Ealing and the British Championship 2007
: Created:12 Aug 2007 , byLast summer, two of our most enterprising members, Sainbayar Tserendorj and Syrym Shalabayev organised a quickplay tournament at a hotel in Surrey. Some good young English players were invited to meet some Russian and overseas guys. Your secretary was present to make up the numbers and had a delightful time on the social front but sadly not in the playing arena.
Among the English players at our home counties event was Stephen Gordon whom I am delighted to report, has just finished second in the 2007 British Championship. Stephen, a very pleasant character entered the last round of the British, level with Jacob Aagaard, the Danish grandmaster who has now settled in Scotland. Stephen produced a welcome victory for us, South of the Border folk in the penultimate round defeating Aagaard with the Black pieces in a Sicilian Defence, Scheveningen Variation. N.B. I like to think that his loss with the same defence in Syrym and Sainbayar’s tournament assisted him to prepare for the British Championship.
Regretfully for the English who last won the British Championship in 2001, Aagaard triumphed in a tough contest with the black pieces in the last round against Glenn Flear while Stephen could not defeat Tony Kosten with the White bits although he did not give up until move 61. Stephen failed by half a point to reach a grandmaster norm which would have been well deserved. Another contestant in the historic “S and S†event, Simon Williams finished nineteenth in the championship so I think we can (almost) truthfully claim that our members assisted the paving of the way for English success this year.
1. J Aagard 8.5 2. S Gordon 8.0 3. J Rowson 8.0