British Chess Championship 2024

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I didn’t think FIDE system prioritised colours for floats."

A sensible system would do... Players tend to get grumpy if the colour sequence is messed up!

[IM Jack Rudd]

The FIDE system does indeed prioritize colours for floats, as otherwise Adams would have been upfloating in round 2.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I think it's mainly the IT based pairing systems that don't. Anyway, I hope Jack enjoys today's game!

[Phil Makepeace]

Facebook tells me that exactly fourteen years ago Adams - Rudd also happened on 29 July 2010 in Canterbury, albeit in Round 4 instead of Round 3.

[Roger de Coverly]

I think it's mainly the IT based pairing systems that don't.

Like many tournaments these days, it appears they are using Swiss-Manager. One of its characteristics is that it usually seeks to float up the highest rated player and float down the lowest rated. There are evidently colour sequence based restrictions as shown in rounds 2 and 3 with Adams and also the round 3 float between a player on one and a player on a half.

In the days of pairing cards, British arbiters would use Chess Arbiters Association rules. One might think it was a system that enabled arbiters to make it up as it went along but it was supposedly deterministic. One of its rules was to float the median.

Floating the lowest rated player has the feature of picking out that player for any byes. If someone is lowest rated player in several tournaments or at the end of the alphabet if unrated, they can get the bye frequently. The CAA system avoids that, but giving a round one full point bye to someone in the middle of the grading range can assist them in winning the tournament when it's a close field in grading or rating terms.

In an earlier Rudd v Adams encounter in round 1 of Torquay in 2019, this position arose where the Black King had taken an early stroll to e6 in the manner of the Fried Liver.

[SetUp "1"] [FEN "r1bq3r/ppp3pp/4k3/3pN3/1n1Pn3/1Q6/PP3PPP/RN2K2R w KQ - 2 12"]

It was all under control though.

[Event "106th British Chess Championship"] [Site "Riviera International Centre, Torquay"] [Date "2019.07.27"] [Round "1"] [White "Rudd, Jack"] [Black "Adams, Michael"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "A00"] [WhiteElo "2275"] [BlackElo "2690"] [Annotator ""] [Source ""] [Remark ""] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb4+ 7.Bd2 Nxe4 8.Bxb4 Nxb4 9.Bxf7+ Kxf7 10.Qb3+ d5 11.Ne5+ Ke6 12.Qxb4 Qf8 13.Qxf8 Rxf8 14.f3 Ng5 15.O-O Kd6 16.Nc3 c6 17.f4 Ne6 18.Ne2 g6 19.Rac1 a5 20.Rc3 a4 21.g4 Ra7 22.Rh3 b6 23.f5 gxf5 24.gxf5 Rg7+ 25.Kh1 Rf6 26.Rc1 Nxd4 27.Nxd4 Kxe5 28.Nxc6+ Kd6 29.Nd4 Bxf5 30.Nxf5+ Rxf5 31.Rh6+ Rg6 32.Rxh7 Rf2 33.Rhc7 Rgg2 34.R7c6+ Ke5 35.Re1+ Kf5 36.Rce6 Rxh2+ 37.Kg1 Rfg2+ 38.Kf1 Rxb2 0-1

[Paul Cooksey]

A small tragedy for Hebden against Royal, blundering in a very good position after playing the kind of game KID players dream about.

I am hopeful Matthew Wadsworth will give us a first upset of a top seed against McShane. R+5 looking a lot better than 2N+3

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Wadsworth duly delivered. McShane's loss maybe a bit careless there (he seemed to overpress).

The pairings are out for round 4:

https://chess-results.com/tnr969132.asp ... ES&flag=30

Only four players left on 3/3.

1. GM Howell, David Wl 2675 3 3 IM Royal, Shreyas 2487
2. GM Jones, Gawain Cb 2640 3 3 IM Wadsworth, Matthew J 2456

9 players (including Mickey) on 2.5/3.

The reward for Calum Salmons for downing a GM (Motwani) is a downfloat to another GM (McShane).

[Geoff Chandler]

Of course you can get mutual chess blindness (Rxd6 allowed and not played for two moves) but is this really what happened in the Nigel Davies - Svyatoslav Bazakutsa game. Neither were in time trouble. I do suspect a transmission error.

[SetUp "1"] [FEN "3r4/R3pk2/p2n1pp1/1p6/1P1R3p/4P2P/4BPPK/r7 b - - 0 34"] 34... Rh8 35. Bf3 f5 36. e4 Kf6 37. exf5 gxf5 38. Rd1 Rxd1 39. Bxd1 Rc8 40. Rxa6 Rc4 (0-1)

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I have played through the whole game and it looks like this did actually happen. Maybe someone could ask either or both of the players?

You say they were not in time trouble, but Black had 1 min 23 secs left for 6 moves which is enough to explain this, IMO. Possibly Davies was trying to play quickly to force a mistake, but failed to spot the mistake when it arrived!

Resignation came at move 40, presumably when the time control was reached.

[Geoff Chandler]

You are probably correct Chris. But two very good players with a 30 second increment. It had me double guessing if the moves were correct. However I have seen worse...and I've played worse.

[Paul Cooksey]

Does Royal just need 2500 for his GM title? If so he might get there today.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I was thinking that position is complicated. Still keeps showing as dead level on the computer assessment!

No, wait. I managed to look at the position after White's move 26 and then again after Black's move 34. It seem Black was winning for nearly every move in-between. Poor sampling technique from me.

[Paul Cooksey]

You probably need to be stockfish to find 34...Rg3. I assume both players missed it.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Shreyas slightly unfortunate that David has the bailout of the incoming perpetual.

Does not look like it should work, but it does.

EDIT: I must have jinxed it...

[Paul Cooksey]

Things changed. Royal does look favourite again. Is it his title?