The British Rapidplay Championships

[MJMcCready]

Hello there, I was wondering if you could help. Where can I find online resources for (by this I mean gamescores and tournament write ups if possible) for the British Rapidplay Championships. I found results for them here: https://www.ecfresource.co.uk/results/ but can't find much else.

I am asking this because I recently met up with friend FM Gary Kenworthy, who gave me details of his win against GM Adams in the 1992 tournament in which he came second (please see below). He got the game from Jon Manley, so I am assuming Kingpin used to publish the games and results for it, would that be correct? I can't seem to find much online. Also, could someone explain what exactly was the differeance between this tournament and the british Rapidplay held at the British Championships each year. Lastly, why did it stop in 2019?

I don't know how to put the game into game form here, so have posted the game in pgn format below. If someone could assist with this I would be most grateful. It's defintely worth looking at btw.

Many thanks

G. Kenworthy v M.Adams British Quickplay Championships 1992, Hammersmith, London (Time control 30 mins)

e4 e5 Nf3 Nc6 d4 exd4 c3 dxc3 Bc4 d6 Nxc3 Nf6 Qb3 Qd7 Ng5 Ne5 Bb5 c6 f4 cxb5 fxe5 dxe5 Be3 Bd6 Rd1 0-0 Nxb5 h6 Rxd6 Qg4 Rxf6 gxf6 Nf3 Qxe4 Nd6 Qb1 Qd1 Qxd1 Kxd1 Be6 Ke2 Rfd8 Ne4 f5 Nc3 f4 Bc5 Re8 g3 e4 Nd4 Bg4+ Ke1 b6 Ba3 f3 Nd5 Kg7 Ne3 Rad8 b3 Bd7 Bb2 Kg6 Kf2 Re5 g4 Ra5 a4 Be6 h4 Bxb3 h5 Kh7 Nxb3 Rxa4 Bf6 Rd6 Be5 Ra2+ Kg3 Re6 Bf4 a5 Nd4 Re8 Ndf5 a4 Nxh6 a3 Nxf7 Rb2 g5 a2 g6 Kg7 Ra1 Re2 Bg5 Re6 Kf4 f2 Kf5 Rxe3 h6 Kf8 Bxe3 Ke7 Bxf2 Rf6+ Kxe4 Rxf2 h7 Rh2 h8=Q Rxh8 Nxh8 Kf6 Rxa2 Kg7 Kf5 1-0

20260813_1755567e28623481027604016362.jpg (636.9 KiB) Viewed 425 times

20260813_1747397e44010257539850526230.jpg (474.37 KiB) Viewed 425 times

It's probably of little interest but more details about our meeting with photos included can be found here: https://mccreadyandchess.com/2026/08/13 ... n-buzzard/

[Roger de Coverly]

Also, could someone explain what exactly was the differeance between this tournament and the british Rapidplay held at the British Championships each year. Lastly, why did it stop in 2019?

The tournament at the British Championship was just a side event introduced to enable players to do something chess related on the middle Sunday. The British Rapidplay was and still is a separate eleven round event played over two days.

By 2019 a tournament styled as British Rapidplay was being held in Yorkshire in the Autumn. Covid cancelled the 2020 event and it wasn't revived for 2021 and then cancelled for 2022. After that the ECF awarded the franchise to the 4NCL who have run it each Spring in Peterborough. Rapidplay side events continue to take place at the British Championships and now include popular age restricted ones for juniors.

To convert data to pgn, you need to put move numbers in. Any text editor can do this in the absence of anything more sophisticated. licchess offers facilities to input games and then save them as pgn.

[MJMcCready]

Also, could someone explain what exactly was the differeance between this tournament and the british Rapidplay held at the British Championships each year. Lastly, why did it stop in 2019?

The tournament at the British Championship was just a side event introduced to enable players to do something chess related on the middle Sunday. The British Rapidplay was and still is a separate eleven round event played over two days.

By 2019 a tournament styled as British Rapidplay was being held in Yorkshire in the Autumn. Covid cancelled the 2020 event and it wasn't revived for 2021 and then cancelled for 2022. After that the ECF awarded the franchise to the 4NCL who have run it each Spring in Peterborough. Rapidplay side events continue to take place at the British Championships and now include popular age restricted ones for juniors.

To convert data to pgn, you need to put move numbers in. Any text editor can do this in the absence of anything more sophisticated. licchess offers facilities to input games and then save them as pgn.

Thanks, that's pretty much what I figured but I am struggling to find out why there is little about it online. It certainly seems prestigious, so I assumed it would be more readily available online, which seems not to be the case. I didn't know that the 4NCL is running it now.

[MJMcCready]

Where were games for this tournament mostly published?

[Roger de Coverly]

Where were games for this tournament mostly published?

I would imagine on the website of the organiser. I have some of them in my personal collection of British games downloaded over the years from assorted websites. It may have been sufficiently prestigious to have been included in TWIC and thus in chessbase and other master collections.

Being a rapidplay it would be likely that the majority of recorded games relied on live coverage with sensory boards.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Being a rapidplay it would be likely that the majority of recorded games relied on live coverage with sensory boards.

Well that would certainly be the case now, but in (say) 1992? When did such things become commonplace??

[Roger de Coverly]

Well that would certainly be the case now, but in (say) 1992? When did such things become commonplace??

DGT boards date from the late 1990s. That's not to say that British tournaments bought and used them or that their reliability was particularly high. It looks as if the 2002 British Rapidplay Championships had 4 boards in use most rounds.

A Google search of "history of dgt boards" dates them to the Elista Olympiad of 1998.

[MJMcCready]

Gary informs me that they were not used in 92.

[MJMcCready]

Also, could someone explain what exactly was the differeance between this tournament and the british Rapidplay held at the British Championships each year. Lastly, why did it stop in 2019?

To convert data to pgn, you need to put move numbers in. Any text editor can do this in the absence of anything more sophisticated. licchess offers facilities to input games and then save them as pgn.

Hi, Lichess is my goto platform. If you use the analysis board, as I do, it doesn't ask for move numbers, just the moves, and will happily tell you if you've made a mistake. The game above goes straight into the pgn window below the analysis board. I had to use that as it is such a complex game. There's no issue if you just cut and paste that above, the real issue is trying to understand the evaluations, as mentioned its a hard game to grasp, as FM Kenworthy has strong plus scores even though GM Adams has many passed pawns close to promotion. FM Gary informs me that GM Nunn was very focused on GM Adams passed pawns, none of which queened and thereafter the game was soon lost. Very high level game.
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[GrahamStuart]

There are some on Britbase (2006 and 2025). PGN file from the 2006 includes 72 games.
https://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/brit2000.htm
TWIC has some (72 from 2006), could be associated articles in the actual weekly updates (not checked).
CB also has some but not checked to see if these are different.
Not looked in detail, could be more

[MJMcCready]

Thanks.

[Peter Shaw]

The games from 2002 onwards are in Big Database 2023, just the top 4-8 boards that were on the DGT boards. There are a few from earlier years as well.

I think this was my first experience of using DGT boards, I remember Nick Pert putting the kings in the middle of the board at the end of our game and me not having the foggiest what he was doing. Then I was even more confused when he seemed to think he had done something wrong and swapped them onto different squares.

But the DGT board must have registered the original placement and it's never been corrected, so the database still has P. Shaw 1-0 N. Pert 2004. I even had a couple of people congratulate me for this result, but they clearly hadn't played through the game (an easy win for black).