Chess Go Spinny

 Danny Gormally's position in the lead of was short-lived, as he lost in Round 4 to Brandon Clarke. Clarke is now one of five joint leaders, along with Kirk (who beat Derakhshani), Arkell (who beat Price), Richard Pert (who beat Domenech) and Grieve (who was the only lower-seeded player to win at the top, with a win against Nigel Davies). Grieve's results so far are enough to have taken him clearly over the 2400 barrier, although as yet he does not have enough norms for the IM title. My own game was a bit of a horror show; my opponent's attacking instincts were more switched on than mine, and he built up a lovely attack that forced me to give up my queen for a rook and a piece. He then really should have gone on to convert that to victory, but nerves and time worked against him, and he ended up blundering his queen. Well, I'll take the lucky victories along with the good ones.

 Danny Gormally took the sole lead in round 3 of the British, as he beat Robert Eames while the other two games in the top scoregroup were drawn. His reward is a game against Brandon Clarke, who convincingly beat me after I failed to cope with his opening preparation. There are eleven players in the chasing pack on 2½, with local interest there represented by Keith Arkell of Paignton and William Claridge-Hansen of Exeter. Also up there is Gwilym Price, who followed up his previous excellent results with a win against James Jackson; he is so far gaining 40 points from just three games.

Round 2 of the British was one where I had a classic frustrating experience; although I would, at the start of the game, have been happy with a draw with black against a player rated 130 points above me, it was nevertheless a game where I'd had a winning position and let it slip through my fingers. Elsewhere in the round, the story at the top of the tournament was the familiar one of seeds mostly getting through - although there was one major exception; first-round giant-killer Bob Eames repeated his feat, this time against Chris Ward. However, the story at the bottom of the tournament was very different, as six players who started the round on 0 lost to lower-rated opposition. This included Peter Wells, whose loss with white to 1982-rated Thomas Donaldson was the major shock of the tournament so far.

 It's that time of year once again, and I am at Torquay for the British Championship . It's normally a bit earlier in the summer - last week of July or first week of August - but has been moved back a couple of weeks so as not to clash with the Olympiad. (As it happens, only two of the relevant countries' Olympiad players - Lan Yao and Katarzyna Toma - are playing, but the capacity was there for the others to do so if they wished.) In the absence of the England team members, the top seed and favourite is Nick Pert, the only player in the tournament rated over 2500. But he may not have it easy, with twelve other 2400+ rated players in the event. Round 1 was the classic top half v bottom half first round, but with the narrow rating band the British lies in, the seeds didn't have it all their own way - two bottom-half players, Gwilym Price and Robert Eames, managed to win against Peter Wells and Jonah Willow respectively, with another nine managing draws. My own game was ...

  Paul Morphy  One of the interesting features of chess is how the development of chess in a region can be sparked by the emergence of a world-class player who captures the public imagination; the number of strong Indian players who have made it to 2600 since Viswanathan Anand reached the elite in the 1990s is a good example, as is the rising profile of Norway since Magnus Carlsen did the same thing in the 2000s. And the subject of this piece, Paul Morphy (1837-1884), is one of the earliest examples of the phenomenon. The USA had some strong players in the mid-19th century, but nobody really on the level of Europe's best; since then, though, they have had world-class players in most eras, including one world champion (Fischer) and three other players who challenged directly for the world title (Marshall, Reshevsky and Caruana). So what was Morphy like as a player, and how did he come to have such a hold over the popular imagination? Well, one answer is that he was unquestiona...

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.