The total entry for the congress, which includes seniors, junior age groups from under-21 to under-eight, rapid and blitz tournaments, and events for weaker players, has set a record of close to 1,500 players. The championships are taking place at De Montfort University, which houses the English Chess Federation’s library of thousands of tournament books and magazines from yesteryear. Katarzyna Toma and Lan Yao lead the race for the women’s title, which is incorporated in the open event, with 4/7. Han, 15, is the No 1 junior from the Netherlands but has resided in England for several years. Leading British Championship scores after seven of the nine rounds were Adams and Fernandez on 6, Yichen Han 5, then a logjam of 14 players on 4.5. Hebden kept his title chances alive when Adams uncharacteristically failed to win a favourable endgame, while Fernandez scored a fine attacking win to regain the shared lead.īoth Adams and Fernandez won in round seven, although the younger GM’s performance was again more convincing as he outplayed Hebden’s favourite King’s Indian, while Adams defeated the 2021 champion Nick Pert despite standing worse at one stage. The 65-year-old was fresh from his double gold in last week’s European over-50 championship in Swidnica, Poland, when he led the England team who won all their nine matches, and had a personal score of 7.5/8 on top board.
And it was Hebden who took on Adams in round six. With the white pieces, his unbeaten streak against sub-2600 English players is even longer, stretching back to the 1990s. Adams appears not to have lost a classical game to a sub-2600 English opponent since Mark Hebden beat him at Kilkenny 2006.
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