Congratulations to Paul Verrall, winner of the Broadstairs Summer Swiss.

Paul has been a very valuable club member this season, playing whenever possible and improving quickly. Paul was a very deserved winner of the Summer Swiss and will be a dangerous opponent, for everyone, next season

The following position was reached in a Goodall game yesterday.

White played e6 and eventually won after a tough battle, this morning my 12 year old student pointed out a better move. The calculation took him about 1 minute…which proves the old chess saying that ‘ If you see a good move, look for a better one ‘

See if you can find the move that I didn’t consider: actually there are at least 2 moves that are much better than e6!

White to Move

The Candidates Tournament is due to start later this week. This is the event where the 8 qualified players fight for victory and the chance to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the coveted World Title

This time round though there may be more at stake, as Carlsen has stated that unless Alireza Firouzja wins the Candidates he won’t defend the title. Whether he means it, we will find out in due course: but it does mean that uniquely coming 2nd in the Candidates may not be such a bad result. Assuming that FIDE arrange a World Championship match between the top two finishers if Carlsen is serious.

Here is a very quick summary of the 8 warriors, followed by my prediction of who might win.

The players are, in alphabetical order:

Fabiano Caruana – USA

Ding Liren – China

Duda Jan Krzysztof – Poland

Firouzja Alireza – France

Nakamura Hikaru – USA

Nepomniachtchi Ian – FIDE ( Russian: he signed the anti-war open letter to Putin )

Radjabov Teimour – Azerbaijan

Richard Rapport – Romania ( Has recently switched federations from Hungary)

In my opinion a strong case could be made for 6 of the candidates, I won’t mention the two players whom I don’t think are up to winning!

My prediction for the top 2 places, and quite possibly, the competitors in the next World Championship are:

Richard Rapport and Ian Nepomniachtchi

As Nepo qualified for the last match v Carlsen lets look at a position from one of Rapport’s games

Rapport v Caruana – in this very sharp position what did Rapport play in this position? White to move

Last night we played our final Millar Cup match of the season, against a very good Sandwich team. Unusually for this season we were able to field our first choice team.

As the match started it soon became obvious that all 14 players had come to battle, as every board seemed to have reached a double edged position after only a few moves. The first two games to finish both went to our opponents. Paul V, who has been superb all season found his young opponent a handful and eventually fell to a well thought out attack. Next Dominic’s position crumbled with just one oversight. Dominic had played really well and held a strong advantage until one move allowed his opponent to swing the position in his favour.

So the score was 0 – 2 to Sandwich

We needed to find a way back into the match and the fightback was led by Manoj, who built up a very nice pawn structure before winning the exchange and shortly after the game.

Paul C also had a very nice position, slowly increasing the pressure until his opponent buckled.

All of a sudden the score was 2 – 2

The 2 Captains clashed on board 2, and Trefor, after giving up a pawn for speedy development achieved a crushing position, the game ended abruptly when he trapped his opponent’s Queen. This left 2 games and wow both games were very complicated. Watching Andy’s game I thought he was under pressure, then a clever plan swung the game in his favour before his opponent also found some great moves. It was fitting that the game finished in a draw as neither player deserved to lose.

This takes us back to top board and Arnaud, who was engaged in a fascinating battle against of of Kent’s strongest players.. In a semi-blocked position Arnaud demonstrated mastery of his horses as his 2 Knights worked wonders against Bishop & Knight. The final position was agreed a draw, with both players down to their final minute on the clock

So the final score was 4 – 3 to Broadstairs.

A great way to finish the campaign

Arnaud Wisman

0.5 – 0.5

Robert Starley

Trefor Owens

1 – 0

Harry Sharples

Manoj Natarajan

1 – 0

Jon Hunt

Paul Carfrae

1 – 0

John Thorley

Dominic Blundell

0 – 1

Mark Towlson

Andy Flood

0.5 – 0.5

Adrian Tottenham

Paul Verrall

0 – 1

Ethan Latymer

4 – 3