ENGLISH CHESS - Key Persons
David Howell wasn't at the Classic, but did play at the FIDE Grand Swiss in Riga at the end of the autumn - and how well he did. While Alireza Firouzja and Fabiano Caruana qualified for the Candidates, David was right up there, sharing the lead with those two superstars with two to play. He was defeated by Caruana in round 5, then won four games in a row, a staggering performance in such a strong tournament. Those wins were over Nodirbek Yakubboev, Ruslan Ponomariov, Andrey Esipenko and Anton Korobov. David was then outplayed by Firouzja and held by Vincent Keymer, but his 7/11 and 2764 performance will live long in the memory.
As our enduring weakness has been the lack of talent coming through, I'm delighted to report that at the very end of August, Shreyas Royal got over 2400 for the first time at the age of 13. In addition, as I'm sure my colleague Alex Holowczak has written elsewhere, England now has two world #1 ranked seven-year-olds and two eight-year olds ranked second and 4th respectively. it's essential that these talents and others we have at the younger age groups are all nurtured and that the money be found to support them and their development. The John Robinson Youth Trust and Chess Trust will be essential in that regard. The taps should be opened wide while we have this almost unprecedented opportunity.
At the other end of the age scale we should celebrate the triple gold success of our Open 50+, Open 65+ and Women's 50+ teams at the World Senior Teams held at Acqui Terme, Italy in July. I was delighted to be able to pop in and watch the very competitive match between England 1 and England 2 when Glenn Flear took Mickey to the brink of defeat. England had by far the biggest delegation and this unprecedented success is due largely to the initiative and huge amount of work - including fund-raising - put in by the acting Manager of Senior Chess IM Nigel Povah, who worked in tandem with Stewart Reuben. We look forward to more success at Dresden in November for the European Championships and indeed there has already been further success with Terry Chapman finishing second in the European Senior 65+ Championship in Lublin, where Tony Stebbings claimed bronze. We have started a roll of honour section on the ECF website, and look forward to more entries in 2022-23.
Jones's victory lifts him to 2709 on the live rating list. He has, at least for now, pulled out a small gap over the pack, Michael Adams currently lying second on 2695, just ahead of David Howell (2693), Matthew Sadler (2692), and Luke McShane (2688). It's a very exciting time for English chess and personally I can't wait for the 2019 European Team Championships, which are due to begin in Batumi, Georgia in late October.
Job Titles:
- ECF International Director
ECF International Director Malcolm Pein, who captained the England Open team, said ‘I am immensely proud of all our England players in the Open and Women's teams, and the Open team's excellent Bronze medal performance - coming after brilliant results in the Olympiad and World Teams - shows that we are now one of the very best teams in the world. The players would particularly like to record their thanks for all the messages of support and congratulations they received from ECF members throughout the event. It really boosted our spirits, knowing that the English chess community was rooting for us.'
GM Simon Williams, IM Andrew Horton, IM Ameet Ghasi, IM Ravi Haria and FM Marcus Harvey were all outrated by their GM opponents in the first round of the Elstree Qualifier. Harvey scored a fine win over Croatian chess legend Zdenko Kozul, but was outplayed in the tie-break. Only Haria, who defeated German GM Falko Bindrich 2-0, made it to the second round, before losing to the Russian GM Ernesto Inarkiev. Haria won the first game with this spectacular rook sacrifice
The President GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili was elected unopposed and so were the ECU Board, with one change, which was that I was elected (unopposed) to the ECU Board in place of Johann Pockesteiner of Austria who resigned his position.