One More Return To The London Chess Classic
The main event of the London Chess Classic finished on Sunday, but there's plenty of reason to return to the UK capital one more time.
On Monday night the traditional prize-giving dinner at Simpson's-in-the-Strand was held, English GM Gawain Jones won a training match against French GM Romain Edouard and the open was won by two young and relatively unknown players.
Photo © Ray Morris-Hill.
Simpson's-in-the-Strand is famous for being an important venue for chess in the 19th century. It still houses a fine restaurant, and each year the participants of the London Chess Classic, other GMs, sponsors, friends and guests are treated with a tournament farewell dinner.
Monday was also the last playing day for Gawain Jones and Roman Edouard, two GMs who played a training match alongside the London Classic. Their first five games were played on the same stage as the main event, in Olympia's Auditorium.
For the last game they moved to Heathside School in Hampstead, where they played alongside the first round of the Brambles Administration 2200+ Open.
Jones told Chess.com how this match came about: “Brambles Administration donated some money to be used by the English Chess Federation. We had been talking for a while about how our younger players could improve and I've never had experience of playing a match.
We thought it would be really good experience so the idea has been in the pipeline for a while. Romain is a teammate of mine for Guildford in the 4NCL and more or less the same strength (2 pt rating difference) and so it made sense to play him.”
Jones won the match 4-2, remaining undefeated. Especially the first game was a fascinating battle! Here it is, annotated by GM Dejan Bojkov:
Edouard had good chances to level the score in game two, but in severe time trouble he decided to go for a repetition where he was still close to winning. Games three, four and five ended in draws, and then Jones finished with another win:
Jones-Edouard 2014 | Score
| # | Name | Rtg | Perf | G01 | G02 | G03 | G04 | G05 | G06 | Pts |
| 1 | Jones,G | 2661 | 2779 | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 4.0/6 |
| 2 | Edouard,R | 2659 | 2541 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 | 2.0/6 |
The London Classic always includes an open tournament as well. This time it wasn't as strong as in previous years, and eventually two young and relatively unknown players tied for first place: 19-year-old GM Kamil Dragun of Poland and 15-year-old IM Jinshi Bai of China.
They managed to finish ahead of some big names, including top seed Vlad Tkachiev!
They drew their mutual game in the final round after both had scored an undefeated 7.0/8. Let's look at a win from both players.
Bai received a nice gift from Socko in round eight as the Polish GM dropped a piece as early as move 11. The young IM had no mercy:
In round six Dragun defeated GM Aleksandr Lenderman, who started a combination but missed an important little move:
2014 London Chess Classic | Open, Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rank | Name | Score | Fed. | Rating | TPR | W-We |
| 1 | GM Dragun, Kamil | 7.5 | POL | 2547 | 2725 | +2.01 |
| 2 | IM Bai, Jinshi | 7.5 | CHN | 2444 | 2707 | +3.05 |
| 3 | GM Tkachiev, Vladislav | 7.0 | FRA | 2629 | 2668 | +0.49 |
| 4 | GM Socko, Bartosz | 7.0 | POL | 2617 | 2653 | +0.46 |
| 5 | GM Lenderman, Aleksandr | 7.0 | USA | 2608 | 2632 | +0.34 |
| 6 | GM Fier, Alexandr | 7.0 | BRA | 2592 | 2623 | +0.50 |
| 7 | GM Greenfeld, Alon | 7.0 | ISR | 2536 | 2618 | +1.03 |
| 8 | IM Stopa, Jacek | 7.0 | POL | 2521 | 2611 | +1.14 |
| 9 | GM Naroditsky, Daniel | 6.5 | USA | 2620 | 2549 | -0.62 |
| 10 | IM Hawkins, Jonathan | 6.5 | ENG | 2552 | 2518 | -0.17 |
| 11 | GM Chirila, Ioan-Cristian | 6.5 | ROU | 2547 | 2537 | +0.12 |
| 12 | GM Piorun, Kacper | 6.5 | POL | 2517 | 2478 | -0.23 |
| 13 | GM Vakhidov, Jahongir | 6.5 | UZB | 2502 | 2471 | -0.07 |
| 14 | GM Gormally, Daniel W | 6.5 | ENG | 2499 | 2445 | -0.22 |
| 15 | IM Sadzikowski, Daniel | 6.5 | POL | 2492 | 2499 | +0.38 |
| 16 | GM Arkell, Keith C | 6.5 | ENG | 2489 | 2541 | +0.81 |
| 17 | IM Dourerassou, Jonathan | 6.5 | FRA | 2469 | 2509 | +0.75 |
| 18 | IM Fernandez, Daniel Howard | 6.5 | SIN | 2454 | 2409 | -0.10 |
| 19 | IM Kiik, Kalle | 6.5 | EST | 2372 | 2423 | +0.81 |
| 20 | IM Bluebaum, Matthias | 6.0 | GER | 2560 | 2515 | -0.33 |
Previous reports
- Round 5: Anand Beats Adams, Wins London Chess Classic On Tiebreak
- Round 4: Nakamura Beats Adams, Moves to Third Place in London
- Round 3: Three Draws In 3rd Round London Chess Classic
- Round 2: London R2: Adams Loses To Giri, Kramnik Crushes Nakamura
- Round 1: London R1: Adams Beats Caruana in Rollercoaster Game
- Blitz: London Classic Blitz: Adams Wins On Tiebreak
- Rapid: “Stonking Performance” For Nakamura At London's Super Rapidplay Open
- Preview: London Chess Classic Kicks Off Tomorrow
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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