Saturday 18th
& Sunday 19th November 2017
The
Craiglands Hotel
Cowpasture Rd,
Ilkley LS29 8RQ
An English Chess Federation
supported Grand Prix event | Entries - Steve Burton (0113)
2568157
Tournament Secretary - Brent Kitson kitson453@btinternet.com
British Rapidplay
Chess 2016 Day one report B.Kitson BRC.
The year had already seen Brexit and then a
new style leader of America.
Leeds United for once are
climbing up the table, whilst South Africa had recently beaten up the Aussies
at Cricket.
The World Chess Championships had gotten
started the day before in New York between Grand Masters Magnus Carlson and
Sergey Karjakin
…and what a year so far with The Olympics , The European Football , etc !!!!…..
Well we are here in Leeds again for the
thirtieth anniversary edition of this established chess event.
It all started back in 1986 at The Queens
Hotel with Grandmaster Nigel Short winning.
Made in Leeds TV had kindly publicized the
event this year on its 6pm Thursday news bulletin.
At its new venue of Temple Moor High School
(1200 students), things started off at 11.00am on time.
Despite some glitches on the wi-fi, the event was running smoothly …
thanks to the administrators/helpers/arbiters/players/and Temple Moor School
Staff. Lee, Declan, Elaine and Wayne of
Temple Moor were all great...
The Junior Under
11, The Open and The Minor have good entry numbers…
plus The Open and The Major events are now F.I.D.E. run, with the juniors
computerized.
In the days England Under
11 trial Joe Birk (Burnley) and Lavanya
Maladkar (Notts)
came out on top with each scoring 5 out of 5.Nigel Hepworth and Stephen
Forbes, who smoothly ran this section,
took some pictures of the event that you’ll find in the gallery section.
In the Minor...Lana Boztas,
Andrew De Santos , Sai Tangirala
, and Toby Cox lead the way , all with
5/6 .
Thanks by the way to our new support arbiter
Andrew Sainsbury who’s
joined
the regular team of Dave Welch , Pete Purland
,Lara Barnes , and Alex McFarland and
who run the main events.
In the Intermediate Richard Desmedt and Anita Sompton lead
the way on 5/6.
Results for the Major and Open are on www.chess-results.com
The Major saw Joshua Pink in second on 5/6,
but with Han Yichen leading on 6/6…
Lara Barnes doing a great job as usual in arbiting.
The Open this year has a range of top players including Keith Arkell G.M.,
the 1998 champion , plus three I.M’s
and five F.M.’s .An international flavour too with Spanish/Irish/Danish/Bangladesh/Greece players in The Open .
Scotland has three
top players too in the event ,
alongside Scotland’s and our favourite Scottish arbiter , Alex McFarlane..
Richard Bates I.M. leads outright on 5.5/6 , Lorin D’Costa I.M. is on 5/6 , whilst Peter Poobalasingham is on
5/6 ….
Who’s going to win it ?
I don’t honestly know
See Day Two and the final report , as well as a gallery of pictures . I understand all the games in PGN will soon
be downloadable .
Brent Kitson
Secretary BRChess.
Ps Thanks to Chess Direct/PAT testers/David
and Steve on the web/The set up team etc.