The Evergreen John Nunn

by ChessBase
6/7/2026 – Is winning chess championships only for the young? John Nunn has won national and international problem solving championships numerous times. Now, at the age of 70, and after a three-year pause, John wanted to see if he still had it in him. He took part in the Winton British Chess Solving Championship, and regained the title he had won ten times in the past. Incidentally, one participant in the event was almost sixty years younger than him.
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The Winton British Chess Solving Championship is held every year. The event consists of six rounds, each round having a different type of chess problem, including two-, three- and more-movers, helpmates, selfmates, and endgame studies. Competitors get points for how complete their answer to each problem is.

Over the last 4½ decades, John Nunn had won this Championship ten times: in 1980 he won the championship in its second year, and between 1983 and 2019 there followed nine more wins. In addition John was the 3-time individual winner (2004, 2007, 2010) of the World Chess Solving Championship, and 5-time winner representing Great Britain. He was awarded the prestigious title International Solving Grandmaster by FIDE in 2004. But could he still keep up with the international competition?

This year the WBCSC was staged at the elegant venue of Harrow School. John won it by the narrowest of margins, just ahead of David Hodge, the winner in 2023, 2024, and 2025. David nearly overtook John on the very last problem but was still writing down his solution to it when he ran out of time.

John Nunn solving...

...and receiving his prize from Philip Nutzman 

Narrowly defeated: four-time winner David Hodge

An Open event was held at the same time. It was won by Joost Michielsen of the Netherlands. There was also a Minor event, with problems a little easier than in those in the Championship and Open, and it had prizes for both British and overseas solvers.  It was won by a new talent, and the youngest solver at any of the events. This was the winner:

Maksym Kryshtafor is a 12-year-old Ukrainian chess prodigy, a former Under-8 champion, who gained international media attention as a refugee after he fled with his family after the Russian invasion in 2022 – first made to Romania, where they stayed for three months before the English Chess Federation invited them to start their new life in York. This video report documents the transition.

To give you an impression of the level of difficulty the WBCS Championship participants had to face, here is a selection of problems that you can play through in our live chess player.

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