English Chess Forum

Having too much time on my hands, no doubt, I started a British Championship quiz in another thread, and Jack Rudd also contributed a question. Since chess players love competitions and quizzes, I thought I would post it again here

Starting from 1983

(1) which British champion lost two games in the second week ?
(2) which Champion recovered after a loss to Basman in the first week?
(3) when did the two favourites play in the second round?
(4) when did the players who eventually finished first and second play in the second round?
(5) In which years have the two leaders after round ten - BOTH of them clear of the rest of the field - played each other in the last round (i.e, when have we had a real title decider in the last round, with either player sure to take sole first place in the event of victory)?

Jack's sixth question (which I myself cannot answer)

"6) In what year did the winner and runner-up not play each other? (I know this has at least one answer; I don't know if the answer is unique.)"

I thought it would be interesting to trawl through some crosstables to look up the answers, but then realised that there doesn't seem to be a permanent collection of these anywhere on the web. Even relatively recent championships appear to be missing.

No doubt they exist in print in the BCM and Chess. They can probably be reconstructed using ChessBase. But shouldn't there be an archive somewhere, perhaps as an adjunct to Britbase? Or have I just failed utterly to find them?

I am working from memory, which I trust implicitly. I am pleased to hear that cheating is impossible! But I agree that the information ought really to be out there.

It also occurred to me, since many people claimed to be chess journalists on another thread, that we members of the chess public should put them to the test! Leonard, John, and others, we are waiting ....

Think of it as virtual Mastermind ....

(1) is Aagaard, I think

6) In what year did the winner and runner-up not play each other? (I know this has at least one answer; I don't know if the answer is unique.)

Well, Bishopsgate 1948 was the last British Championship held as a round robin and Felixstowe 1949 was the first held as a Swiss, so unless something unusual happened in some earlier tournament, and, for the moment, I will assume not, the winner and runner up always played each other up and including until 1948.

What does Jack intend when there was more than one winner or more than one runner up?

For example, Bob Wade won at Chester 1952, with 8 points, whilst RF Boxall, PH Clarke, H Israel, A Phillips, EL Stuart and PN Wallis all came next, with 7 points. Bob did not play Boxall, Clarke, but played each of the remaining runners up.

[ Interestingly, given discussions in the last few years about eligibility for the British Championship, Bob had been unable to play in the British since Nottingham 1946, although resident in Europe since August 26th, 1948 - and not to return to New Zealand for the next 57 years, as the rules had in the meantime changed so that "All entrants must be British subjects by birth or naturalisation and resident in Great Britain or Northern Ireland.", and Bob spent too much time in Switzerland, etc., to be considered "resident". At what point the rules reverted to allowing entries from citizens from the Commonwealth, Ireland, the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories, I am not sure. Some time in the early to mid 1950's I should expect. Without going to the trouble of rechecking my facts (!), I seem to recall that Yanofsky had similar problems, which prevented him from playing in 1952, but he was resident for a sufficient period to allow him to play in 1953, when he won in fine and convincing style. ]

Anyway, here's some stuff:
1949 Felixstowe H Golombek (winner with 8.5) beat DM Horne and drew with Dr. S Fazekas (runners up with 8)
1950 Buxton RJ Broadbent (winner with 8.5) did not play E Klein (runner up with 8)
1951 Swansea Klein (winner with 8.5) drew with Broadbent (runner up with 8)
1952 as above, Bob Wade played 4 of the 6 runners up
1953 Hastings DA Yanofsky (winner with 9.5) beat PS Milner-Barry (runner up with 8)
1954 Nottingham LW Barden and A Phillips were joint winners with 8; Barden lost to G Abrahams, beat Dr S Fazekas and DV Hooper (runners up with 7), whilst Phillips beat Abrahams, lost to Fazekas and drew with Hooper.

Seems awfully complicated, perhaps one doesn't treat the case of joint winners? Perhaps when did the top two players not play each other, is that the question (e.g. Barden beat Phillips in 1954).

Can we have a clarification, Jack, please?

Ploughing on regardless, here are some further researches into question 6:
1955 Aberystwyth H Golombek (winner with 8.5) lost to RG Wade (runner up with 8)
1956 Bob Wade neither played nor reported so I will have to look it up in BCM or Chess
1957 Plymouth Dr. S Fazekas (winner with 8) did not play PH Clarke, but drew with J Penrose and RG Wade (runners up with 7.5)
1958 Leamington Spa LW Barden and J Penrose were joint winners with 8.5. PH Clarke came next with 8.

This raises a further complication, as Penrose won a later play-off match. Should one treat Barden and Penrose as having the British Championship <i>tournament</i>, or should one treat Penrose as having won the British Championship <i>title</i>?

For the record, Barden, Penrose and Clarke all played one other, both games being drawn, so the question is, in this case, academic.

1959 York H Golombek, MJ Haygarth and J Penrose jointly won the tournament with 8 points. Dr. JM Aitken, LW Barden, PH Clarke and JE Littlewood came next, each with 7 points.

Think Jack should definitely let us know what exactly the question <i>is</i> before I attempt to unravel that one!

[quote](1) which British champion lost two games in the second week ?[/quote]

At Nottingham 1954, Alan Phillips lost to Fazekas in round 6 and Barden in round 8. Phillips and Barden jointly won the tournament. They then tied a play-off match (+1 -1 =4), drew a further play-off match (=2) and yet a further match (=2), so the title was shared through exhaustion.

So Alan Phillips was certainly one British Champion who lost two games in the second week of a championship in which he gained that title. Were there others?

Jonathan Rogers wrote:Starting from 1983

(3) when did the two favourites play in the second round?
(4) when did the players who eventually finished first and second play in the second round?

(3) would have been 2000 at Millfield with Julian Hodgson and Jon Speelman.

I thought it might have been (4) as well but Chris Ward was that year's runner up to Jules.

So far, so good: (1) is Aagaard, and (3) is Hodgson/Speelman.

Paul, I decided to cover up my lack of depth by starting the quiz from 1983. But presumably round 6 has always been played in the first week, so Alan Phillips did not lose two games in the final week in 1954.

Aagaard would also have been the answer to another question that I nearly set, viz which Champion made 6/6 with Black ....

So we are still waiting for answers to questions 2, 4 and 5 (and I still cannot answer Jack's number 6).

Jonathan -
as you nearly said, "Read the f'ing exam paper before answering the wrong question!"
mea culpa
Paul.

But I don't know whether or not Jack is starting from 1983 or not. If not, then at least Broadbent didn't play Klein at Buxton 1950.

Well Jonathan you are a tiresome bugger, but the answer to Q2 is Speelman in 1986 who lost to the Basmaniac in a game about which I have no recollection whatsoever although I was certainly in Southampton at some point around then and vaguely remember everyone getting excited.

Sad to see that the death of Alan Phillips is announced on the ECF website - sad also is that there he is recorded as champion in 1952 rather than joint champion in 1954.

Is the answer to Q5 Short and Chandler at Brighton 1984 - that was the year I first met a chessplayer (in the morning event) who would play quite happily (and quite quickly) until close to 11.00am when he would anounce "they are open" and disappear for an hour or so. He returned in a fairly unsteady state and would disappear to the toilet at regular intervals. His results were, I recall, predictably not great.

Mind you it was a different world - I used to smoke about 40 fags during a game. I also recall leaving the tournament hall on one occasion to drive about twenty miles there and back to change a girlfriend's tyre.

John Moore wrote:Well Jonathan you are a tiresome bugger, but the answer to Q2 is Speelman in 1986 who lost to the Basmaniac in a game about which I have no recollection whatsoever although I was certainly in Southampton at some point around then and vaguely remember everyone getting excited.

[Event "BCF-ch"]
[Site "Southampton"]
[Date "1986.07.28"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Speelman,Jonathan S"]
[Black "Basman,Michael J"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Eco "D42"]
1.e4 c6 2.c4 d5 3.cxd5 cxd5 4.exd5 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nxd5 6.Nf3 e6 7.d4 Be7 8.Bd3 0-0
9.0-0 Nc6 10.Re1 Nxc3 11.bxc3 Bd7 12.Rb1 b6 13.Bf4 Be8 14.h4 Bf6 15.Ng5 g6 16.Qf3 Bg7
17.Qg3 h6 18.Nf3 Kh8 19.Rbd1 Rg8 20.Be4 Rc8 21.d5 exd5 22.Bxd5 Qf6 23.c4 Qf5 24.Be4 Qa5
25.Bd5 Nb4 26.h5 g5 27.Nxg5 Nxd5 28.cxd5 hxg5 29.h6 Bc3 30.Be5+ f6 31.Bxc3 Qxc3 32.Qd6 Bg6
33.Rc1 Rcd8 34.Qe7 Qd4 35.Rc4 Qxc4 36.Qxf6+ Kh7 37.Re7+ Kxh6 38.Re3 Qc1+ 39.Kh2 Qxe3 40.fxe3 Rxd5
41.e4 Rd3 42.a4 Re8 43.a5 bxa5 44.Qa6 Rxe4 45.Qxa5 Re7 46.Qa1 Rf7 47.Qh8+ Bh7 48.Qe5 Rf4
49.Qc5 g4 50.Qc6+ Bg6 51.Qe6 a5 52.Qc6 a4 53.Qc1 g3+ 54.Kg1 Kh7 0-1


Some curiously orthodox play by Black in this game.