Howell wins again in Halifax

Today I’m posting a report from Adrian Dawson about the British Rapidplay Championships 2010 which took place over the weekend at Halifax’s North Bridge Leisure Centre.

David Howell:
British Rapidplay Champion again!

Saturday and Sunday saw some of the greatest sportsmen in the country descend on Halifax to use the most important part of the human body as they competed for the title of British Rapidplay Chess Champion 2010, and the first prize of £600. Grandmaster David Howell proved why he was the strongest player there, scoring 10.5 out of 11, half a point short of a perfect score! Howell was one of 5 Grandmasters participating but there was also a good sprinkling of International Masters and a Female International Master present. Second, third and fourth places were taken by GMs Mark Hebden, Matthew Turner and IM Richard Palliser.

In total 14 local players competed with varying degrees of success. All the scores below are out of 11 except for the one day event which was played over 5 rounds.

Open: M.Parsons 6, L.Keely and D.Ursal 5.5
Major: D.Patrick 4.5, R.Clegg 1.5 (withdrew)
Intermediate: D.Colledge 6.5, A.Gonzalez, P.Whitehouse and C.Velosa 6, P.Hughes 5.5, A.Dawson 4.5, B.Donkersley 4.
Minor: T.Sullivan 6.5
One day event: J.Nicholson 1/5

Here is a game with a pleasing finish played by Halifax’s Darwin Ursal in the Open section.



Many thanks to Adrian for supplying us with that report at express speed! Special mention should be made of Hebden Bridge player Matthew Parsons, who scored more than 50% in the Open playing against the very best in the competition. I gather that this performance is rated at approximately 195! Our own Terry Sullivan also performed well in the Minor section.

In round 2 Matthew made it onto the display boards (the top 8 boards were digital and games from these were broadcast live on the Championship website) were he played, and put up good resistance against, Grandmaster Aaron Summerscale. Here is that game.



Finally, it doesn't seem right not to provide readers with one of the tournament winners games. Howell played arguably his closest rival for the title, Mark Hebden, in round 7 on the Sunday morning. Evidently he had prepared something special for his opponent over night because the game worked out very well for him as you will see below. The notes in this game are shamelessly stolen from Jon Speelman's column in The Independent!