One man’s view of the Liverpool British

by Bob Jones – Event Publicity Officer.

Friday 1st August.

10 a.m.

Juniors: This is the day the youngest players join in the fun – the Under-8s and their various back-up teams (or parents, as they are more commonly known). Each has his or her own unique story regarding how they have come to be contesting a national title, away from home  at so tender an age, but one of the more unusual ones came my way yesterday.

There are three children from Gibraltar over here this fortnight. Sonia Chhatwani is here with her two sons, Milesh (10) and Yash (13) who both attend schools in Gib. Also here is 8 year old Stephen Whatley with his parents, Steve and Sharon. Young Stephen first saw a chess game in progress at a New Year’s Eve party when he was four, and he badgered his parents to get him a set. For 2 years, they resisted, assuming he was much too young to get his little head round the complexities of the Royal Game, but eventually gave in.

This came against the background of the Gibtelecom Chess Festival, which started in 2002 with a host of stellar players, but was by this time starting to impinge on the consciousness of the local populace, especially among the young. To reflect this, the owner of the venue, Brian Calahan of the Caleta Hotel (****) introduced more tournaments for the juniors.

From first learning the moves in September 2007, within 4 months he’d won the Gibtelecom Under-8 title, giving him free entry to Liverpool 08.

I don’t want to get bogged down in chess politics here, but when in 2003 decisions were made to exclude Commonwealth players from the British Championship (but retaining the Irish Republic), exceptions were made for British Dependencies, who had a special status anyway.  These included Gibraltar, Bermuda, and a host of small islands in the southern oceans, including the Falklands all of whose chessplayers remained eligible.

Yet what is perhaps more remarkable about Stephen’s chess CV so far is not so much his play, as his sheer panache. He runs the chess club in his own school, as the Head was unable to find an adult to do it. Also, he’s been invited to speak to the Rotary Club of Gibraltar to talk to them about his experiences at his first British Championships at Great Yarmouth last year. He was allocated 20 minutes but held the floor for a whole hour, which takes some chutzpah for an 8 year old. The members enjoyed it so much they’ve invited him back later this month to talk about his Liverpool experiences.

Stephen Whatley, (8) 4^th left back row, with the 26 members of the Governor’s Meadow 1^st School Chess Club, Gibraltar, which he runs. These are the participants after their 1^st Congress.

2.15:

Extra Prizes: Liverpool John Moores University have been very generous in donating extra money to the event’s prize fund, to be used to reward Excellence. This is where Andrew Martin’s £100 per round for his Game of the Day, but in addition there will be 10 prizes of £50 for the best junior games, again to be determined by Andrew, plus

several others for local players.

Above: Yang-Fan Zhou receiving his £50 prize before the start of the round.

The look of surprised delight on the face of each of the battle-hardened professionals when their name is announced at the start of each day’s play bears testimony to just how much this means to the players.

Games: Play got under way at 2.15 with the presentation to Conquest, after which he was in no mood to fight and agreed a draw with Hebden in short order, leaving both as joint leaders on 4 pts. They were joined, however, by Jones and Gormally, both winning with the Black pieces.

Stuart Conquest hears his name called out.

The games that caught Andrew Martin’s imagination were 3^rd Meri Grigoryan-Lyell for the “technical perfection of her game against Charlie Storrey who is usually trickier than a barrel of cobras”. Next was Lawrence Trent for his patience against Nick Pert, but the £100 went to Stephen Barrett of Yorkshire for his ultra violent display against Steve Dilleigh. Andrew is of the opinion that this game, in which Barrett puts most of his pieces en pris, could well enter the chess literature as an example of attacking power. Worth checking out now on-line.

Thursday 31^st July:

Junior Coaching: Last year, thanks to the magnitude of the John Robinson Trust, David Welch was able to introduce some serious junior coaching. Asking around as to might be suitable for this post, ECF President, Gerry Walsh, recommended Nick Nixon, whose work in Leeds was attracting wider attention.  This proved so popular at Great Yarmouth that Nick was retained for Liverpool and his talks regularly fill the room with juniors and, often, their parents as well, all learning the rudiments of good play.

Nick was born in Leicestershire and spent his formative years in the Midlands. When he was 10 he was bed-bound with a serious illness and his father bought him a series of small items to help pass the time. One day it was a pocket chess set, and his father taught him the moves. The first game they played, his father clearly threw the game in order to let his son win – doubtless with the best of intentions, but Nick found it annoyingly patronising and vowed to study the game in the next few weeks. He returned to school, which had a chess club, and badgered the teacher for coaching. Next time they played, Nick beat his father, and the scent of blood stayed with him.

He moved south where the first title he won was the Kent U-16 Championship in 1963/4. By the 1970s he had entered teaching and moved to Leeds. The 1980s were his chess heyday, becoming Yorkshire Champion on 4 occasions, though he claims he didn’t find this out till a decade later, partly due to the complicated formula for determining the winner. His highest grade was 219 in 1986, in which year he won £8,000 in prize money alone, in this country and on the continent.

In 1990 he moved to the Matthew Murray High School in Leeds where they already had a chess club with 150 pupils meeting every lunchtime, and he took the school team to many successes in national and local competitions.

In 1998 a near-fatal accident on his motorcycle forced his early retirement from teaching and he turned to coaching, something he could do in relatively short spells and enabled him to maintain contact with the chess world.

On his travels, he finds carrying a pocket set everywhere is the passport to international communication – it’s a great ice-breaker. One night in Bangkok, (feel a song coming on?) he found himself in the air terminal with 6 hours to wait for a connecting flight; sat down, took out his set, and within minutes a Vietnamese gentleman came up, and in spite of neither speaking the other’s language, played for hours and managed to communicate somehow.

Notation: Of the hundreds of players here, the vast majority now use algebraic notation to record their moves. A small group of die-hards hang on to the old English descriptive notation, and of these, just two as far as I know, still use the symbol Kt for knight, instead of the more usual N, which avoids possible confusion with K for King. The guilty two are Trefor Thynne, Liverpoool-born but now of South Devon and playing in the U-175, and David Langridge of Brighton, playing in the U-125. Trefor tells me that in this morning’s game, instead of writing simply Nxg5, he had to write Kt(K4)XKt5, which went right across the space for both moves. At that moment he could see the logic of algebraic but knows he could never change.

5 p.m.

Guardian visit: A photographer from the Guardian came in the afternoon, and had got all he wanted before I even noticed. Quiet efficiency. Pictures should be published on Friday or Saturday.

Games: It’s still very early days, of course, but after 3 rounds the GM cream has started to rise to the top, and today the 5 demonstration boards featured the more familiar games. The game on Board 1 between Hebden and pace-setter Nigel Davies clearly had the potential to be a significant result. In the event it went down to Hebden’s R+2P v R+P where he was able to dictate the agenda and forced resignation. Jones v Gordon; Gormally v Pert and Hanley v Lalic all ended in draws, but Conquest v Arkell went down to the wire with the game ending in a time scramble in which either player could have made a mistake. After the 40^th move was reached, and controller Lara Barnes had finished reconstructing the correct score, Arkell conceded. This pushed Conquest up into 1^st place level with Hebden on 3½/4.

With the other results factored in, those in 3^rd=place on 3 points are Nigel Davies, Gawain Jones, Stephen Gordon, Lawrence Trent, Graeme Buckley, Nick Pert, Susan Lalic, Dietmar Kolbus and local player Gary Quillan.

The games that caught Andrew Martin’s eye were Jack Rudd’s comfortable win against Chris Russell in which he was much more focussed after his miserable performance the day before. Second was Lawrence Trent, but the £100 went to Stuart Conquest for “his thoroughly stylish play throughout in his win against Keith Arkell”. Check them out for yourself.

Wednesday July 30th :

10 a.m.

The Red & the Blue: In the weeks leading up to this event, it is usual to notify all the usual media agencies, local newspapers, radio & TV stations etc. This time, in addition, I sent details to Rafa Benitez at Liverpool F.C. and David Moyes at Everton, inviting any of their squad who might be interested to come along and see what’s going on. This was repeated on air on Monday morning.

After all, it says on the Liverpool website....."Rafa is a very good chess player - he has been playing the game ever since he was a child. He likes his team to behave as if they were players in a chess game. He hates losing when he plays chess. Though I'm not sure he has much time to play chess now he is in England."

Since then, it was suggested that if two players, one from each club, should happen to be present at the same time, a quick game could be arranged with red and blue pieces being used instead of black & white, the problem being there were no such sets available at the Chess & Bridge bookstall. Jim hadn’t thought to bring them as they never sell. But, always ready to help out, he phoned HQ and arranged for two sets to be rushed up by post. They arrived this morning, so hopefully they can be used in a photo opportunity of some kind before the end.

11 a.m.

Rd. 2 Game of the Day: Andrew Martin came in at this point with the result of his

Overnight deliberations on the games played in Round 2. In reverse order, they were 3^rd -  Stuart

Conquest for “his majestic stroll through Mark Lyell‘s position”; 2^nd Susan Lalic for “the violence of her

attack against Mike Yeo”, but the 1^st prize of £100 went to Nigel Davies for his “cool-headedness under the

extreme  firepower of young Yang-Fan Zhou”.

1 p.m.

BBC TV: Parish Patel, a local one-man TV crew arrived lugging large bags of equipment. His intention was

to assemble a 5-minute report about the event, not for local TV but to be put on the BBC’s main website as

soon as possible. This way, anyone in the world would be able to see it at any time, so is likely to reach a

much wider audience.

We discussed what kind of thing he was looking for and at what points in the afternoon each might be

possible. I lined up a few juniors for him to interview before the start of play, but as is often the case when

filming, he overran his allotted time span and the kids drifted off to start their games. Undeterred, he spent

several more hours getting shots of the playing area, and interviewing where and when he could get away

with it.

On departure he said he hoped to have it all edited and posted during the weekend. To see what results

from the exercise, log onto the BBC website next week – Liverpool 08 section – and it should be

somewhere thereabouts. Alternately there will be a link to it from this site.

9 p.m.

Results: Rudd finished quickly again, but this time with a loss against Danny Gormally. Nigel Davies

marches on, however, beating Lawrence Trent in a long game, and leaving him in the clear lead with 3/3

pts. Having to do the simultaneous match on the Sunday certainly doesn’t seem to have done him any

harm – it might even have helped him get his brain in gear in readiness for the big event. Jones had  to

work mighty hard to beat Andrew Ledger in a 6 hour game, leaving him a half point off the pace. Others on

2½ were Nicholas Pert, Arkell, Conquest, Hebden and Stephen Gordon, all of whom are likely to feature

somewhere in the eventual prize list.

Game of the Day: The three games that caught Andrew Martin’s eye were – in 3^rd place Steve Berry and

Tryfon Gavriel for their hair-raising draw. 2^nd was Gawain Jones for his recovery after making an unsound

pawn sacrifice in the opening, but the £100 went to Mark Hebden for his cool, accurate defence in the face

of Horner’s wild attack.

Hebden hears his name called out...

... he looks truly delighted at receiving his £100 prize!

Tuesday 29th July:

Local coverage: Called in at the Indian-run shop (“open 24/7”) on the short way to the hall and bought a copy of the Liverpool Echo, whose photographer, Andy Teebay, I’d accompanied round the building yesterday, and there was a wonderful full page spread (well, almost) on page 3, with an informative article accompanied by some excellent pictures in full colour. This went straight onto the press board and immediately caught the attention of those parents hanging round waiting for their children to finish their games.

Complaints: News of the first serious complaint by a player reached me mid-morning. It seems a player in one of the grade limited sections pointed out to the controller that his opponent had fallen asleep. However, this was not the complaint – it was that his snoring was making concentration impossible. No names – no pack-drill. Anyway, waking refreshed from his slumbers, the sleeper played on with renewed vigour and an honourable draw was agreed after 28 moves.

Hits: Defining the word “hit” in relation to a website is notoriously difficult, especially in relation to this event’s website. This is partly due to the fact that people can follow some games live on-line, and every time a move is made a new hit is recorded. Stewart Reuben’s rule of thumb is that one should divide this figure by 10 to get a figure for “unique hits”. So Dave Clayton’s recorded 750,000 hits yesterday on the live games section of the website for which he is responsible, could/should perhaps be toned down to something like 75,000 – still an impressive figure. In addition to this, the webmaster for the britishchess08 website, Steve Connor, reported 165,000 hits, and these are unique hits – no need for division here. These two figures can be meaningfully added together, making a total of about a quarter of a million hits for the first day alone.

Game of the Day: Part of Andrew Martin’s annual workload is to go through all the games in the British Championship and award his Game of the Day. This year, the accolade has attracted additional kudos – that of a £100 cash prize, to be awarded at the start of each subsequent round, which each day will come as a surprise to the winners.

His award for Round 1 went to Danny Gormally for his “flawless performance against Susan Lalic”. Highly commended were Bogdan Lalic for his “effortless win against David Eggleston“ and Gawain Jones “for the speed and efficacy of his mating attack on Board 1”. Save of the Day – Mark Hebden.

At the start of today’s round, Andrew made the announcement from the stage of the way these prizes were to be awarded, adding that if the winner was not present at the start of the round to receive his or her prize, it would go to the runner-up. No one was sure if he was joking or not, but financially challenged chess masters may not be prepared to take the chance. It will be interesting to see whether this has any effect in terms of punctuality. On this occasion, as his name was announced, Danny Gormally appeared in the doorway at the far end of the hall, so we were spared any embarrassment this time. It will also be interesting to note whether the cash incentive has any effect on the nature of the play in the top games. Will players be striving extra hard for some brilliancy that will catch the judge’s eye?

First win of the day was recorded by adopted Devonian Jack Rudd, who took a mere 12 of his allocated 210 minutes thinking time to beat John Garnett in 28 moves – that is an average of 25 seconds per move. This is regarded as par for the course down Devon way (for Jack), and runs quite counter to the misplaced stereotype of westcountry folk being slow in thought and deed.

Mid afternoon and Kevin Stapely, one of the controllers, called me into the playing area to witness every board on every table having a game in progress. Too good a chance to miss recording the spectacular scene.

By the end of the day, only 3 of the 68 players had a perfect score, these being Nigel Davies, Lawrence Trent and Stephen Gregory. Close on their heels is a whole raft of players on 1½.

IM Jovanka Houska, England’s leading lady, waiting for her Rd 2 opponent Bogdan Lalic to arrive.

This was not the meeting of Yugoslavs it may appear. Although Bogdan was born in Croatia, Jovanka’s surname is inherited from a half-Czech grandfather, and she was born and bred in England. Although she already has the WGM title, she hopes to become England’s first fully-fledged woman GM. This tournament is an ideal chance for her to get one of the required norms. Her progress towards this aim is something else to look out for.

Monday 28th July:

The day started early. Stewart Reuben had arranged a live radio interview with the local radio station, B.B.C. Merseyside, on the steps of  St. George’s Hall at 8 a.m. As the hallmark of good leadership is delegation, it fell to me to be up at 7 a.m. and walking down the London Road by 7.30. No sooner had I stepped outside than it started to rain heavily – not a good omen.

Fortunately it stopped about 7.50, just as the radio car pulled up, and the driver emerged hauling a caseload of equipment. We found the spot under the colonnade where the simul had taken place the day before, and chatted while he waited for the green light from his producer. Suddenly at 8.15 he switched into radio presenter mode, and started bombarding me with questions. It must have gone reasonably well because the interview lasted 5 minutes rather than the scheduled 3.

At 10 o’clock someone in the playing hall came up to Stewart Reuben and said he’d just come down simply as a result of hearing about it on the radio at breakfast and thinking it sounded worth a visit. That’s what you call instant positive feedback.

The morning rounds got under way without mishap – the U-175 and U-125 and the various junior age groups.

Around 2 p.m. the hall started to fill up as the Opening Ceremony approached. The Lord Mayor, Leader of the City Council and Angela Eagle, MP for Wallasey, all appeared amongst the gathering players. The welcoming speeches went well, with a microphone used for the first time making every word audible throughout the cavernous hall. The Mayor, Cllr Steve Rotheram, made a particularly impressive contribution, exhorting the positive developments made in Liverpool in recent years to overcome the city’s old stereotype.

Only 100 rating points separate the top 16 players, so it is clearly going to be a close affair; the winner is likely to be the one who’s up for it in the second week and plays with bravura rather than caution.

The top seed is Gawain Jones, and when he arrived on Sunday I asked him how he viewed the forthcoming tournament, and he said “with cautious optimism”.

At the opening ceremony he was presented with a cheque for £2,000, being the second chess bursary from the John Robinson Trust for the benefit of an up-and-coming junior – Gawain is just 20 years of age.

In the first round he showed his attacking intent when he disposed of the experienced Graeme Buckley of Wimbledon. He only needs to keep this up for 10 more rounds and he’s sure to be crowned champion. No problem there, then.

Other Round 1 winners hoping they can maintain the trend included Bogdan Lalic, Andrew Greet, Danny Gormally, Lawrence Trent who is determined to get his GM title in the next 6 months, and Nigel Davies, happy to put his two losses in the Sunday simul behind him. There’s a long way to go, but it’s always good to get rid of the initial 0 against one’s name, even with a draw.

Sunday 28th July:

My only previous direct experience of Liverpool was one day 50 years ago when I came up to be interviewed for a place at the C. F. Mott Training College, an all-girls college that were thinking about admitting a few boys in the new spirit of co-education that was still relatively new at the time. I failed to come up to their standards and didn’t get a place, but I often think of what might have been...... 

The two traditional events on the Sunday are a 6 round open rapidplay, which got under way at 11 a.m. Keith Arkell and Andrew Greet looked favourites for that.

Meanwhile, an outdoor simultaneous display in a public place is usual, and this time it was held on the colonnade of St. George’s Hall. Nigel Davies was the GM taking on all-comers, and the small band of opponents at the outset

gradually grew as people realised what was going on.  In fact, so keen were some of the juniors playing in the Rapidplay indoors, that several of them who finished quickly in round 3 and found themselves with over an hour to kill, came outside and joined in the simul, which wasn’t quite the idea, but didn’t prove a problem. Nigel had to concede his game to two players, a local player Luke Boumphrey of the Atticus Club, and 15 year old Sheila Dines (pictured left).

Not surprisingly, Keith Arkell won the Rapidplay with 5.5/6 pts. His round 6 opponent was former Liverpudlian Trefor Thynne, who felt that his game was typical of games against GMs where their play is not so much a firework display, but more like a big cat waiting stealthily for the prey to make a fatal slip before springing on them.

Gawain Jones (no relation) came into the Congress Office, and I asked him how he was feeling about the event. After a bit of banter he decided “cautiously optimistic” was the best line to take. The fact is that with 25 GMs and IMs here, none of whom have won the title before, it’s going to be a very open affair.

Relative newcomers like Gawain must feel it’s a great chance to make an early mark on British chess, while the older generation (for want of a better phrase) must hope it’s their turn to get their name on the magnificent championship trophy, and who could deny the likes of Mark Hebden the chance. The truth of the matter is that only 100 rating points separate 1st and 16th seeds and any one of these can win – it depends who’s up for it in the 2nd week. Last year, Jacob Agaard played with great bravura throughout and came through, a popular and worthy if unfancied winner. The championship controller, canny Scot Alex McFarlane, has his money on a play-off – the organisers’ nightmare scenario.

Saturday 27th July:

Drove over from Leeds, where I’d been staying overnight with my son and his family, and found the M62 a doddle, compared with the M5/M6/M62 trip (Exmouth to Leeds) the previous day – which took 8 hours including a 30 minute stop at Keele.

Booked into the accommodation, about a 5 minute walk from the venue, and set off on foot for St. George’s Hall. Bumped into Stewart Reuben on the way, the ideal person to see in that situation, and we made our way together.

On arrival there was a European Student Parliament occupying the building and we were denied access till 5 p.m.

But once that hurdle was cleared, the setting-up process proceeded apace. By 8.00 p.m. the hall was full of tables with clocks and pieces in place – an impressive sight in itself.

The hall does not disappoint. It has featured in a number of TV programmes during the year, including the setting for the Antiques Roadshow, and is every bit as magnificent in reality as it appears to be on screen. Stewart Reuben, who should know better than anyone, calls it “the most palatial of all the chess venues I have ever seen anywhere in the world”.

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