Chess Go Spinny

Keith Arkell's game in Round 9 finished pretty quickly, as he got into a bad position out of the opening against Richardson and accepted an early draw. Mine was also quite swift, as I won a pawn against Brown and converted the advantage in the ending. Keith and I spent the remainder of the session enjoying the sun outside and watching the other results come in. And the way those other results came in mostly worked in my favour: Peter Wells's win against Camacho Collados wrapped up the tournament for him, and when Alistair Hill managed to hold against Maksimenko, I realized that I'd come equal third . Not a bad showing for my first tournament back, although the loss of 13 rating points is not something I am keen to repeat. 1st: Wells 8 2nd: Arkell 7 3rd=: Camacho Collados, Richardson, Rudd, Murphy, Maksimenko 6 Richardson and Murphy, as the highest placed not-already-qualified eligible players, qualify for the 2023 British Championship (venue unknown as of t

Round 8 saw Peter Wells take the sole lead, as he beat Thomas Brown, while Keith Arkell could only draw with Maksimenko. In the other game in the top scoregroups, Camacho Collados defended well against a spirited attack from Smith and emerged the winner in the last game to finish. The second-last game to finish was my game against Hugh Murphy, which will surprise anyone familiar with the speed with which I play. Mind you, when the game goes on past move 80, that tends to happen. Having gone a pawn down in the middlegame, I ended up having to struggle for a long time in a queen ending, and was lucky to escape with a draw.

Keith Arkell needed his swindling technique once again in Round 7 , as he somehow managed to win a two-pawns-down rook ending against Nilsson. This win kept him neck and neck with Peter Wells, who beat Olivia Smith: the two of them now led the field by a clear point. In the chasing pack on 5, Smith was joined by Camacho Collados (who beat Hill), Maksimenko (who beat Waddington) and Brown (who beat Menadue). My own game was not one for the anthologies; after getting a nice position out of the opening against Sam Jukes, I made a horrible blunder that dropped the exchange, but somehow managed to claw it back and win anyway.

In both the previous rounds, there was a dramatic game near the top, but Round 6 featured a dramatic non- game near the top instead. Borna Derakhshani withdrew on the day of the round, giving his opponent, Olivia Smith, a free point. She was joined in the lead on 5/6 by Peter Wells, who beat Richardson, and Keith Arkell, who won a topsy-turvy game against Camacho Collados. My chances of doing anything of note in the tournament were pretty much ended here, as I got horribly tangled up in a Benoni against Alistair Hill. Sometimes these technically bad but interesting to play positions end up resolving in black's favour, but this was just never the case here.

You win some, you lose some. Having beaten the top seed in the morning, John Richardson was brought down to earth in Round 5 by losing to Olivia Smith. This result brought Smith into the joint lead, as the other games involving the players in the 3½ score-group all ended in draws. I managed to keep myself just half a point behind the leaders by winning a long endgame grind against Roger de Coverly; in a King's Indian position with mutual bad bishops, my bad bishop proved to be more useful than his in the endgame.

With tournament leader Derakhshani taking a bye in Round 4 , this created an excellent opportunity for members of the chasing pack to join him in the lead. And, unfortunately for me, Peter Wells was one of the ones who did so, absolutely crushing me with the Trompowsky. He was, unsurprisingly, joined by Camacho Collados, who beat Brown, and Arkell, who beat Blackburn, but the other decisive result was a surprise: John Richardson beat top seed Maksimenko in a theoretical line that has appeared a few times this year in the FIDE Grand Prix.

Round 3 was the round where the real heavyweight clashes of the tournament began, and it showed in the results; of the nine players who started the day on 2/2, only one, FM Borna Derakhshani, made it to 3/3, with a win against Alistair Hill. Together with a clean sweep of decisive results in the 1½ scoregroup, this meant that there was a chasing pack of nine players on 2½.  My game against Keith Arkell was one of those topsy-turvy games that often characterizes our encounters; after getting a big advantage from the opening, Keith overlooked a freeing move that allowed me to get a good position; I then misplayed a winning middlegame and allowed him to escape into a drawn - although not trivially so - ending.  

Round 2 was also reasonably comfortable for the seeded players, with only Jukes's draw against Nilsson preventing them from getting a clean sweep in the 1/1 scoregroup. Midway through the round, though, this didn't look exactly assured: both Bullen-Camacho Collados and Arkell-Menadue could plausibly have gone the other way. My pairing was against an 18-year-old Welshman called Ifan Rathbone-Jones, who played everyone's favourite traditional drawing weapon, the London System. I went for an aggressive counter involving ...Qb6 and ...Bf5, and ended up with a nice position that I managed to convert quickly.

Well, it's been a long time, but I have finally returned to over-the-board tournament play. From the 7th to the 12th of July, I was playing in the South Wales International , an event which I play every year if I can. This event has moved around a lot; over my time playing in it, it's been held in Caerleon , Treforest , Penarth , and two venues in Cardiff ; this year, like in 2019 when it last ran, it was held in Bridgend , at the Best Western Heronston Hotel . This has never been the strongest of events - my rating of 2331 this year gave me a starting seeding of 6 - but it has a wonderfully friendly atmosphere, and has a great track record of its competitors coming back year after year. Round 1 , as is the way of seeded Swisses, featured rating differences of at least 400 points on every board, and the inevitable bloodbath mostly came about, but there were a few lower seeds who escaped - three managed draws, including young Welsh player Hugo Fowler managing a draw against top

 One of the longest running events in English chess is the County Championships, and though the number of competing counties has declined over the years, the events are still keenly contested. Previous editions of this event have had a big finals day somewhere in the Midlands, but representations from the more far-flung counties have persuaded the ECF to allow competing teams to arrange for their final to be played at a more mutually convenient venue. Thus, of the six finals being contested that day, only one, Yorkshire v Middlesex in the U-1850s, was played in what would be considered a normal Leicestershire venue. People who've followed my county games over the years will know that, although I live in Devon, I normally play for Somerset, where I grew up - and indeed I have been playing for them in the WECU Online Championships over the past couple of seasons. But I had managed not to play any over-the-board chess for Somerset by the time the national stages of this year's e