British Championship 2023

[Christopher Kreuzer]

A thought that occurred to me today: with Max Pert playing as a filler, there were four members of the same family playing in the British Championship today; has that happened before?

It strikes me as a shame that Max was not playing in the championships in any event, but there it is (of course hard decisions do have to be made if we are to avoid the event returning to what it was ten or so years ago).

Incidentally, Nina Pert's finish in round seven is worth a look.

Can someone post that game? I cannot find it on the live boards and canot access the PGNs right now.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Can any of the statisticians out there see if it's possible to find the last time (if 9-round and 11-round tournaments can be compared) where only two players scored over 2/3 for the tournament (in this case, Adams and Steven Jones).

For 11 rounds, that would be maybe 7.5/11?

Am I right to think that you would expect more than two people to score above 6/9 in a tournament like this?

[Richard Bates]

Can any of the statisticians out there see if it's possible to find the last time (if 9-round and 11-round tournaments can be compared) where only two players scored over 2/3 for the tournament (in this case, Adams and Steven Jones).

For 11 rounds, that would be maybe 7.5/11?

Am I right to think that you would expect more than two people to score above 6/9 in a tournament like this?

Is that including the 1 in 2021?

[GrahamStuart]

A thought that occurred to me today: with Max Pert playing as a filler, there were four members of the same family playing in the British Championship today; has that happened before?

It strikes me as a shame that Max was not playing in the championships in any event, but there it is (of course hard decisions do have to be made if we are to avoid the event returning to what it was ten or so years ago).

Incidentally, Nina Pert's finish in round seven is worth a look.

Can someone post that game? I cannot find it on the live boards and canot access the PGNs right now.

The games are still on Lichess - Round 7 below - and it a very attractive finish.
https://lichess.org/broadcast/british-c ... 7/r6XUF6fp

[Chris Rice]

A thought that occurred to me today: with Max Pert playing as a filler, there were four members of the same family playing in the British Championship today; has that happened before?

It strikes me as a shame that Max was not playing in the championships in any event, but there it is (of course hard decisions do have to be made if we are to avoid the event returning to what it was ten or so years ago).

Incidentally, Nina Pert's finish in round seven is worth a look.

Can someone post that game? I cannot find it on the live boards and canot access the PGNs right now.

Nice finish by Nina

[Wadih Khoury]

It strikes me as a shame that Max was not playing in the championships in any event, .

It was really hard for juniors to qualify to the Championship.

Basically you had

• The British Grand Prix : Khoury, Shearsby (he also got a Chess Union invite, like Steve Jones ), Saunders, Stoica
• Tournament rankings: Badacsony (U16 winner), Pert Nina (women's championship)
• last year's open: Volovich, Cox
• Wildcards: as I understand (I may be wrong so apologies if I misunderstood some of this info I gathered), offered to the U16 impacted by last year's cheating event at Torquay: Jackson, Ismail, Wearsing and maybe a few more

In short, in a normal year you'd only see 5-10 juniors that can make it past the high hurdle to qualify.

[Jonathan Rogers]

It was very difficult in the 1980s too; but then the Major Open was a real challenge, so any wunderkind missing out on the championship would still have something worthwhile to play (and there was a top junior qualifier spot from the Major Open as well, as I found to my benefit). It seems to me that we went through a period of years where the Major Open was very weak, and juniors were waved into the championships; and perhaps we are now reverting to where we used to be, more or less?

[Kevin Thurlow]

"It was really hard for juniors to qualify to the Championship."

Ideally, it is really hard for anyone to qualify...

"It seems to me that we went through a period of years where the Major Open was very weak, and juniors were waved into the championships; and perhaps we are now reverting to where we used to be, more or less?"

The first time I qualified for the British Championship, a very talented junior was due to to play in the Major Open, but got into the British. He explained that he turned up and said he would like to play in the Championship - was this possible, and got the answer yes. Nothing against him (he only asked politely), but I felt the decision was a bit of an insult to people who had just failed to qualify.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I do not recall a single game that I have played with a one hour default time where my opponent has eventually turned up more than 30 minutes after the start.

Happened to me at Blackpool many moons ago - it was the last round and my opponent was fortunate there was nobody else to be repaired with after the half hour point for that to apply had elapsed. They were even luckier that I blew a totally winning position (partly due to being overly keen to exploit their time shortage) and ended up drawing

[David Gilbert]

A Letter from Leicester:

There were no major shocks. Michael Adams won the Championship. Brandon Clarke was joint winner of the Major Open after taking two byes at the start. He shared with Andrew Lewis, Aditya Versa and Mikhall Sedykh. Keith Arkell won the junior seniors while Alan Plunnett, Shelia Jackson and David Fryer shared first place in the senior seniors. Maybe we saw a future champion among the juniors - let's hope so.

After a reasonable performance in the weekender, my chess decomposed for the weekday competitions - my overworked blunder brain is presently dust. Given that, I still had a very sociable ten days meeting up with people I've not seen for years. Let's thank the arbiters and organiser and, while I'm at it, has everyone noted that the results already appear on the Rating Database handy for tomorrow's August list. Brilliant work Matthew Carr (and anyone else involved with that). Thanks also to Jim for running the extensive Chess & Bridge Bookstall. He's part of the scenery at the British. I bought a book (I always do), did you? Don't forget the photography. Brendan O'Gorman's photographs of the juniors are outstanding - there'll be some proud mums and dads.

I'd booked myself into a look-after-yourself Airbnb, conveniently only six minutes walk to venue, which was conveniently named 'The Venue'. On Tuesday morning I went to put my rubbish out when the self-locking door closed behind me. I was imprisoned in the bin compound without the key-code and had to be freed by passers-by. Last time this happened was when a door closed behind me after a League match at the British Museum and I was trapped in the Egyptian exhibit for twenty minutes before being rescued by a Victorian explorer.

The cafeteria (Monday to Friday only) was a good stop-off for a bacon roll in the morning (it was on the way) and it served happy food at lunchtimes. I'm not sure many adult players found the place, but the juniors certainly did and the coaching sessions were wild - in the nicest possible way. Leicester has a prison, a dead King, a lot of apparently exceptional pubs (I wouldn't know anything about that), and a flurry of restaurants of all descriptions. On Monday night the waiter at the first class Men Saab restaurant in Vaughan Way warned me off the Railway Lamb and Potato curry - allegedly too hot for non-Asians like me. Fifty years ago I would have told him to bring it on, but these nights I prefer to sleep, and in self-defence I chose from further down the menu.

Saturday afternoons are lively in the town. The evangelical singer near the market place drew a mobile crowd, hoping to listen to the songs and avoid the dozen-or-so pamphlet warriors. Possibly the strangest thing I've ever come across in a town at the British Championship is the Angle Axe Throwing shop in Crank Street. There were lots or Axes being chucked about. I kept a safe distance - you don't want to blunder with one of those things.

It won't be long now before the first speculation about the venue for the 2024 British Championships. Torquay, Hull, Llandudno are all topical suggestions. Quite a few players said they'd love to hit the beach in Scarborough. I suppose Leicester could be in the frame again, maybe?

[Simon Brown]

The commentary from Danny and Adam was first-rate as well.

[Kirk Gornall]

The commentary from Danny and Adam was first-rate as well.

I agree. It was very entertaining!

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Possibly the strangest thing I've ever come across in a town at the British Championship is the Angle Axe Throwing shop in Crank Street. There were lots or Axes being chucked about."

I'm sorry I missed that, although I'm a bit out of practice.

[Brendan O'Gorman]

As David G was kind enough to mention my photos of the junior events, here's a link https://brendanogorman.smugmug.com/Ches ... mpionships

{post edited to remove misinformation}

[LawrenceCooper]

It won't be long now before the first speculation about the venue for the 2024 British Championships. Torquay, Hull, Llandudno are all topical suggestions. Quite a few players said they'd love to hit the beach in Scarborough. I suppose Leicester could be in the frame again, maybe?

That was already in full swing on the commentary following the announcement that they wouldn't be announcing the next venue during this year's event.