as opposed to last year's two, is problematic, as Danny Gormally has suggested.

What follows is not criticism directed at the local organisers and arbiters who, I understand, were under strict instructions not to make comments about who might have won cash prizes. £150 returned as cash prizes in Nottingham is hardly generous when a four-figure amount was taken in entry fees (£27 each). There ought to be more encouragement for weaker players who have no prospect of advancing to the Final.

I played in the Nottingham heat. The competition PDF said that the winner of each category would get £50.

On the day we found out that with 40 entries there would be 3 categories (unluckily for me, I was at the bottom of category A) so we knew the winner of each category, as shown on Chess Results, would get £50. The only surprise is that the prize money wasn't shared between those who got the same number of points. Then again, with such miserly prizes...

Although I enjoyed the event I do think that the difference between the entry fee and the category prizes is far too small. The ECF could easily afford to have made the category prizes £100, or had a £75 prize per every 10 players.

The fact that only one person qualified meant that the competition was effectively over by half way after all the top seeds had played each other so it was a bit of an anticlimax.

Even so, it was an enjoyable event, well run by our excellent local team of arbiters, and I got to play against an IM.

Dragoljub Sudar wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 08, 2025 1:31 pm

The ECF could easily afford to have made the category prizes £100, or had a £75 prize per every 10 players.

If it could, it would.

John Swain wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 08, 2025 11:10 am

£150 returned as cash prizes in Nottingham is hardly generous when a four-figure amount was taken in entry fees (£27 each).

£22.50 is taken in entry fees per entry due to VAT. Still over £1,000 though. Remember that the prize fund is structured so that everyone who qualifies for the Final wins a prize. Under the current model, the surplus made in the qualifiers goes to the prize fund for the Final.

These events have started to feel like it's a money gathering exercise now, double the number of qualifiers but the same amount of prizes doesn't take a maths genius to realise there is a lot of extra unaccounted for

Double the number of qualifiers also means double the venue hire costs, for starters.

Well yeah it's not completely free to put on a tournament but there's presumably a profit margin on each one and whatever it was is now doubled compared to the old format

Joey Stewart wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 08, 2025 5:50 pm

Well yeah it's not completely free to put on a tournament but there's presumably a profit margin on each one and whatever it was is now doubled compared to the old format

It's unclear what profits will arise from Blitz Qualifiers. In the case of Nottingham, it was necessary for the Nottinghamshire Chess Foundation to subsidise the venue cost with £150 above the figure allowed by the ECF for venue hire. There are also arbiter costs. Lastly, there is the remuneration of the ECF event manager. I quote from the October 2024 Board meeting:

Board Structure: Events Director
(SVW)
NT has announced his intention to stand down as Home Director no later than at the April
Finance Council meeting.

The scope of his contribution as Home Director has been extensive, and it has been
recognised that the role will need to be split as part of the consideration of Board structure.
Within that, it has been agreed that a new role of Events Director will need to be created.
Given the programme of events, identifying a new Events Director is a priority so that there
can be a timely handover, with plenty of time for the new incumbent to prepare for key events
and agree an appropriate structure.

It was noted that:

(a) The Events Director’s role would not be to manage individual events.
(b) Instead, they would be responsible for overseeing the structure and design of events,
working with events managers appointed to run the individual events.
(c) It is intended that event managers would be remunerated.
(d) There would be no prohibition on directors, whether the Events Director or others,
being appointed to event manager positions (and being remunerated accordingly), but
with transparency on the appointment and steps being taken to ensure that no director
determines the level of remuneration for a position to which they are appointed.

Action: NT to identify potential candidates for the Events Director position with a
view to reporting back to the next Board meeting.

Source: https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-cont ... r-2024.pdf

John Swain wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 08, 2025 7:20 pm

It's unclear what profits will arise from Blitz Qualifiers. In the case of Nottingham, it was necessary for the Nottinghamshire Chess Foundation to subsidise the venue cost with £150 above the figure allowed by the ECF for venue hire. There are also arbiter costs. Lastly, there is the remuneration of the ECF event manager.

As noted above it's VAT inefficient for the ECF to run events in its own name. Unlike county and congress associations, the ECF's turnover is high enough for it to be VAT registered. As a consequence it only gets to keep 80% of entry fees even if it can reduce a limited amount of expenses by VAT reclaim.

Joey Stewart wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 08, 2025 5:50 pm

Well yeah it's not completely free to put on a tournament but there's presumably a profit margin on each one and whatever it was is now doubled compared to the old format

The old format lost money overall. The new format is an attempt to break even on the event, while also meeting some of the complaints of "not enough qualifiers" that we received.

It should also be noted that the ECF pays for the cost of the venue for the local organiser, as well as giving each organiser a portion of the entry fee received per player to go to the other costs of running the event.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 08, 2025 8:50 pm

As a consequence it only gets to keep 80% of entry fees even if it can reduce a limited amount of expenses by VAT reclaim.

It keeps 5/6 of entry fees collected, not 4/5.

On the plus side, I very much welcome the tournament being expanded to more parts of the country. This is excellent if you don't live in or near a big city.

Today’s qualifier at Golders Green is strong. 5 GMs and 6 IMs.
https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1240768 ... 1&SNode=S0

For the record, the 5 GMs and 6 IMs from the top 12 (and 1 FM) are:

GM Speelman, Jon S ENG 2492
GM Gasanov, Eldar UKR 2470
GM Royal, Shreyas ENG 2433
GM Conquest, Stuart C ENG 2419
IM Tayar, Jonathan CAN 2413
IM Czopor, Maciej POL 2404
FM Badacsonyi, Stanley ENG 2389
IM Han, Yichen NED
IM Roberson, Peter T ENG 2321
GM Wadsworth, Matthew J ENG 2301
IM D'costa, Lorin Ar ENG 2298
IM Mcphillips, Joseph ENG 2294

Had never heard of Canadian IM Jonathan Tayar before. His ECF rating file reveals he played in the BUCA Championships in 2020, and for Cambridge in the Varsity Chess Match in 2020. Played for Barbican in the 4NCL in the season just concluded. Apparently also played in the 2022 Blitz qualifier in London. Also played in the London Lambeth FIDE Blitz 3+2 on 16 March 2025.

Anyway, no-one cares about that at the moment. The current scores on the doors after 9 rounds (of 15):

1 11 IM D'costa, Lorin Ar A ENG 2298 8 0 45 48,5 52 2477
2 7 FM Badacsonyi, Stanley A ENG 2389 7,5 0 46 51,5 56 2468
3 3 GM Royal, Shreyas A ENG 2433 7,5 0 46 51 55 2476
4 27 Hanache, Kai B ENG 2037 7,5 0 45,5 50,5 55 2515
5 2 GM Gasanov, Eldar A UKR 2470 7 0 46,5 51 55 2326
6 9 IM Roberson, Peter T A ENG 2321 7 0 42,5 46,5 50 2295
7 14 Lucchi, Lorenzo A ITA 2189 7 0 42 46,5 49,5 2304

Notable that Kai Hanache (2037) of Hammersmith has beaten IMs Maciej Czopor, Jonathan Tayar and GMs Matthew Wadsworth and Shreyas Royal, and drawn with GM Eldar Gasanov (soared to 7.5/8). But has lost the last two rounds against IM Lorin D'Costa and FM Stanley Badacsonyi.

Which means they have played round 10 and the above is out of date...

After round 10:

1 7 FM Badacsonyi, Stanley A ENG 2389 8,5 1 57,5 63 68,5 2475
2 11 IM D'costa, Lorin Ar A ENG 2298 8,5 0 57,5 62 66 2452
3 3 GM Royal, Shreyas A ENG 2433 8 0 58 63 67 2453
4 2 GM Gasanov, Eldar A UKR 2470 8 0 54,5 60 65 2364
5 9 IM Roberson, Peter T A ENG 2321 8 0 52 57 61 2327

What is the 'type' column about (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H)?

I also see some people playing here have already won previous qualifiers (e.g. Shreyas Royal won the Hampton qualifier and Stanley Badacsonyi won the Harrow qualifier). I guess taking part in more than one is an insurance policy in case you do badly earlier, and you carry on and play in later ones to prevent your rivals qualifying for the Final?

Qualifiers are listed here:

https://www.englishchess.org.uk/uk-open ... ualifiers/