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Fantastic news from the British Championships at Liverpool, where yesterday Jude had a tremendous win over the very strong IM Brandon Clarke (for the second time in a month, both with Black), finishing with a brilliant rook sac. You can play through the game here. After this win, Jude's live ELO rating has gone over 2300, which means he has qualified to become a Fide Master. This makes him only the second KCC player ever to become an FM, after Adam Collinson, though I'm pretty sure Adam didn't reach this milestone at the age of just 15!! Many congratulations from everyone at the club, Jude. Your success is absolutely brilliant.
It was very nearly an even more special day, as Billy was on the verge of taking down another IM, Andrew Ledger, but somehow the more experienced player saved a desperate looking rook ending and prevented an IM-bashing double by KCC juniors. So after 4 rounds of the Championships, Jude has a fantastic 3 pts with Billy on a more than respectable 2 pts. Today its another very tough pairing for Jude, against Ukrainian IM Svyatoslav Bazakutsa, while Billy plays FM Stephen Dishman. Good luck to them both, and indeed to all KCC participants. Which includes myself, of course!
It was the second instalment of the inaugural Kenilworth Speed Chess Championships last night, and ten intrepid players assembled to contest a five round rapid chess Swiss with a time limit of 10'+5".
Fresh from my surprise joint first place in leg 1, I found myself as clear top seed this time around, mainly thanks to everyone else having either ridiculously low rapid ratings (yes Keatan, that means you!) or no rapid rating at all. In the absence of our Swiss Manager supremo, Gregory, tournament organiser Ben had to revert to the tried and trusted analogue method of pen, scraps of paper and trial and error to make the pairings, but despite the distractions of also playing in the event, he coped admirably with the pressure and kept the show on the road.
Round 1
Mark 1 – 0 Bernard Ben 0.5 – 0.5 Mike Dave 1 v 0 Rhys Keatan 1 v 0 Algis Patrick 0 v 1 Paul B
Round 2
Paul B 0 – 1 Mark Mike 1 – 0 Patrick Keatan 1 – 0 Dave Bernard 1 – 0 Ben Rhys 1 – 0 Algis
Round 3
Mark 1 v 0 Keatan Dave 0 v 1 Mike Paul B 0.5 – 0.5 Bernard Ben 1 – 0 Rhys Algis 1 – 0 Patrick
Round 4
Mike 0 v 1 Mark Dave 1 – 0 Algis Bernard 0 – 1 Keatan Ben 1 – 0 Paul B Patrick 0 – 1 Rhys
Round 5
Mark 0.5 – 0.5 Ben Mike 1 – 0 Rhys Patrick 0 – 1 Dave Paul B 0 -1 Keatan Algis 0 – 1 Bernard
At the end of the evening I had just about managed to justify my number 1 seeding, finishing on 4.5/5, ahead of Keatan the rating bandit on 4. The full standings were:-
1 Mark 4.5 2 Keatan 4 3 Mike 3.5 4= Ben and Dave 3 6 Bernard 2.5 7 Rhys 2 8 Paul B 1.5 9 Algis 1 10 Patrick 0
The tournament was very hard fought, with the 5 rounds not concluding until around 10.30, and many games lasting close to 30 minutes. I almost lost count of the number of drawn out queen endings I had to play!
For the second successive event, I got to the final round with a 100% score (after a very lucky Rd 4 win over Mike) but - just like last time - I found Ben a very difficult opponent. At least this time I didn't lose, which was just as well, as Keatan won his last round encounter against Paul and would have tied if Ben had done the double over me. I don't know what it is about Ben's play, but he's got me totally psyched out now!
The even bigger storm referenced in the title of this article could be either Leg 3 of the KCC Speed Championship (which will be another Blitz event on August 28th) or the imminent British Championships which are about to start in Liverpool. KCC's 2 junior CMs are both in action in the Championship proper (but with starting ranks of 43 (Jude) and 72 (Billy) you can tell this is a monstrously strong event. Keatan is flying the KCC flag in the Major Open, where he is seeded 17th (of 137!) aiming for one of the 10 qualifying places available for the 2026 British Championship. Ben makes his debut in the 50+ Championships (seeded 41) where he is joined by Bruce (start rank 24). Of course, Ben is also playing in a morning tournament as well, and a couple of Blitz evenings. Good luck to him I say, but count me out of such an intensive schedule - I've got sight-seeing, eating, drinking and sleeping to take care of! Keatan, Bruce and - surprise, surprise - Joshua will also be blitzing two of their evenings away. Madness, sheer madness!
Well, why not? It is Liverpool we're going to!
Ed (seeded 60) and myself (21) are the two KCC representatives in the 65+ event. The chances of me repeating my shock joint first in 2019 are consequently very low.
So we haven't quite been able to match the even larger turnout we had in Torquay back in 2019, but its still a respectable showing. Good luck to all and who knows, there may even be a report or two of proceedings posted here.
Now, we've had this song before (no idea if it was this same video), but it would be careless of me not to continue the theme. So here goes.
