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Never let it be said we’re not totally on the ball here at the S&BCC blog - well apart from yesterday when it wasn’t until halfway through the opening round that we realised the British Championship had started.

In terms of S&BCC involvement Venkat, our London League top board, is playing and a the Ledger brothers are in Liverpool too. Stephen has been a club member for years but Dave and Andrew have also played for us in varying degrees of regularity. Since I’m talking of former S&BCC players I should mention Sue Lalic and stretching the concept of the S&BCC family still further I can see several names on the participants list that I recognise as blog commenters - Jack Rudd, Tryfon Gavriel and Michael Yeo for example (and apologies to anybody I’ve missed). The best of luck to them all.

The Championship website is showing the top boards live although due to ‘technical problems’ only a handful of games were broadcast. Hopefully there’ll be the full 17 this afternoon.

T.C. EJH and I followed the games for a little while. Of the five on view it was probably Knott - Hebden that generated most discussion between us.

We, or at least EJH and I, thought Knott had winning chances but suddenly he played 51. Nd7+ and offered a draw. Hebden, not surprisingly, accepted.

EJH thought 51. Nf3 was worth a try. A little later Angus suggested White forced the draw since the knight has to stay on the kingside so there’s no chance of queening any pawns anyway. Frankly, I’ve no real clue what’s going on but my original feeling was that after Nf3 Black might be able to sac the bishop with 51. … Ke6, 52. Nxh4 Kxd5. On reflection 53. Kd4 stops Black’s king getting in so that doesn’t seem to work.

So why not 51. Nf3 then? Isn’t it worth playing on a little longer?

Championship Website:
http://www.britishchess08.com/

Live Games:
http://www.britishchess08.com/live.htm