Chess Go Spinny

 The 4NCL , Britain's only professional chess league, has, like many chess events, been disrupted by the ongoing pandemic. The 2019-20 season was aborted six rounds in; there was no 2020-21 season, and the 2021-22 season was an experimental format for that season only: a Swiss system (chosen so that if it needed to terminate early, the final finishing positions would still be reasonable ones). The twelve teams who finished at the top of the Swiss that year would be in Division 1 in the new 2022-23 season, and my team, West Is Best, were one of the lucky twelve. This was naturally always going to be a tricky season to negotiate, and the way the draw was done meant we could expect a rocky start: the top six finishers of the previous season were paired to face the teams finishing 7th-12th in the first six rounds of the season, thus maximizing the chances of exciting promotion and relegation clashes occurring towards the end. Thus, arriving at the Daventry Court Hotel on the Saturday,...

 How would tournament leader Harry Grieve approach Round 9 ? He knew beforehand that a draw would be sufficient to get him a GM norm and a playoff place (or outright victory if N Pert - Arkell was a draw), and many people speculated that he would play a very solid opening to maximize his drawing chances. Not a bit of it; he played a very adventurous opening in which he sacrificed the exchange early on, and ended up sacrificing another one later. For a long while, it wasn't clear what the result would be, and when Pert got an early advantage against Arkell and smoothly converted it, the organizing team were gearing themselves up for a playoff. It turned out not to be necessary; the complications eventually resolved in Grieve's favour, and he ended up delivering mate in a position where his opponent's two queens were useless to prevent it. He thus won the tournament outright, as well as obtaining his final IM norm (and the title) and first GM norm. Nick Pert finished second, ...

My apologies for the severe delay to this round report - I came down with Covid immediately after the British, and a combination of recovery from that and difficult home circumstances meant I found it difficult to write. It's not often that a GM loses in twelve moves, but this happened in Round 8 of the British Championship, as Danny Gormally's championship hopes ended very quickly against John Emms. The other games on the top boards lasted considerably longer, with Wadsworth - N Pert and R Pert - Arkell being hard-fought draws; this allowed Harry Grieve to take sole lead going into the last round with a win against Eggleston. This win also wrapped up the Under-21 title for Grieve, as Jonah Willow could only draw against Brandon Clarke. With Balaji also having wrapped up the Under-18 title, this meant that the only subsidiary title still in the balance was the women's championship; draws for Lan Yao and Katarzyna Toma and a win for Sheila Jackson meant that all three compe...

 Going into Round 7 , Keith Arkell and Harry Grieve were tied for the lead. Their draw against each other meant that a number of people could go on to draw level with them, and three took the opportunity: Nick Pert (who beat Kirk), Matthew Wadsworth (who beat Emms) and David Eggleston (who beat Clarke, effectively ending the latter's GM norm hopes). Those five people are tied on 5½, with Gormally and Richard Pert just behind them on 5. My hopes of achieving a high placing in this tournament gurgled away this round, as I got into what proved to be a very bad position early on against Jonah Willow, and lost convincingly.

The top board pairing in Round 6 was a hard-fought but solid draw, meaning Keith Arkell maintained his position at the top; he was caught by Harry Grieve, who won quickly against Danny Gormally. Those two are now the leaders on 5; there is a chasing pack of seven people on 4½, one of them Nick Pert, who took an early advantage against me and didn't give me anything in the way of swindling chances. For the first time in the tournament, there is an outright leader in the women's championship - Katarzyna Toma and Lan Yao had matched each other's results exactly in rounds 1-5, but Yao pulled ahead in round 6 by beating Charlie Storey, while Toma could only get a draw against Steve Dishman.

 The top-board clash in Round 5 was a rather tame and uninspiring draw in ten moves. This meant that a decisive game on board 2 would likely produce a sole leader, and Keith Arkell duly delivered. In true Arkell style, he won the game in the ending. He now leads the tournament with 4½ points, ahead of six players (R Pert, Clarke, Grieve, Emms, Wadsworth and Gormally) on 4. Harry Grieve's TPR so far of 2599 means he is just about on course for a GM norm, never mind the IM norm that would also be very valuable. I am half a point behind the chasing pack, on 3½, after a nice win against Stephen Dishman, who went into an opening line that, while maybe not really all that good for white, I have a very good record in. My reward for this win is to face top seed Nick Pert.