British
Championship 2010 –
A personal
account by Mark Josse
Pre-tournament
I have just returned
from 2 weeks in
Having sent my
entry form off early I kept a keen interest in the entry list, which in the end
grew to 78 players of a wide range of strengths of which I was rated 50th. The entry list was impressive and, whilst GM
David Howell was not there to defend his title, a certain GM Michael Adams had
been tempted into playing and this was going to make life hard for lots of the
other professional masters trying to make a bob or two out of the British. In
the end the event managed to attract 9 Grandmasters, 10 International Masters
and 5 Fide Masters.
I set off with
the family in tow on the Saturday. We
had managed to book a cottage in Petham six miles away, which was lovely and a
good base for the chess, and great for my two children to explore the Kent
Countryside. Two weeks away from the family would have been difficult to
negotiate so I managed to convince Frances and the boys that Canterbury was the
number 1 tourist attraction in Kent and there would be loads to do and, in any
event, I would not be playing chess for more than a few hours each day (well
that’s how I sold it anyway!).
I started to turn
my thoughts to the event, had another look at the entry list, and decided that
it was a mixture of Professional and master players, young aspiring juniors and
that there were not many players over 40 with full time jobs and 3 kids to deal
with!! I was not sure what would be a good score but I decided that 5 would be
a very good return for my efforts. My main priority was to enjoy the event, play
some decent players and catch up with a few old friends. I knew a large number
of players from the circuit to say hello to and there were also some colleagues
from Club Chess that I knew. Ian Henderson had also qualified from Surbiton and
I also knew some of the guys from
Having settled
into our accommodation, on the Sunday night I made my nightly call around 2130
hours to the pairings hotline and saw that my opponent for round 1 was to be
Simon McCullough, rated 2030. Simon is a lad I know quite well from Sandhurst
and, at 21 years old, fits into the category of improving Junior (well junior
to me anyway!) and that is always enough to fill the adults with a drop of fear!
The plus side was I had White. Simon had some good results last year and, on
his day, is capable of turning over some good players, so this was not going to
be an easy start. I started my nightly routine of doing prep and limited myself
to no more than an hour for each game. I know some of the more experienced and
stronger players (and juniors, for that matter) may do a lot more but I felt
any more for me would have been counter productive and also lead to me being
knackered at the board. I am not sure how others prepare but I had invested in
a database and was hoping this would do the trick. Having seen that Simon
played the French I thought I would play my usual line and see how we got on.
Round 1 White vs. Simon
McCullough 2030
After the opening
ceremony I shook hands with Simon and 1 e4, c5 was on the board and so much for
the prep! I could have had a glass of wine instead! Fearing a Dragon or similar
I wheeled out some dodgy Bb5 Sicilian. Simon did not know the opening so well and
after 15 moves I was on the verge of winning. Simon then came alive and
defended well. Although I was 3 pawns up at one stage the position had become
less clear, with Simon gaining counter play having an active queen and knight,
causing me problems as we approached the time control. I had to give some
material back and we ended up in a double rook ending where I had an extra pawn
but, more importantly, two connected
centre pawns vs Simon’s split pawns. I was not sure if I was winning but I had
an easier game and, although Simon might have had a chance to save it, I
managed to get home.
I was pleased to
get off to a good start and get the win although, when I got home, reality soon
kicked in when I heard the draw for Round 2 was GM Steve Gordon 2534 and I was Black!
I did not get to see much of the other first round games although I seem to
remember Michael Adams defused Bob Eames’s Kings Gambit on top board and most
of the top guys had come through unscathed. The ECF produce a good tournament
bulletin, which is free to all competitors and, in future rounds, I was able to
keep up with other boards a bit more as, in reality, my trips towards the stage
were not going to be many.
I had managed to
convince Frances and the boys that
Round 2 Black vs. GM Steve
Gordon 2534
After a quick
handshake Steve played 1 c4 and after 1...c6 I managed to slide myself into an
a6 Slav which I knew very little about. I was beginning to think that the
easiest thing was to throw the database out of the window. By move 11 my
opponent unleashed a Knight Sacrifice on b5 which led to White gaining 3 pawns
for the piece investment and the pleasure of leaving my king wandering around
in the centre of the board for a while. Having said all that things were not
that clear and I managed to get myself through the worst. Move 19 was the
turning point. When faced with exchanging pawns on d4 I opted to close the
position with e4 and this was a serious positional error. You are rarely
forgiven by a GM for such inaccurate play and this was no exception. My
opponent played 4 or 5 good moves and by move 27 I decided not to waste his
time any more as heavy material loss was already on the cards and a busted
position. I went home and reflected and, although I would like to have put up
more of a fight, there were a couple of good lessons served up: Don’t play
openings you don’t know against good players and beware the two bishops. The
Gordon game is worth a look at how he handles the bishops.
The Pairings
Hotline did not bring me much better news that evening I was due Black in round
3 vs. Paul Littlewood IM 2361. There were some good games in round 2, the pick
of which maybe was Simon Williams win over Paul Littlewood. Simon is always
worth following as his games are nearly always sharp and entertaining, many of
which he annotates on his website Ginger GM. Another game that interested me
was on top board between Michael Adams and Aaron Summerscale as it brought back
fond memories from 25 years ago and the London Junior events and Lloyds Bank
events at Highbury when those 2 players did battle. Aaron was a junior at my
club,
This leads me
nicely on to round 3 and IM Littlewood.
Round 3 Black vs. IM Paul
Littlewood 2361 (see game viewer at the end of this article)
Paul is famous
for his attacking play and I was a bit surprised he was playing 1 d4 as I
always seem to remember him as a 1 e4 player. A closer look revealed he played
both but, latterly, 1 d4 was his choice. I had a quick look over the Slav again
and, having been “move ordered” by Gordon, decided it was likely to crop up
this time. The opening turned out as predicted with a main line e3 Dutch Slav.
My opponent introduced a new move (on me): 12 f4 which was very challenging and
afterwards I noticed had been played a few times. The move basically offered to
give up a pawn in exchange for getting the two bishops and some long term
attacking chances. Black did not have much choice but to accept as otherwise he
would have been clearly worse.
White gained a
strong initiative but Black hung on well and gained some activity and good
counter chances in a complicated middle game. In the end with both players
short of time the dust settled into an ending with White having the two bishops
against two knights with the better position. It was not easy to convert and White
had to be accurate but Littlewood played a fine move in 46 Re3 which set up
dual mating threats with which Black could not cope. The endgame is a good
example of using the strength of the two bishops and my opponent played the
latter stages very well. I have annotated the game fully and it is worth a look
as White’s aim in this line is to use the power of the two bishops in the long
term to overhaul Black’s temporary piece play.
I went home a
little dejected after 2 losses in a row but started to realise just how much
damage the two bishops can do in the hands of a strong player. I put up much
better resistance then in the Gordon game and, in parts, even played quite
well. I was impressed with my opponents play as, although he expected a Meran
opening, he understood the position well and another lesson was learned. At the
end of round 3
I allowed myself
a beer or two that night and hoped for a kinder draw. After 2 Blacks in a row I
was drawn White vs. Saravanan Sathyanandha rated 1986. This was a nightmare for
me as he is a 16 year old, who ended up having a great tournament with 5.5/11,
and a quick look at his games revealed he was obviously far better than his
rating. I did a little prep, noticed he played the French, and decided to flick
over the prep I had done for McCullough and hopefully put it to use. I had no
idea of his pet line vs. the Tarrasch though, which meant he had the choice of
which line to go down. I did not know a lot else so decided to stick with what
I knew. I was starting to feel a little sorry for myself having had 2 masters
and 2 underrated Juniors and only 1 point seemed a little harsh - but welcome
to life at the British!
Round 4 White vs. Saravanan
Sathyanandha 1986
The game in round
4 started at a pace, with both sides rattling out the theory in universal French.
At move 16 I became a little nervous as my opponent had only used 1 minute at
this point and was clearly relishing me diving into the main line where I sac
an exchange and it is supposed to be good for White . That’s all well and good
but I was aware he must have looked at this, whereas I had not looked this far,
and the last thing I needed was a 16 year old playing a whole game on memory
alone. I spent ages on the position and came up with 17 Bb5 which sets more
positional problems than tactics. It set my opponent different problems and a
few moves later he made an error allowing me to win material in the form of a
queen for a rook and bishop. The key to the position, though, was his exposed
king and, after a few ups and downs, I managed to convert. The game is well
worth a look as it is very sharp and tactical and was fun to play.
By the end of
round 4 Michael Adams was the sole leader having beaten Jack Rudd. The pick of
the games was a Classical Sicilian where Adam Hunt defeated Peter Wells in a
sharp encounter. I went home in a good mood and the pairing hotline threw up
another interesting battle. I was drawn to play Ian Henderson, my club
colleague from Surbiton, as Black in round 5. This seemed very odd as Ian had
1.5/4 at this point and had been given an up float. I had a quick look on the
database and Ian had very few games listed and none that I could find vs.
1...d5. So it was the Slav again I presumed but I was not really sure what line.
Again this meant I had a quick flick over the stuff from earlier rounds. This
match was going to be of interest to the Surbiton members and I had the feeling
I had more to lose than gain. During my prep I noticed Ian had once held a
partial Fide Rating of over 2300! He has kept that quiet and this did not add
for a restful night’s sleep!!
Round 5 Black vs. Ian
Henderson 2108
In truth the game
was a quite affair and Ian played 4 e3 Bf5 5 Bd3 which is a quiet line vs the
Slav which does not give Black large amounts of counterplay. A Rubinstein French structure arose with Black
trying to get in the c5 advance and White trying to sit on his space advantage.
White may have had a little edge in the early middle game but once Black played
c5 Ian found the correct way through the tactics to a completely level endgame
and a draw was agreed. In truth both players were happy with the result: I got
to keep 50% and avoided the banana skin of a club colleague and Ian got the
bragging rights and brought his score up to 2/5 having lost the previous day to
IM Baker. All in all honours even in the clash of Surbiton and a bit of a quiet
game really.
Elsewhere, on the
top, GM Michael Adams drew a point clear of the field with a win vs. Alexei
Slavin. A number of players were then grouped on 4 points: GM Danny Gormally,
GM Nick Pert and IM Jovanka Houska. I did not see much of the other games although
Rick McMichael (another guy I know from yesteryear) earned a good draw as Black
vs. Tom Rendle. The biggest talking point of the round was Keith Arkell`s game
vs. George Salimbeni which resulted in a draw after 160 moves. Fair play to
both players for their stamina. In particular, well done to
Salimbeni, for holding on to Arkell, when many would have been ground down.
Round 6 White vs. Bret
Addison 2235
The draw for
round 6 saw me paired as White vs Brett Addison, a guy I had not played before,
rated 2235. I noticed he played 1...e5 fairly exclusively and, having just read
John Emm’s new book on the Italian Game, I thought I would give this a whirl. The
opening was fairly predictable with Black playing an early 0-0 and not
committing his d pawn to d6, retaining the option of playing d5 in one move.
The consequence of this is that, when White has not himself gone 0-0, the option with Bg5
can prove annoying. Black had to use a fair amount of time in the opening to
solve his problems but my opponent came up with 12. Qd7, which was a good move
improving on the known theory. I then played a poor series of moves with an
early h4 when I should have built up the position a little first. This allowed
a series of liquidations where Black had a slight edge going into a queen and
rook endgame which would have been difficult to win as White got some annoying
counterplay against the exposed Black king. My Opponent offered me a draw at
move 24 which I was happy to accept.
The highlight of
the round was GM Nick Pert taking a half point off the leader GM Michael Adams.
Nick had gained a good position out of the opening as black in a Bb5 Sicilian
and drew in 21 moves. I was pleased for Nick as we had met up before the tournament
and he was not sure if he was actually going to play. He is a nice guy and I
was pleased to see him rewarded with 2nd place in the event at the
end of the second week. IM Andrew Martin awarded the best game of the day to
Stuart Conquest for his win as Black vs. Alexei Slavin. It is a good game to go
over as he slides White into a Kings Indian with a useful move order transpo.
I had had a
couple of quiet draws at the end of the week and decided I needed to play a
little sharper in week 2. Having spent the 8 weeks before the event cycling for
an hour or two a day I was hoping I would be fit enough to survive the pace but,
other than Littlewood, my opponents had averaged nearly 18 years younger than
me per game so I was a little worried I might not last the distance.
I went back to
Petham at the end of week 1 exhausted. I had a big day on Sunday as I had to
make up for some lost time with the family! We also had some new neighbours at
our cottage in the shape of nine teenage lads. I got the impression I was not
in for much sleep in week 2!! Sunday was a quiet family day - we visited
The family did me
proud by going off to Diggerland (which is superb by the way) as I came to
terms with week 2. I had never played two weeks of chess before but at least I
had not become bored with it yet.
Round 7 Black vs. FM Bob
Eames 2287 (see game viewer at the end of this article)
I knew Bob Eames a little from the London
League as he plays for Hackney and he beat me earlier this year in a
Round 8 White vs. IM Tom
Rendle 2391
This was a hard
draw as Tom is an IM of GM strength and somebody I knew a little from Sandhurst
Chess Club. I knew a tough game lay ahead. The lads next door had begun to calm
down after our complaints and settled down at 0200 hours, which meant I at
least got some sleep before the game. I did a little prep in the morning for
what was going to be a French Tarrasch. Tom Rendle had numerous database games
but had played 3...a6, 3...Nc6 and 3...Be7, so again I was not the player with
choice of variation, which I had kind of worked out by now seems to be the key
to some of this prep work. I suspected 3...Nc6 or 3...a6 were on the cards and
had a look at the lines. We sat down and I faced 3...a6. I then played 4 Bd3 rather
than the universal 4 Ngf3. I had read in a book that 4 Bd3 was the best move
and played it before in an easy win. The lesson, I suspect, is that my opponent
knew I would likely head for 4 Bd3 whereas I was in the dark concerning his 3rd
move choice. This may not seem much to the casual observer but Tom Rendle had
done his homework and moved his Knight to e7 and not f6 and set White a few
problems in the opening. My next few moves were ambitious and I set about
advancing on the queenside. The position became very symmetrical and open. With
16 moves gone Black played the very strong 16...Qc8. I followed up with 17 Ng5,
aiming to attack the King side, and Rendle hit me with
17... Rd8, a move which I had missed. A short while later I was forced to
resign having lost my queen to avoid being mated. A 21 move smash from Black
who must have been delighted with the quick win. We had a look over the game
afterwards and my opponent offered me one or two good options in the universal
which I can do some work on. Tom was very sporting after the match and, like a
lot of the titled players, was happy to spend some time going over the game and,
to his credit, showed me some analysis that will help me in the future. I felt
a bit bashed losing in 21 moves but I took some comfort from the fact I did not
play that badly. My opponent prepared a good line and played some really good
moves and, at the end of the day, I had few complaints and give full credit to
a very good player.
I watched some of
the other matches and
I was a bit
gutted to have been beaten so easily but still determined to try and get 1.5/3
to finish the event on 50%. This would, of course, be tough as I had Black in 2
of the next 3 matches. In round 9 I was paired as Black vs. Paul Cumbers (2218).
I had a terrible nights sleep with the teenagers next door keeping me awake
until gone 0400 hours at which point I decided I might as well do my prep then.
I had seen enough of the Slav by this time in 3 of my matches with Black
already so I decided it was time to change. I noticed my opponent had just
changed to 1 d4 and played the 4 Qc2 Nimzo. This is a good line but means you
have to know an awful lot of theory and Black is the person who often decides
which line to enter.
Round 9 Black vs. Paul
Cumbers 2218
I bumped into a
few familiar faces I knew on the way into the tournament hall and stopped for a
chat. Jon Foley, the president of Kingston Chess Club, was there with Richard James
of Richmond Chess Club. Richard was my first ever chess coach when I was around
10 years old! Richard produced an amazing set of players from that era, e.g.
Agnos, Summerscale, Wall, Mortazavi and players like Briscoe and Cavendish. I
know he followed this up with more strong players after my time. It was good to
see him at the event and he still remains actively involved in coaching school
children in the
I did a bit of
work and after 3...Bb4 my opponent had a long think and side stepped me by
playing 4 f3. After 4...c5 we entered a line which is lively where Black has two
bishops and chances of an attack but White is positionally superior and long
term will make this count. Black played quite well and whipped up chances of a king
side attack which white had to defend accurately. White did this and begun to
emerge with a position that was close to winning but, in the end, fell for a
tactic allowing Black to win outright. The game was not of the highest quality
by both players and on reflection I was a little lucky to win this one.
I went home happy
with 5/9. I had a chance to maybe head for 6 but I knew tough opposition lay
ahead. On the higher boards Michael Adams had drawn with Adam Hunt leaving him leading
the event by one and half points. The
Pert brothers were drawn together on board 2 and the game ended a draw. Peter
Wells had a nice win vs. Rick McMichael and Simon Williams beat Stuart Conquest
which meant it was all to play for. In the hunt for what was likely to be
second place to
Round 10 White vs. Chris
Dorrington 2255
Round 10 saw me
paired against Chris Dorrington 2255 as White. I was beginning to feel the pace
by now and the thought of another 23 year old opponent was tiring just thinking
about it. I did not do a lot of prep but observed he played the Scheveningen
but often had a back up of the
Back to the main
event and Michael Adams secured the tile with a fine win over Simon Williams.
There was a group behind containing Nick Pert, Steve Gordon, Richard Pert and
Adam Hunt who would be contesting for second place.
I was very tired
and worn out after the Dorrington game as I felt I let a win slip away. My
punishment for this was to be paired as Black vs. Peter Constantinou FM (2302)
in the last round. I had never played Peter before and noticed he had a fine
tournament, losing only to Richard Pert and drawing with Peter Wells and Simon
Williams. I had an awful night’s sleep as the teenagers next door had found
their second wind and partied loud until 0500 hours. I went next door to have a
moan, but what can you say to nine of them? In truth
when I was 18 I was probably worse but it is little comfort when you are trying
to sleep ahead of a chess match. I had a lie in and once awake I did a little
prep for my last round match but, in truth, I was shattered.
Round 11 Black vs. FM Peter
Constantinou 2302 (see game viewer at the end of this article)
I noticed my
opponent played the
On the main
boards
Its over!
The tournament
was over and we headed away on the Friday night keen to get home and also, on
my part, exhausted after 2 weeks at the British. I enjoyed the event and was
happy with my 6/11 and having gained a good 30 plus FIDE points. I played a GM,
2 IM`s, 2 FM`s, 3 players 2220-2255, 2 juniors and a 2108. I learned a lot about tournament chess and the
way to prepare. The reality is, if you want to even survive in this database
era, you have to do some work; which means that for 2 weeks chess becomes a
near on full time job. In truth it was hard on the family for 2 weeks and,
whilst this is no excuse, I think I realise now why I gave up the game in the
first place. Once you hit the 195-200 bracket, to inch any further towards FM/IM
level you have to dedicate yourself to the game and this is something I found
hard when aged 21 let alone 20 years later with a full on job and a family!!!
I thoroughly
enjoyed my opportunity to play in the British, who knows if I will ever get the
chance to play again? However I was pleased to have been given the opportunity
and in many ways it has reinforced to me how tough it is to improve your chess.
Games Annotated by Mark from Rounds 3, 7 and 11
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Game viewer by ChessTempo
See Ian Henderson's account of the event
Mark Josse
Surbiton Chess Club