England’s No2 grandmaster, David Howell, 24, is on a surge this weekend as the annual British championship reaches its halfway mark at Warwick University, Coventry. Howell, the top seed, began the 11-round event fresh from an emphatic 8.5/9 victory at the Leiden Open in the Netherlands. His international rating jumped above the elite 2700 level for the first time and his global ranking rose to No36.
Howell, of Seaford, Sussex, is now only some 25 rating points behind the England No1, Michael Adams, who has been the UK top dog ever since he reached the 1999 Fide world semi-final and overtook Nigel Short, who had earlier challenged for Garry Kasparov’s crown. Adams’s career highlight was reaching the Fide final in 2004. He has won several other major tournaments and has consistently been in the world top 20-30.
But the Cornishman is now 43, around the age at which grandmasters start to lose their edge much as footballers do in their 30s. Strategists as opposed to tacticians seem more vulnerable, with an increased incidence of oversights or miscalculations. The world champions Max Euwe and Anatoly Karpov became inconsistent in their 40s and recently Russia’s Vlad Kramnik, 40, has become more blunder-prone.
This week Adams finished in mid-table in the elite GM tournament at Biel, Switzerland, where he won some good strategic games but also dropped points through tactical errors. At the moment Adams receives many more invitations to major events than Howell and is the only Englishman qualified for the 128-player, $1.6m knockout World Cup at Baku in September. He will also be the home wild card at the London Classic in December, the final event of the $1m Grand Tour.
Howell could make a fresh statement of his ambitions in next week’s second half of the British Championship by aiming not just to win the title but to do so with an impressive points total. The record is 10/11 by Julian Hodgson in 1992 but normally the winning score is 8 or 8.5, and 9.5 has been very rare, so this should be Howell’s target to enhance his growing challenge to Adams.
The championship games can be followed live and free on the internet every afternoon (3pm start, no round on Sunday) either on the official site or, with move-by-move computer commentary, on chessbomb.com.
Howell still has to completely conquer his own demon, excessive frequency of acute clock pressure before the move 40 time control. He has become highly proficient at making good moves with only the 30-second increment, but this remains a weakness which the elite of the world top can exploit.
The Adams v Howell rivalry is already becoming a widely discussed subject on chess forums, so there would be real interest among fans for a six-game match between the pair. Is there a sponsor out there? It could be an opportunity for Tradewise Insurance, which has made such a brilliant success of backing the annual Gibraltar Open and which recently announced that it planned to take an increased interest in UK-based events. Tradewise has already revitalised the national Grand Prix, a year-long tournament circuit, with increased prize money.
Howell’s rare counter in the solid Nimzo-Indian leads to a decisive attack on the white king and trapping of the white queen:
Boris Chatalbashev v David Howell, Leiden 2015
1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 Nf3 b6 5 e3 Ne4 6 Qc2 Bb7 7 Bd3 f5 8 0-0 Bxc3 9 bxc3 0-0 10 Nd2 Qh4 11 f3 Nxd2 12 Bxd2 d6 13 Rae1 Nd7 14 e4 f4 15 Qa4 Qe7 16 g3 g5 17 h4 gxh4 18 gxf4 Kh8 19 Kf2 h3 20 Ke2 Rg8 21 Rh1 Rg3 22 Be3 Nf6 23 Bf2? Nh5! 24 Bxg3 Nxg3+ 25 Ke3 Qh4 26 Qb5 e5! 27 Qd7 Qxf4+ 28 Kf2 Qd2+ 29 Be2 Nxe4+ 30 fxe4 Rf8+ 31 Kg3 Bc8 0-1
Jonathan Hawkins, the co-titleholder with Howell, scored one of the fastest early wins at the British Championship:
Jonathan Hawkins v John Wager, Coventry 2015
1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 Nf3 e6 4 Nc3 f5 5 Bf4 Nf6 6 e3 Be7 7 Bd3 0-0 8 Qc2 Ne4 9 g4! Na6 10 a3 fxg4 11 Ne5 Nf6 12 c5 Nb8 13 h3! g3 14 Rg1 gxf2 15 Qxf2 Nh5 16 Qc2 Bh4+ 17 Kd2 Nxf4 18 Bxh7+ Kh8 19 exf4 Qf6 20 Rf4 Bf2 21 Bd3 Bxd4 1-0 because of 22 Rh4+!
3401 1 f6! Resigns. If gxf6 2 Qxh6, or Qxf6 2 Rf1 with 3 gxf7+, and otherwise White threatens 2 fxg7.
