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It's gotten almost no publicity, but GM Michael Adams won the 2023 British Championship. He was the favo(u)rite.

I was a spectator at a couple of sessions of the 1995 Intel Rapid Chess Grand Prix knockout tournament in NY. On one day I stood next to Adams in the line to get headphones for the live commentary (No, I didn't say anything). He seemed like a very nice, unassuming and "normal" (this last a bit surprising for GMs) fellow.

Yes, geeker, I agree about Adams. He ground out a tricky Q and P ending v Willow in the last round, determined to win when a draw was sufficient for sole first place. I have just returned from Leicester where I played in the Over-65 Championship. I was happy to get a plus score (4/7) finishing =11th out of 52 when my starting rank was 27th. Because in Round 1 the top half is paired against the bottom half, I had to play the overwhelming favourite, Terry Chapman (2248).
My rating has taken a battering recently (down to 1890) so it was no surprise to lose to him.
However, there was a twist in the final round (7), which as usual started at 10 a.m. instead of 2.30 p.m.. Terry Chapman had lost to Alan Punnett in the penultimate round after starting with 5/5. Nevertheless he was still joint leader and the top pairings were Sheila Jackson(2039) 5 v Alan Punnett(2051) 5; Terry Chapman (2248) 5 v David Fryer (1880) 4.5.

Everyone knew about the 10 a.m. start but Chapman’s watch had stopped and he arrived late at 10.36 having been defaulted under the rules at 10.30. The top board immediately agreed a draw and none of the other players on 4.5 managed to win, so there was a three-way tie for first place on 5.5, with Fryer benefiting from the free default point. Gutting for Chapman but rules is rules.

I had a ringside seat for the culmination of a fine Championship performance by Steve Jones (2175) who won in the last round v GM Daniel Fernandez (2518) with an exciting king hunt to finish 2nd on his own (he had lost to Adams in Round 1!).

The technology is fantastic nowadays with the top four games displayed on large screens behind the players and loads of other games (on 'live' boards) from various sections being available live on the internet. Even my last round game as low as Board 13 of the 0-65 was online.

Hi Paul,

Is there a link to any of your games? I'd enjoy seeing them:-)

Hi brendan @23. I wasn't always on a high enough board for my games to be broadcast, but you could scroll through the O-65 rounds here:
https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/british-senior-championship-2023-65#live

(Not sure if that can be reached by a direct click, so it may need a copy and paste)

Certainly there would be Rd 1 v Chapman and Rds 3 and 7. I hope Rd 4 isn't there - a real off day!

I don't know for how long the link will be available.

Thanks for the link Paul,

I did try to watch your game against Tidmarsh but there is something seriously wrong with the play-by-play graphics. When I first watched the game there was a point where you had a N and B + 3 pawns against just a king! I thought "why is Mr Tidmarsh playing on"? Then it showed your N checking his King but you both played the same moves 3 times in a row so how come no draw by repetition?

Obviously something was amiss so I went back and tried to watch it again. This time the moves were completely different and, at one point, you promoted a pawn to a bishop, then a 2nd pawn to another bishop, and then a 3rd pawn to a queen!!

I went back and repeated the process but again it was different moves.

I double and triple checked that these were all your game against Tidmarsh and they were, so I have no explanation as to why the moves were all different.

But, you'll be pleased to know, you were victorious in all of them 😀👍

Paul

Thanks for an interesting report. Congrats on your own performance.

Interesting to read about Steve Jones. He was a junior in this area a few years ago, as was Sheila Jackson going back a lot further. My daughter played Fernandez in a school match when he was at Manchester Grammar (I think he was an IM at the time).

Brendan,

Sadly, the chess24 site is on its way out. It was taken over by chess.com, no longer has independent content, and is dying a slow death due to lack of tech support. The live broadcasts have been plagued by bugs and unreliability. I expect the site to soon be shut down. Pity, because I really enjoyed chess24.

I think the "main" section of the British Ch. (won by Adams) has more or less reliable games at chess24 (though the live broadcast was dodgy), but I looked at the Over-65, noticed that it only went through Round 7 and Paul's name didn't appear, and concluded it wasn't worth exploring further.

Thanks Geeker, that explains a lot.

I know it probably appears like I was doing something wrong but, I promise you, I wasn't - it just didn't work!

Brendan,
I partly erred. The Over-65 tournament was only 7 rounds, not 9. I still believe that the chess24 games for that event, such as exist, are messed up.

I was hoping that games would show up via chessgames.com or Mark Crowther's "The Week in Chess" (though the latter's format is "zipped PGN", which isn't straightforward to process), but I've seen no indications.

The big "FIDE World Cup" KO tournament has started. Re. the demise of chess24, I noticed that my favorite commentator, GM Peter Leko, will be half of the broadcast team with IM/WGM Tania Sachdev. I was hoping Leko (longtime chess24 fixture) would be retained by chess.com. He is really superb. Tania gets assigned some silly things, e.g. coverage of social media posts, but is also a fine analyst, and they make an effective team.