Adams finishes 1.5 points clear at British

As expected, Michael Adams won the 2010 British Championship in Canterbury convincingly. The Englishman finished on 9.5/11, 1.5 points clear of Nicholas Pert. And while were at English chess, why not watch Stornoway's new clip?

Final round: Mickey Adams facing Peter Wells. The game ended ½-½ in 30 moves. | Photo Ray Morris-Hill, more here.

The 97th British Championships of the British Isles took place 25 July to 7 August at the Sports Centre of the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. There were several side events, such as senior and junior championships, rapidplay and a weekender. The main event was an 11-round Swiss with a time control of 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds increment from move 1.

With a 150 point rating advantage over the field, Michael Adams clinched the £5,000 (6,013 Euros) first prize relatively easily. After a 5/5 start, he conceded half a point in the next round against Nicholas Pert, who would eventually finish clear second. Scoring another four points out of his last five games (against Gordon, Conquest, Hunt, Williams and Wells) Adams made clear that he was of a different caliber in Canterbury.

British Ch 2010 | Round 11 (Final) Standings (top 20)


As John Saunders wrote on his new blog, English Chess Federation President CJ de Mooi announced some good news about next year's championship. It will be held in Sheffield with a prize fund upped from £5,000 to £10,000. Besides, he already obtained a commitment from Britain's four leading players - Mickey Adams, Nigel Short, Luke McShane and David Howell - that they would take part. Besides, another ten British GMs would play.

It's quite important for the tournament to have such big names on the list, to keep things interesting. If only for the many 2000-2300 participants, who have to pay the considerable sum of £200 to enter. Besides this, for the moment private sponsoring is said to be the main income, but at the same time there was no appearance money for GMs this year. At first Keith Arkell declined participation. On the English Chess Forum he wrote on June 15th:

I spend most of the year playing in ''smaller'' tournaments than the British, and getting paid to do so. The prospect of moving from the seaside(where I live now) to Canterbury, to do my job for 2 weeks and take the risk that if I perform badly then I will make a loss of 800 pounds,strangely does not appeal to me.

In the end Arkell played anyway, and names of other GMs were also added to the list of participants, but some of them at the last minute. More info to be found on the The Streatham & Brixton Chess Blog.

But in any case, and also taking the London Chess Classic into account, it looks like things are going not so bad with British chess at the moment.

Selection of games rounds 6-11

Game viewer by ChessTempo


While we're at English chess: one of our readers sent us an email referring to the following video clip.

Here's the brand new video for the currently very popular English folk-rock band Stornoway. Their new music video features some of the members (singer and bassplayer) alternating between playing chess and boxing.

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Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC