2021 British Championship, Round 4

One of the unfortunate events that sometimes plagues tournaments has arisen, and the event has had its first withdrawals. One, that of Amirabbas Mehrafarin, was known about before the round 4 pairings were made (and is probably not surprising with his being on 0/3 and having blown promising positions in the previous two rounds). The other is of Phil Brooks, whose result this round flitted from "lost by default to Starley" to "half-point bye" to "lost by default to Starley". I suspect what this means is that Brooks felt ill, asked to take the round off, but then later decided he was too ill to carry on playing. If so, I hope he recovers soon.

Moving onto the games that actually were played, the tournament now has its first outright leader: Mark Hebden moved onto 3½/4 with a convincing win against Bradbury. For a while it looked like Andrew Ledger might join him, but he failed to convert a good-looking position against Eggleston and had to settle for a draw. A draw was also a result in the top-board clash between Harvey and Gormally; they were joined in the chasing pack by Nick Pert, whose win over Freddie Gordon culminated in the very unusual finish of his giving mate with an en passant capture.

Further down the tournament, a few players may have rued missed chances: Arkell was better against Olson but couldn't find a way to break through, and Latypova created a storming attack against Head (in a game that caused the tournament to satisfy the Rudd Test) but for some reason agreed a draw when still in a winning poisition. There was also a bizarre game between Willison and Sucikova, in which white resigned in a position that probably wasn't lost.

 


Board No. Name Rtg Pts. Result Pts. Name Rtg No.
1 3 FM Harvey Marcus R 2465 2½ ½ - ½ 2½ GM Gormally Daniel   W 2480 2
2 4 GM Hebden Mark L 2455 2½ 1 - 0 2½ IM Bradbury Neil H 2265 10
3 7 IM Eggleston David   J 2356 2 ½ - ½ 2½ IM Ledger Andrew J 2329 8
4 1 GM Pert Nicholas 2548 2 1 - 0 2 Gordon Frederick 1523 21
5 9 FM Olson Hamish 2273 2 ½ - ½ 1½ GM Arkell Keith C 2380 6
6 5 IM Mcphillips   Joseph 2425 1½ 1 - 0 1½ Finn Peter 1959 16
7 18 Stubbs Oliver 1925 1 0 - 1 1 FM Webb Laurence E 2184 12
8 17 Willison Steven 1936 1 0 - 1 1 WFM Sucikova   Svetlana 2175 13
9 22 AFM Latypova Olga L 1266 1 ½ - ½ 1 WFM Head Louise 2090 14
10 15 Starley Robert 2057 1 + - - 1 Brooks Phil J 2191 11
11 19 Khoury Theo 1814 ½ 1 bye
20 Mehrafarin   Amirabbas 1734 0 0 not paired


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