by The Chessproof at the Trafalgar Square attracted more than 20,000 visitors last Sunday, somewhat under the record of the last year 23,000, but still a strong public interest. England’s grandmaster gave Simuls and met amateurs in Blitz, Living Chess was played with professional actors and there was a blindfold exhibition and a transatlantic child prodigy.
Additional chessproofs took place in Portishead and Hull, whereby more was planned for Liverpool on Sunday. The Chessproof was again sponsored by XTX Markets.
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The occasion was characterized by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves and announced the renewal of state support for chess boilers, which was briefly carried out at the beginning of the year at the beginning of the year. The previous support of £ 500,000, which was launched by Rishi Sunak and the conservatives in 2023, was generally for the Elite Chess and supported the English men’s and women’s teams at the Budapest Olympics 2024. However, there was widespread and justified criticism of additional 250,000 pounds in public park became.
The new support, which was announced together with a grant of 500 million GBP for youth service projects, is geared towards the best talent and will be a spur as a spur for players such as the youngest grandmaster Shreyas Royal, 16 and England’s youngest Olympiad player Bodhane Sivanandan, 10, on the chancellor in the 11th Downing road. The best view of the age of 11-year-old Supratit Banerjee (11), who maintains the Inter Counties Championship at the beginning of this month and played in a clock simultaneous game in a top board with England No. 2, David Howell last week. The Scot, Frederick Gordon, 15, also impressed.
There are several successful precedents to target Elite talents. In the former Soviet Union, the Mikhail Botvinnik School identified the future world champion Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov very early on, and the USSR dominated half a century.
In England, Jim Slaters Grandmaster Awards in 1972 and the sponsorship of Lloyds Bank created the conditions for the increase in England in a few years from also Rans to Olympiad Silver Medists in 1986 and 1988.
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In the United States, the Sanford Fellowships have contributed to keeping Americans to the top chessnations for several decades. They are open to all US players under the age of 25 and offer 70,000 US dollars for Grandmaster’s coaching and tournament game. There are generally two awards per year. The list of former Samford winners reads like a who -is -is -Who of American chess when the distinguishing managers continuously spend the best talents.
In the meantime, the English championship will take place this weekend in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, with the first of seven rounds on Friday and the last round on Monday.
There is an entry of 85 players, although the three best seeds are the clear favorites: Gawain Jones, 37, is the defending champion Michael Adams, 53, is the world champion, while Nikita Vitiugov, 38, is a former Russian champion that has changed the associations in England to the invasion of Ukraine in England.
The British championship in Liverpool begins a week later and continues for a week. The field will be stronger and the prices bigger, but the same Grand Master trio will be the favorites again.
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The championship is played in St. George’s Hall, a first -class location in Central Liverpool, where the congress, including a junior and senior championships, has taken up a record entry of almost 1,400 players.
However, English chess becomes much more insular. A long time ago in the 1920s and 30s, Sir George Thomas and Fred Yates were regular guests at big world events, as were Harry Golombek and Bob Wade in the 40s and 50s. In the golden era of the 70s, 80s and 90s, there were countless international successes for England, which were highlighted by two Olympics silver medals as well as Nigel Short and Jon Speelman, who are world title finalists and semi-finalists.
Then there was a 20-year cut, and although England dominates over 65 and more than 50 senior chess, Vitiugov is the only English entry for the important Fide Grand Swiss in September, which acts as a qualification for the candidates of the 2026 world championship. Adams, Howell, Jones and Luke Mcshane also entitled to play due to their over 2615 FIDE reviews, but apparently they all refused.
The same pattern is on a larger scale on a greater prestigious title Tuesday (TT), an 11-round weekly international online tournament with 11 rounds, which is obvious to all players with FIDE titles up to the candidate master (FIDE 2000). Even some players with only national titles are contained and it is easy to miss a few rounds and start early or end early if necessary.
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The top 20 of TT are world class, often also Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and other international heavyweights. Jones and Howell have been released there, but in general there is a lack of participants with an English title of CM.
Related: Chess: Carlsen fights against Gukesh in Zagreb when the Chessproof returns to Trafalgar Square
For the TT this week three days ago, a number of participants with Great Britain or English flags only revealed 12 in the early TT of a total entry of 541 and only three plus one from Wales in the late TT from a total entry of 368.
This means that less than 5% of the legitimate English or British players were probably involved in this free competition from their houses by most of the world elite.
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It is known that the English chess association could and should do much more to promote TT. Even £ 50 as a price for the highest English player in the Top 100 finisher would be helpful to promote entries and should be a legitimate use of the new Reeves Fund.
The next event in which we can expect England’s top GMS together abroad to be the European team championship, which is planned for Batumi, Georgia from October 4 to 15.
Carlsen was expelled from the competition on the first day of the current Grand Slam in Las Vegas Freestyle, which will be treated in the column of the next week.
3981: 1 Ba6! RXA6 2 RG8+! KXG8 3 B8 = Q+ KG7 4 QB2+ and 5 QXF2 victories.
