Jones beats Howell in tiebreaks, claims third British title

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
8/5/2024 – Gawain Jones defeated David Howell in a hard-fought series of rapid and blitz tiebreakers to win the 110th edition of the British Championship in Hull. After drawing their classical encounter, the contenders for the title traded wins in the first set of rapid tiebreakers, which meant the Championship would be decided in blitz - Jones drew with black and won with white to claim his third British title. | Photo: Dennis Dicen

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Two great fighters

Gawain Jones and David Howell played five games on Sunday. The two 2600+ rated players reached the final round of the British Championship tied for first place, and signed a 60-move draw in their classical encounter. The one player who could have caught up with them, Mattew Wadsworth, drew Richard Palliser with black in merely 16 moves, which meant Jones and Howell would decide the winner of the Championship in a rapid tiebreaker.

Howell got the white pieces in the first 20-minute game and scored a fine 52-move victory after outplaying his opponent in a tricky endgame. Jones bounced right back, though, as he made the most of a tactical mistake by his opponent in the middlegame - at that point, Howell was in the driver's seat, in fact.

Black could keep his advantage here with 27...b4, and White will need to work very hard to find a way to break through in this must-win encounter. Instead, Howell went for 27...Qa3, allowing Jones to play a tactical sequence which turned the tables in his favour: 28.Rxc3 Bxc3 29.Rd8+ Kg7 - since 29...Rxd8 fails to 30.Qxd8+, grabbing the rook on c7.

Now White emerges with a clearly better position after 30.Qxc3+ f6 31.Qd4 e5

As Jones went on to show, White has no problems winning the position after trading his queen for Black's two rooks with 32.Rxc8 exd4 33.Rxc7+ Kh6 34.Nxd4. The rook and pair of minor pieces provide more than enough firepower to get the much-needed win.

Two blitz games followed (5 minutes plus 3-second increments). Jones held a 43-move draw with black and then obtained a clear victory with white to grab the title. This is the third time Jones wins the British Championship, as he had won the event back in 2012 and 2017.

David Howell

David Howell | Photo: Melinda Wilde

All games - Tiebreaks

Expert analysis by GM Daniel King (two parts)

The British Women's Championship saw Lan Yao and Trisha Kanyamarala obtaining a shared victory, as they both scored 5 points in the 9-round Swiss open. Lan led the field until round 8, when she was defeated by Lawrence Trent - which allowed Kanyamarala to catch her in the standings with a win over Ronit Sachdeva.

Both Lan and Kanyamarala scored full points on Sunday to remain tied atop the standings among the women's players, and were thus declared co-champions. For Lan, this is the third victory in a row at the British Women's Championship.

Royal escapes with a draw, becomes youngest-ever British GM

While Jones and Howell played the tense draw that led to the tiebreakers, Shreyas Royal was suffering with black against defending champion Michael Adams. The 15-year-old needed a half point to finally get his third GM norm - after having failed to obtain it by very small margins no fewer than five times. And he was in deep trouble on the board.

Here Royal played the correct 28...Rxf1, when White can get a clean victory if he replies by 29.Kh2 - Adams would be left both with dangerous attacking chances and a very strong passer on the c-file.

However, Adams, who had been playing remarkably, faltered by grabbing the material with 29.Kxf1, allowing Black to play 29...Rd1+ 30.Ke2 Re1+ 31.Kd3 Rxe3 32.Rxe3

This position is still better for White, but the conversion is much more difficult with the black queen able to move freely on the open board. Adams erred again shortly after, and Royal managed to escape with a 41-move draw.

Impressively, Royal thus became the youngest-ever British grandmaster, as he broke Howell's record by six months - Howell had broken the previous record back in 2007!

Final standings

Rk. Name  TB1 
1 Jones, Gawain Cb 7
2 Howell, David Wl 7
3 Wadsworth, Matthew J 6,5
4 Mcshane, Luke J 6,5
5 Czopor, Maciej 6,5
6 Royal, Shreyas 6
7 Ghasi, Ameet K 6
8 Conquest, Stuart C 6
9 Kanyamarala, Tarun 6
10 Bazakutsa, Svyatoslav 6
11 Adams, Michael 6
12 Lutsko, Artem 6
13 Han, Yichen 6
14 Wells, Peter K 6
15 Palliser, Richard Jd 6
16 Balaji, Aaravamudhan 5,5
17 Williams, Simon K 5,5
18 Hebden, Mark L 5,5
19 Merry, Alan B 5,5
20 Ledger, Andrew J 5,5

...86 players

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Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.