8/11/2015 – At the start of the tournament three-time British Champion David Howell was favorite. In the middle of the tournament Nicholas Pert and Daniel Gormally led the field. In the penultimate round everything seemed to be set for a play-off. But in the end Jonathan Hawkins emerged as the sole winner of the British Championship 2015. Report and analyses.
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This year’s British Chess Championships has just come to an end and those who placed bets on the event may well have been disappointed. Three times champion and newly 2700 GM David Howell was the firm favourite going into the tournament. The “half-time” report showed that GM Howell and GM Daniel Gormally were leading the pack on 5.5/6 with GM Nicholas Pert the only one on 5/6.
A very happy GM Nick Pert, leading the tournament and
hoping to finally win the lucrative British Championship title.
It really looked like this could be Gormally’s year as he only dropped half a point to Howell (which we already know shouldn’t have happened) and taken out who was thought to be David’s biggest rival, 2014 co-champion Jonathan Hawkins. The quality of Gormally’s games also looked like he was in form and no one else could really stop him.
The British Ladies’ Chess Championships are merged with the main championships and this year there were five contenders for the title, all of whom have represented England at an international level. I, myself was the top seed and somewhat favourite for the title, but in reality I was never able to play all 11 rounds due to being scheduled for dental surgery, so it was up to the other four ladies to battle it out. After round 6, the youngest contender (only 14 years old), Akshaya Kalayalahan was leading the pack with 3.5/6, having only lost to GMs Gormally and Flear. In fact, she was well on course for a WGM norm.
Akshaya Kalaiyalahan - the young talent who is sure to be England’s next WIM!
Meanwhile, on top board, a shock defeat for GM David Howell as he just blundered a piece against GM Nick Pert and was not the first person to do so this tournament.
Just the round prior to that, GM Mark Hebden declined Nick’s draw offer only to trap his own knight at the side of the board. A very bizarre occurrence, but Nick was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. So, for the first time in the tournament, David had been knocked off board one and was due to play black against his co-champion GM Hawkins in round 8.
GM Hawkins makes his move vs IM Richard Pert
This year’s competition has really been bottom heavy with only 11 GMs playing and then the rest of the field being reasonably similar strength, apart from Nick’s twin brother IM Richard Pert, who was on a very decent 5/7, only losing to David Howell in a complicated game, where he possibly was better.
Nick Pert’s twin brother IM Richard Pert had
a great tournament and finished equal 5th.
Therefore, round 8 was an interesting line-up, where the top 5 boards was an all-GM battle. It is often the case in national championships to see top players halve out rather quickly. After all, these guys have known each other for years and have had a fair few battles over time. However, apart from on board one, which was over rather quickly (Pert-Gormally), there were three decisive results, with White coming out victorious in all. With Howell not managing to beat his co-champion from last year with the black pieces, he was down on board three for round 9 and things were looking rather open for the 2015 Championships.
Two of our most experienced players who battled it
out in a long, well-fought game. GMs Flear and Hebden.
Everyone’s favourite Ginger GM, Simon Williams
The women’s championships was really between three and after 8 rounds, it was completely neck and neck with WIM Heather Richards, WFM Sarah Hegarty and Akshaya Kalaiyalahan all on 4.5/8. Akshaya just needed one more titled player in order to secure at least a WIM norm for herself from this event with a couple of rounds to spare to aim for bigger norms!
WIM Heather Richards, now residing and representing Australia,
but still qualifies for the British Championships.
With round 9 seeing all draws at the top, it was getting tighter for that race to the title. Someone has to eventually take a risk in order to push ahead of the pack. 14 year old Akshaya played a lovely game to outplay Richard Weaving (2257) to pull ahead of the pack of ladies as Sarah Hegarty lost her game. However, Heather Richards, who has been an experienced England International player, but now represents Australia since living there for the last few years managed to somehow pull out a whole point out of a position where she was a piece down making it very interesting in the ladies’ competition going into round 10.
With GM Pert and GM Gormally both leading on 7/9, both having played David Howell, they were pretty confident that this was their year to have a play off for the championships. Gormally had the easier of the two pairings as he was White against IM Pert and Nick was black against the GM who has been dominating the World and European Senior Championships over the last couple of years – GM Keith Arkell. However, with both these games ending in a draw and very disappointingly, Gormally not even trying to win his game, Hawkins and Howell could smell the opportunity and converted both their games as black against strong GMs to catch up the leaders.
A very smiley former English Champion and World Senior Champion, GM Keith Arkell.
Daniel Gormally could not contain his nerves this year for long enough to win the title.
With everything to play for in round 11, the four leaders on 7.5/10; GM Howell, GM Pert, GM Hawkins and GM Gormally, having all played each other, all got downfloats to those on only 7/10. A play-off was inevitable…
But then something very odd happened… the former World Senior Chess Champion Keith Arkell went down very easily in a ball of flames against GM Hawkins, giving him, quite possibly, his easiest victory of the tournament, when he needed it the most. No-one could believe what they were seeing! With the Pert twins having an inevitable draw, this put pressure on both Gormally and Howell to produce results and stop Hawkins just walking home with the title. Sadly, in a must-win game, Gormally chose to repeat the position against lower rated Summerscale to settle for what could have been third place.
Hawkins deep in thought…
GM Summerscale not concentrating on his game, but still managing to get decent results!
However, anyone that knows David Howell, knows that he is a fighter and would never accept a quick draw under most circumstances. He has had the most incredible year, winning the 2014 British Championships, narrowly missing out on a medal in the Olympiad, 2nd place in both Gibraltar and Isle of Mann and just continually great performances throughout the year. With his new 2700+ rating, he was determined to show people why he is in that elite group of players. In a very tricky game throughout, it seemed that Mark blundered at a very critical point, but despite trying right to the bitter end, David just could not convert the advantage and just like that Jonathan Hawkins became the 2015 British Chess Champion.
Interestingly, this game also had a "twin" in this championship.
David donning his ‘famous’ chess wristbands,
but sadly failed to ‘three-peat’ his success!
GM Hebden’s resilience was too much to break down this year,
despite David beating him for the title in the last round last year.
The commentary team of IM Ravikumar and IM Martin chose
Hawkins' final win as their ‘Game of the Day’.
The ladies’ championships was now down to two female players – Akshaya and Heather. In the last round, they were both paired against much stronger players where any result for either would have been a good performance. However, Heather got slowly outplayed, but it was Akshaya’s opponent who was begging for a draw throughout. Once she saw she could secure the title, she accepted the draw and along with it, her first WIM norm and the U2000 rating prize!
British Champion and British Ladies’ Champion 2015!
GM Jonathan Hawkins and Akshaya Kalaiyalahan
An incredible tournament for both winners; Jonathan Hawkins has surprisingly only been a GM about a year, but has been the British Champion for the last two years in a row! Akshaya Kalaiyalahan was sub 2000 before this tournament, but her rating will shoot to close to 2200 now and is definitely a future star for England.
For anyone who is interested in seeing the pair pick up their prizes, the whole ceremony was filmed and can be viewed on YouTube.
The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.
Sabrina ChevannesBorn in 1986 in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England, Sabrina now lives in London where she is managing director of the London Academy of Chess and Education. With over 300 members of the academy, she has one of the largest following of students in the UK. Sabrina is a Women International Master and an active chess player.
8/7/2018 – Tuesdays at 18:00 CEST (5:00 pm UK time, Noon EDT) Lawrence Trent goes on air on Playchess.com. In his show, Lawrence will be dealing with the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments. This week features a wrap-up of the British Championships!
7/31/2018 – Tuesdays at 18:00 CEST (5:00 pm UK time, Noon EDT) Lawrence Trent goes on air on Playchess.com. In his show, Lawrence will be dealing with the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments. This week features games from the British Championships!
The Slav has become one of the most popular defences against the advance of the d-pawn on the first move, and every ambitious d4-player faces the question how to successfully tackle this opening in tournament practice. The strongest attempt is considered to be the move 4. Nf3, leading to interesting positions which promise White good chances to get an advantage. Black's main replies are 4. dxc4 and 4. e6. On this DVD Rustam Kasimdzhanov investigates in detail the line 4. dxc4, in which he has great experience. Showing selected grandmaster games, the ex-world champion shares his knowledge with the viewer to explain how White has to place his pieces and which plans he has at his disposal.Learn the secrets of the dxc4-line and improve your chances of success with 1.d4
Thanks, Sagar, for the correction, and it was a great -pleasure to finally meet you. Please continue with the excellent articles :)
Keith Arkell 8/13/2015 02:25
Hi Sagar, ok we agree to differ on ...Rb8/...Rc8. I only wanted to explain the logic of my choice because you asked the question in your article.
Apologies to everyone else for going completely off topic, but,while I have your attention, far more important to me, because it's not very often that one gets to tie for first in a World Championship, is this, which you wrote on 13/11/2014:
'Zurab Sturua (2524) from Georgia won the 50+ World Seniors with a score of 8.5/11. The
most notable thing about his performance is that he did not lose even a single game. He
won the winner’s cheque of €2000.'
The gold and silver medals were decided on tiebreak ( Buchholz-1, or something like that), but for finishing first equal we won €1750 each.
If you could ask your editors at Chessbase to go back and correct this I would be most grateful.
Sagar Shah 8/12/2015 09:14
Hi Keith,
It is only because I respect you as a great chess player that I reply to your comment:
If I wanted to trash your move then I would have given it a "?" instead of "?!" I still feel Rc8 is a better move but if you don't agree let's leave it at that! We have different opinions.
In any case you must check out the first report of the British Championships written by me:
http://en.chessbase.com/post/howell-and-gormally-lead-2015-british-ch
Not everything I write about you is bad! :)
Look forward to meeting you someday soon.
WIM-Chevannes 8/12/2015 06:12
Again, not sure you are seeing the bigger picture. If you like Andy Martin's insight into the games, then great, that is what his commentary is there for. However, Sagar has put his own point on it, which will always be different. I was onsite for the rest of the tournament. I really don't understand why you are focusing on one game and one move especially.
Also, Andrew did even remotely look at the women's tournament, which people were even unaware was going on at the time. I felt it was important to include such an amazing achievement by someone so young.
WIM-Chevannes 8/12/2015 02:52
Hey Nutflushing
Thank you for your comment. I do not believe that most of the readers of this article will even know what the ECForum is, nor will they have the individual players as Facebook friends. Please remember that ChessBase is an international website with readers from all over the world, looking to keep up to date with international news. They won't just be members of the English Chess Federation who apparently "all know what really happened in Hawkins-Arkell".
Sagar wasn't at the tournament, so couldn't have known, but I do think it is irrelevant and he is providing his own analysis and ideas about the game to help our readers, which is valuable. I wasn't actually at the venue on this day, Paul, as I was still recovering from surgery, so I didn't know either.
But I think we are missing the bigger picture. Does it matter what move was really played? This was the game Hawkins won to win the title - congrats to Jonathan and commiserations to David, Danny and Nick. The idea of the report was to inform those who are not aware of what is going on in British chess and to show what talent we have coming through in the likes of Akshaya Kalaiyalahan, our new ladies' champion.
I'm sure it's not the first time a wrong move has been published in a chess game and this one was rather insignificant, so I do hope people can appreciate the piece as a whole and not focus on one minor detail.
Thanks!
Sabrina
Rational 8/12/2015 08:48
Hawkins' book 'Amateur to IM'it is a basic ending book not recommended.
In reality Hawkins' wins mainly consist of sharp , varied theoretical openings and exact calculation in middle game.
If anything the book describes Arkell's methods., with pages on Keith's famous skill at R +B vs R ending
Emil Cabagay 8/12/2015 07:26
Congatulation GM Hawkins- current British Champion! worthy author of Amateur to IM' you've done it!
Keith Arkell 8/12/2015 02:29
Keith Arkell Just now
'Rational', do you have any understanding or experience of the situation the 8 of us on the top 4 boards found ourselves in? This was a national Championship and all 4 of us had to play to win to have any chance of gaining the title.
Playing to draw was not an option, unless the position absolutely dictated it, as was the case when Mark Hebden was trying to hold a difficult endgame against David Howell. There was certainly no moment in my game when I had to decide whether or not to bail out with a draw, so your comment makes no sense.
In answer to your last question I recommend Jonathan's book 'Amateur to IM'
Rational 8/12/2015 01:18
Not to worry A draw was only worth about £150 anyway. how did Hawkins improve so much? I remember he was pretty weak up till his Twenties.
Keith Arkell 8/12/2015 12:35
I think my game v Golding from round 3 was far worse, 'Rational'. A truly awful game.
By contrast, I played this last round game well for 23 moves and, according to the engines, I had equalised with Black. A bad move then rather than a bad game - my 24...Rfd8?, based on an oversight.
KrushonIrina 8/12/2015 12:15
Yeah, the championship of a country, and 5th gets 150 quid.
Meanwhile, finishing fifth in some podunk 2nd-tier ladies' golf tournament gets you more than the 6500 pounds won by GM Hawkins.
Yes, a disgrace.
Rational 8/11/2015 11:02
Arkell picked a bad time to play his worst game for years.
Keith Arkell 8/11/2015 09:29
Footloose, you are correct. Very short of time, and having completely overlooked the ( err, rather obvious) Qf2, I panicked and played 26...Rd4, seeing 27 Rxf7? Bxg2! 28 Rf8+ Kh7 and, hopefully, complications. Of course, he simply takes on d4 first.
Sagar Shah, I feel you are over-criticising my 11...Rb8. You are right that White is in a kind of zugzwang, but I was trying to persuade Jonathan to castle King-side. Surely you can see that after 12 0-0-0 my Rook is better on b8 than on c8? My intention was to play 12 0-0-0 b4! 13 ab Bb4.
Sagar Shah 8/11/2015 09:06
@ Keith Arkell:
First of all I do not realise why you need to defend your bishop on b7. After 11...Rc8 White has to either 0-0 or 0-0-0. There is no other logical move in my opinion. Then after Nf6 e5 Nd5 Be4 is no longer possible as after Nxc3 the queen on e2 hangs with a check. Hence, Rc8 would be more useful than Rb8.
Secondly after 12.0-0-0 I don't see how your rook will be useful on b8. You have to complete your development, hence after Nf6 13.e5 Nd5 14.Nxd5 Qxd5 15.Kb1 (preventing Qa2) I think black has a difficut position to defend. 15...0-0 loses to Bb4 and 15...Qxg2 Qxg2 Bxg2 Rhg1 wins back the pawn with initiative.
Hence, I feel Rb8 is not the best move in the position.
Keith Arkell 8/11/2015 07:48
Just now
This was obviously done in haste, as it makes no sense whatsoever to write about my 11th move, in the final round:
''11...b8?! A curious move! Why did Arkell make such move with his rook when he could have placed it on a clearly superior square on c8. Your guess is as good as mine.''
Your annotator then follows up with ''12.0-0
[12.0-0-0! would have been in the spirit of the position. ]''
Anyone spending more than a few seconds ought to be able to see that 11...Rb8 prepares to play 12...Nf6, so that I can meet 13 e5 with ...Nd5 14 Be4 Nxc3, when my b7 Bishop is defended. To then suggest 12 0-0-0 instead of 12 0-0 is sillier still, as my Rook would then clearly be better on b8.
For anyone who wants to know the truth of how the game finished ( I didn't play 26...Rd7, or lose on time for that matter) Then I suggest they go look on the English Chess Forum.
footloose4 8/11/2015 07:06
I heard what really happened was Arkell played 26... Rd4 and resigned since it hangs the rook to Rxd4 (f7 is hanging).
johan1234 8/11/2015 05:03
Fifth place paid only 150 euros (or pounds or whatever currency unit). What a disgrace. That's about 10 euros per day. I don't know how these guys can support themselves and their family.
The Sniper is a universal opening framework which can be played against all main first white moves - 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4, 1.f4 and 1.Nf3. Black plays 1…g6, 2…Bg7 and 3…c5 against practically anything!
