British Senior Championship 2013

[Paul Habershon]

I note that IM Nigel Povah has entered the British Senior Championship (August 2013). Is he the first OTB IM to play since Harry Golombek in the early 1980s when the British Seniors started? Since I began in the Seniors in 2007 I have been disappointed that no GM/IM players have entered. Perhaps the biggest 'name' entrant of recent years is John Littlewood, but he was not an IM. I don't think Bob Wade ever entered.

Of course we are still early in the history of British GMs. I think Tony Miles is the only one who has died (and he would still be too young for the Seniors), but Penrose and Keene, unsurprisingly, have never entered the Senior Championship. However, several IMs are now eligible: Basman, Beaumont, Bellin, Hartston, Horner and Whiteley. Their participation would do wonders for the status of the event. There are also many titled players now hurtling through their fifties. Perhaps Nigel Povah will set a trend.

I would be interested to know of any errors or omissions in the above.

[Roger de Coverly]

However, several IMs are now eligible: Basman, Beaumont, Bellin, Hartston, Horner and Whiteley.

Andrew Whiteley won the English Senior Championship.

In a rerun of history where the junior players of that era would play in the British Championship if they could qualify, there are likely to be players eligible to play in the Seniors who will play in the British.

But the general assessment is right, the Seniors will get stronger as a mirror of the growth and expansion of British chess in the 1970s.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

This list could be redone to list British IMs and GMs by age:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2165

Those born in 1953 or earlier on that list who are IMs or GMs, including those already mentioned, are:

Jonathan Penrose (born 1933)
David Levy (born 1945)
Michael Basman (born 1946)
William Hartston (born 1947)
Andrew Whiteley (born 1947)
Raymond Keene (born 1948)
Craig Pritchett (born 1949)
George Botterill (born 1949)
Jeff Horner (born 1949)
Robert Bellin (born 1952)
Chris Beaumont (1952)
Nigel Povah (born 1952)
Roderick McKay (born 1952)
Michael Stean (born 1953)

Others born in the 1950s are:

John Cooper (born 1954)
Mark Orr (born 1955)
John Nunn (born 1955)
Jonathan Speelman (born 1956)
Paul Littlewood (born 1956)
Peter Large (born 1956)
Colin Crouch (born 1956)
Jonathan Mestel (born 1957)
Andrew Martin (born 1957)
Douglas Bryson (born 1957)
Shaun Taulbut (born 1958)
Andrew Muir (born 1958)
David Goodman (born 1958)
Mark Hebden (born 1958)
Tony Kosten (born 1958)
Chris Baker (born 1958)
Simon Knott (born 1958)
Glenn Flear (born 1959)

[Paul Habershon]

Thanks, Christopher Kreuzer, for a most interesting list by age. Apologies for omitting the Scots and the Welsh from my original post. (Any Northern Irish?). I had consulted only the ECF website.

Of course, to enter the British Seniors this year your birth needs to be before 1953. Other age-qualified non-IM stars who have finished high in British Championships of yore are Owen Hindle and Howard Williams (et al, no doubt). They would certainly add lustre to this year's Senior event. Come on, chaps, you have nothing to lose but your reputations!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I'm not sure how many of those listed are still active in OTB chess. I think both the Irish and the Northern Irish can play in the main championship proper, so presumably in the Seniors as well? See here:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=1964#p35648

I do wonder how some of the stronger but less-active players would actually perform if they did come out of retirement or semi-retirement. It would be interesting.

[Niall Doran]

If it's the same one, Mark Orr is Irish:

http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2500035

[Stewart Reuben]

The first English GM was Jaques Mieses. He died as recently as 1954.
Abe Yanofsky (CAN) was the first British Champion to become a GM.
Leonard Barden should be added to the list of distinguished players who could compete. He won the event and never had a FIDE Rating to lose.
Michael Franklin is another.
Dr Jana Bellin and Sheila Jackson (who will be there) would also add to the event.
All IMs and GMs are qualified to play in the actual British Champonship.
I would have liked to have arranged a parade of champions, but the cost swas prohibitive. Just getting Jonathan Penrose there would be terrific.
The problem for all such players is partly the cost.

[John Clarke]

There are three one-off British champions we could add: Michael Haygarth (is he still around?), Peter Lee and Brian Eley (uuh ..... come to think of it, maybe not the last of those).

[Roger de Coverly]

The three Open prize winners at the Cotswold Congress are all eligible for the British Seniors.

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/45th-cot ... -congress/

[Andrew Zigmond]

If my club held a seniors competition it would be a question of not so much who was eligible but who wasn't.

As others have pointed out the handful of eligible titled players still in active play could comfortably hold their own in the competition proper. A glance at last years crosstables suggests that the top players in the seniors could have easily challenged for the major open.Would it be a fair comment that the seniors competition largely caters for the fact that over 60s are more likely to be in a position to spend a whole week playing chess?

[Roger de Coverly]

A glance at last years crosstables suggests that the top players in the seniors could have easily challenged for the major open.

It's a British title and goes in the record books. Past winners of the Major Open are never listed in the ECF Year Book.

[Stewart Reuben]

Senior chess was virtually moribund in this country last century. At one time the British Seniors was down to 6 entries. I remember in the later 1990s that Leonard Barden asked me what was going to be down about popularising chess among seniors.

Since we started sending teams to the European Senior Team Championship in 2002, the numbers have grown. 15 players are signed up to go to Dresden for the ESTC. 2 of the players have difficulty because they are also playing in the British Championship, Jim Burnett and Michael Yeo.

It is well-chronicled that seniors are living longer, healthier lives. Just as some juniors prefer to play in an event wih their contemporaries and some women prefer to play against other women, so do some senior prefer to play against their contemporaries.

Roger has pointed out a defect in the British records in not listing the past winners in the Major Open. Allegedly Alekhine won it one year. 2004 it was the World Major (restricted to players under 2350) Championship. GMs have won it.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Roger has pointed out a defect in the British records in not listing the past winners in the Major Open. Allegedly Alekhine won it one year. 2004 it was the World Major (restricted to players under 2350) Championship. GMs have won it.

The claim that Alekhine won the British Championship Major Open seems to be the 1923 one. It should be easy to check that, you would have thought.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscol ... id=1024561

"49. <Portsmouth 1923, 12-25 August> 16th British Chess Federation Congress, Major Open Tournament. Clear 1st over A. Vajda, A. Steiner, V. Kahn, J. Drewitt, and others. (British Chess Magazine, 1923, p327.)"

If that 1923 issue of BCM does indeed record that (no reason to think it doesn't), then that seems true.

[Stewart Reuben]

Anybody fancy trolling through old records to determine the Major Open winners? It would be good to have it ready by Torquay. The information will be in the old Yearbooks and possibly the BCM.

I did a similar job for the English holders of FIDE awards. Now it is updated annually.

[James Pratt]

Rubinstein got 11/11 at Southport, 1924. JAJ Drewitt ("that lovable, eccentric don"-ARB Thomas) was second. Of course this was an all-play-all. Alekhine had let the side down, the year before, scoring a miserable 10.5/11. Alekhine's draw was with Kahn with whom he had/was to work, I think.

I also think Reshevsky played. I can't remember when. Kudrin played at Southampton, 1986.