The 106th British Chess Championships

This week the 106th edition of the British Chess Championships took place in Torquay, incidentally in the same venue in which I competed in the U14 section many years ago. It certainly had some thrills and spills, not least with IM Richard Palliser receiving back to back walkovers when he had black against a GM on both occasions in rounds three and four, leading to some fairly wild accusations from anonymous kibitzers on the internet. While he would play well in his other games and eventually claim joint third, the competition was always going to be two horse race as soon as the final entry list had been announced, with Micky Adams and David Howell being the thoroughbreds in question. Adams emerged triumphant, scoring an emphatic 7.5/9 while undefeated to beat Howell’s similarly undefeated 7/9 in a clear second, but the real story I’ve been following all week is that for the first time in a long time, Guernsey and Jersey have used their qualification spots to send a player to represent themselves.

Before we get to how the Guernsey representative did, I want to engage in a little schadenfreude at the expense of our Channel Island cousins, and note that Tito Kahn of Jersey unfortunately did not have such a great tournament, managing 0.5/8 (with a bye in round 7) and unfortunately propping up the score table. As lovely as Tito is, he forgot my name at the Inter Insular, so I’m going to call that karma, and justice has now been restored to the world.

Guernsey’s Chris Holland on the other hand put up an exceptionally solid 4/9, despite having limited tournament fitness and a very strong field littered with titled players. Chris beat Tito in round 3, proving that his 8 move Inter Insular draw from May was in fact total bullshit just as we’d suspected, and continued his strong showing to gain rating points and do the island proud. I’m going to claim some credit and say that him regularly annihlating me in the league was good practice for playing players 1.5x my rating - well done Chris!