Smith & Williamson British Chess Championships 2005
The British Championship was held from July 31 to August 13 at the Villa Marina
& Gaiety Theatre Complex, Isle of Man.
The tournament venue on the Isle of Man
The other championships being held in the same hall
Round two game between Timothy Woodward and Jonathan Rowson (Woodward won)
The tournament was won by Jonathan Rowson of Scotland. After he did it we
received a trick question from Scotsman and chess columnist John Henderson.
"Can you tell me who (and when) the last English player was to win the
British Championship?" Try and guess it before you look at the solution
below.
You may want to bear in mind there are four separate entities, England, Wales
and Scotland, which go to make up Great Britain, which turns into the United
Kingdom if you remember that Northern Ireland is part of the club. Each of
the parts fields its own team in football and other sporting events, greatly
diminishing (some say improving) the chances of winning something. And the
population of each entity is deeply insulted if you do not use exactly the
right term (and we thought the
Netherlands was complicated!).
One more thing to remember: India is not part of Britain, the last time we
checked.
Final standings
1 ROWSON,Jonathan W........ SCO g 2599 8½
2 CONQUEST,Stuart.......... ENG g 2503 8
3 HASLINGER,Stewart G...... ENG m 2412 8
4 EMMS,John M.............. ENG g 2509 7½
5 PERT,Richard............. ENG m 2424 7½
6 GORDON,Stephen........... ENG f 2390 7
7 GREET,Andrew N........... ENG f 2425 7
8 JESSEL,Stephen........... IRL 2285 6½
9 KNOTT,Simon J B.......... ENG m 2382 6½
10 LITTLEWOOD,Paul E........ ENG m 2355 6½
11 RUDD,Jack................ ENG 2268 6½
12 WARD,Chris G............. ENG g 2485 6½
13 ASHTON,Adam.............. ENG 2294 6
14 JONES,Gawain C........... ENG m 2442 6
15 MASON,Don................ ENG 2265 6
16 MORRISON,Graham.......... SCO f 2322 6
17 SOWRAY,Peter J........... ENG f 2364 6
18 WHITE,Michael JR......... ENG 2200 6
19 WILLIAMS,Simon K......... ENG m 2461 6
20 WOODWARD,Timothy......... ENG f 2313 6
The answer to John Henderson's quiz questions is that we we need to go back
to the previous century to find the last English player to win the British
Championship. Jonathan Rowson of Scottland won the last two. Indians (Ramesh
and Kunte) won the two before him in 2003 and 2002. Joe Gallagher, who was
registered Swiss at the time, won in 2001. Julian Hodgson, who was born in
Wales, won in 2000 and 1999. This leaves Nigel Short in 1998, as the last true-blue
Englishman to win the title!
French
Championship in Chartres
This is being held in the beautiful historical city of Chartres, famours for
its cathedral and stained-glass windows which marked the transition in the
Middle Ages from the darkness of sanctuaries to the light of Romanesque architecture.
The tournament runs from August 15–27 and has two sections, male and
female. The official
web site, which starts up with a heavy Java replay page, provides photos
and videos. Somewhat disconcertingly the games from the men and women's sections
are lumped together in a single database, making it difficult to generate tables
or do any other kind of statistics. We have heroically split them apart, manually,
and provide them in separate databases below.
In the men's section 14-year-old Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is sensationally in
the lead, playing 263 Elo points above his 2527 rating (making for a 2790 performance
so far).
Maxime completed three GM norms at the age of 14 years and four months (in
the space of seven months), making him one of the youngest grandmasters in
the history of the game.
Standings in the men's section:
Guest of honour Anatoly Karpov opens the Championship
In the women's section 21-year-old WGM Sophie Milliet, who won
the championship in 2003, is in the lead, ahead of Almira Skripchenko,
who won it last year. Milliet has won four of her five games so far, with a
2578 performance.
Standings in the women's section:
A view of the tournament hall, with the male and female sections