BRITISH CHESS CHAMPIONSHIPS - THE GAMES

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I notice the women's title has become quite close

This link seems to work better for the women's title:

http://www.livechess.co.uk/british2011/ ... emale.html

Houska on 5.5, Lalic and Yurenok on 5. Houska is playing Rendle, the others are playing non-titled players. Might well go down to the last round. Looking at the rest of the draw, Hawkins is the only non-GM of the ten on the top five boards. Does anyone think any of those on 6.5 (Howell, Jones, N. Pert, Wells, Hawkins) will manage to finish with 2/2? I think Howell has the best chance of doing that, though he might play N. Pert in the final round.

[Justin Hadi]

Adams still on course to win outright, I'd say.

[LozCooper]

Pairings round 10 (Thursday, 04 August 2011)

Table White Score Fed. Rating Black Score Fed. Rating Result
1 GM Pert, Nicholas 6.5 ENG 2555 GM Adams, Michael 7.5 ENG 2715
2 GM Short, Nigel D 7.0 ENG 2687 GM Wells, Peter K 6.5 ENG 2489
3 IM Hawkins, Jonathan 6.5 ENG 2457 GM Howell, David W L 6.5 ENG 2625
4 GM Summerscale, Aaron P 6.0 ENG 2415 GM Jones, Gawain C B 6.5 ENG 2606
5 GM Gormally, Daniel W 6.0 ENG 2519 GM Gordon, Stephen J 6.0 ENG 2533
6 IM Houska, Jovanka 5.5 ENG 2418 IM Rendle, Thomas E 6.0 ENG 2386
7 IM Buckley, Graeme N 5.5 ENG 2380 GM Hebden, Mark L 5.5 ENG 2533
8 IM Palliser, Richard J D 5.5 ENG 2454 FM Griffiths, Ryan Rhys 5.5 IRL 2301
9 IM Zhou, Yang-Fan 5.5 ENG 2444 FM Eggleston, David J 5.5 ENG 2318
10 IM Hunt, Adam C 5.5 ENG 2436 Adair, James R 5.5 ENG 2212
11 IM Ansell, Simon T 5.5 ENG 2410 IM Ledger, Andrew J 5.5 ENG 2435
12 Sreeves, Clement 5.0 SCO 2169 IM Bates, Richard A 5.5 ENG 2373
13 GM Williams, Simon K 5.0 ENG 2528 Jones, Victor G L 5.0 ENG 2153
14 Dargan, Paul A G 5.0 ENG 2151 GM Conquest, Stuart C 5.0 ENG 2519
15 Brown, Martin 5.0 ENG 2130 IM Lalic, Susan K 5.0 ENG 2277
16 Chapman, Terry P D 5.0 ENG 2242 Lalic, Peter D 5.0 ENG 1978
17 WFM Yurenok, Maria S 5.0 ENG 2090 Ross, Chris N 5.0 ENG 2234
18 Khandelwal, Ankush 5.0 ENG 2211 Boulton, William J K 5.0 ENG 1971
19 IM Kolbus, Dietmar 4.5 GER 2335 CM Walton, Alan J 4.5 ENG 2172
20 FM Ledger, Dave J 4.5 ENG 2277 Kemp, Paul R 4.5 ENG 2114
21 Mason, Donald J 4.5 ENG 2237 Jenks, C Bruce 4.5 ENG 2146
22 MacQueen, Calum 4.5 SCO 2139 FM Britton, Richard L 4.5 ENG 2203
23 Boyd, John 4.5 ENG 2200 Jaunooby, Ali R 4.5 ENG 2130
24 Jackson, James P 4.0 ENG 2157 FM Webb, Laurence E 4.0 ENG 2306
25 Salimbeni, George P W 4.0 ENG 2150 FM Constantinou, Peter 4.0 ENG 2292
26 IM Rudd, Jack 4.0 ENG 2278 Jones, William E G 4.0 ENG 2121
27 Birtwistle, Nigel 4.0 ENG 2214 McKenna, Jason P 4.0 ENG 2098
28 Krzyzanowski, Patryk 4.0 POL 1996 Harvey, Marcus R 4.0 ENG 2206
29 Nelson, Jonathan P 4.0 ENG 2204 Almond, Richard J 4.0 ENG 2121
30 Holland, James P 4.0 ENG 2196 Gregory, Stephen J 4.0 ENG 2109
31 French, Angus J 4.0 ENG 2103 O'Toole, George E 4.0 ENG 2185
32 Shaw, Peter 4.0 ENG 2162 Surtees, Mike J 3.5 ENG 2151
33 IM Beaumont, Chris R 3.5 ENG 2313 Rabbitte, Liam F 3.5 ENG 2034
34 Yap, Jinwei Abel 3.5 MAS 2029 Burnett, Jim 3.5 ENG 2191
35 Dines, Sheila J 3.5 ENG 1889 Simons, Martin J 3.5 ENG 2179
36 Atako, Chino 3.5 ENG 2110 WFM Hegarty, Sarah N 3.5 ENG 2065
37 Weaving, Richard 3.5 ENG 2070 Waterfield, John W 3.0 ENG 1992
38 Pleasants, Allan J 3.0 WLS 2092 Magee, Ronan 3.0 IRL 1953
39 Phillips, Owen S 3.0 ENG 1967 Haria, Ravi 3.0 ENG 2073
40 Foo, William J 3.0 ENG 1893 Lenier, Jude A 2.5 ENG 2065
41 Mellor, Stephen D 2.0 SCO 2048 * De Coverly, Roger D 2.5 ENG 2080
42 Coates, David H 2.5 ENG 2080 O'Driscoll, Kieran 0.0 2108

[Andrew Stone]

Just noticed George O'Toole has 0/5 with white and 4/4 with black! He has had harder oppos with white granted, but only one was titled.

[Graham Borrowdale]

Houska on 5.5, Lalic and Yurenok on 5. Houska is playing Rendle, the others are playing non-titled players. Might well go down to the last round. Looking at the rest of the draw, Hawkins is the only non-GM of the ten on the top five boards. Does anyone think any of those on 6.5 (Howell, Jones, N. Pert, Wells, Hawkins) will manage to finish with 2/2? I think Howell has the best chance of doing that, though he might play N. Pert in the final round

.

Despite the strength of this Championship at the top, it seems quite likely that the winning score will be high - with Short on 7/9 it is quite possible that Adams will need to win his last 2 games to ensure outright victory. To answer Christopher's question about the players on 6.5, I would agree that Howell could well finish with 2/2 to total 8.5, which in many years would have won the title outright, but could conceivably only be third this time. Hawkins could replace Howell in that equation, and Jones could join either of them. My guess is that none of that group of 3 will finish with 2/2, and that Adams will do whatever is necessary depending on Short's result.

[Paul Cooksey]

I though I was being bold before the start predicting Adams and Short would be =1st on 8.5. Looks like at least one of them will make more. Adams will be a strong favourite to win in the last round with white against someone rated 200 points lower than him. So Pert-Adams looks like a decisive game.

Am I mad in thinking that, despite his excellent score, Adams' form doesn't look so great? You could snap-shot a couple of positions from Howell-Adams and Short-Adams where you'd think it very unlikely he would score 1.5/2, or even .5. But, like everyone else, I believe Adams will win, almost regardless of how I assess his position.

By contrast Short seems to get no love from this forum at all. He's played some impressive chess. But I think he'd be scraping about 50% on predictions, every round is going to be the round his frailty is exposed!

[James Byrne]

...

[andrew martin]

Game of the Day from Rd 9 : David Howell v Simon Ansell



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2voi82MKjc


Regards, Andrew

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Game of the Day from Rd 9 : David Howell v Simon Ansell

Any chance of something being posted here on whether anything was missed in that game towards the end? Also, will the games of the day and any annotations be published in any written format that can be read online?

[Jonathan Bryant]

Surprises on boards 1 and 2 already. We'll 1. b3 and 1. d4 and 2. Nc3 are a surprise to me, anyway.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Surprises on boards 1 and 2 already. We'll 1. b3 and 1. d4 and 2. Nc3 are a surprise to me, anyway.

Me too. I thought 1.d4 and 2.Nc3 was the Barry Attack, but it seems my limited opening knowledge is even more limited than I thought.

[Maxim Devereaux]

It's only the Barry if you go d4/Nf3/Nc3 and Bf4 afaik.
What Nick's playing is a Veresov Attack.

Hmm... 3. ...h6 is quite provocative.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Indeed. 1.b3 makes sense v a time trouble addict, and maybe Short expected 1...d5 in response - I suspect that this mobve is welcome to someone who has played Nimzo type openings with Black.

I said yesterday that Yang-Fan would have better off playing 1...g6 and if necessary 2 ...b6 v Wells!

I don't see equal sense in the Veresov though. I know Nick has experimented with the Albin as Black and so perhaps he has looked at the Chigorin too; but somehow playing all this a tempo up never seems to offer White anything.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Indeed. 1.b3 makes sense v a time trouble addict, and maybe Short expected 1...d5 in response - I suspect that this move is welcome to someone who has played Nimzo type openings with Black.

I said yesterday that Yang-Fan would have better off playing 1...g6 and if necessary 2 ...b6 v Wells!

I don't see equal sense in the Veresov though. I know Nick has experimented with the Albin as Black and so perhaps he has looked at the Chigorin too; but somehow playing all this a tempo up never seems to offer White anything.

[Jonathan Bryant]

It's only the Barry if you go d4/Nf3/Nc3 and Bf4 afaik.
What Nick's playing is a Veresov Attack.

Hmm... 3. ...h6 is quite provocative.

Barry is played against ... Nf6/... g6/... d5 set-ups isn't it?

I thought 1 d4 nf6, 2 Nc3 was the Versov? I also thought that ... h6 was inaccurate at move 3 on the grounds that White wants to play Bxf6 anyway.


#whatdoIknow?


EDIT:
SHort-Wells is now a reversed English Defence. Nosh played at least one famous game with that as Black. Houska has played an old favourite (early d5) of Ray Keene's against the Leningrad - although RDK came to prefer Qd3 over b2-b3 on move 10.


EDIT2:
1. b3 a long time favourite of RDK's too, of course. As was the English Defence - although we seem to be heading for a reversed Queen's Indian now.