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Press launch by the English Chess Federation
Data tumbled on the biggest-ever British Chess Championships because the nine-day occasion in Coventry ended with two record-breaking younger superstars profitable the 2 prime prizes.
Seventeen-year-old Shreyas Royal scooped the general British title. He topped the desk after 9 rounds, ending half a degree forward of two of England’s extra seasoned grandmasters, Luke McShane and nine-time champ Michael Adams. It was Royal’s first British title and the outcome underlined his standing as an rising world-class expertise.
The Benoni household of openings has toppled world champions, determined match video games below the best strain, and rewarded these courageous sufficient to play them with a few of the most electrifying chess conceivable. On this Fritztrainer, Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov – persevering with his profitable collection “Understanding Middlegame Constructions” – takes you deep contained in the complexities of the Color-Reversed Benoni, the Color-Reversed Benko Gambit, and the Color-Reversed Blumenfeld Gambit.
Free pattern video: Introduction
Free pattern video: Colour Reversed Banoni – Game 1
In the meantime, England’s 11-year-old prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan, one other superstar-in-the-making, grew to become Britain’s youngest-ever Ladies’s Chess Champion. Her solely loss within the match was to Royal in spherical six.
In a tense, rapid-chess playoff between the highest feminine gamers, Sivanandan defeated Eire’s 14-year-old Trisha Kanyamarala, a massively promising expertise herself and the primary Irishwoman to carry the WGM title.
You possibly can watch the finale right here:
Grandmaster Danny Gormally, commentating on the occasion for the English Chess Federation, mentioned within the closing moments:
Unreal! Bodhana has received. She is unbelievable, a generational expertise.
Gormally went on to foretell Sivanandan will return to problem for the general title within the subsequent few years.
Royal and Sivanandan’s victories supplied a exceptional finale to the most important British Chess Championship within the occasion’s 122-year historical past, with greater than 2,600 entries throughout all occasions on the College of Warwick.
For Royal, the title represents the most recent main milestone in a exceptional rise by British chess. The 17-year-old from south-east London grew to become Britain’s youngest-ever grandmaster in 2024 and has since established himself as one of many nation’s main younger gamers. At this 12 months’s championship, he rapidly confirmed that he may compete with the established elite, shifting into outright competition for the title because the match progressed.
After seven rounds, Royal had taken the sole lead on 6/7, placing {the teenager} firmly on the centre of the championship race. His performances towards skilled opposition underlined his rising standing on the prime of British chess. Royal took a fast draw towards English chess legend Adams within the penultimate spherical, earlier than a final-round win over IM Harry Grieve secured him the title.
Prime boards – Spherical 9
Shreyas Royal defeated Harry Grieve on Sunday to assert outright match victory | Photograph: Yury Krylov
Prime seed Luke McShane received the higher of Simon Williams to climb to shared second place | Photograph: Yury Krylov
9-time British champion Michael Adams additionally scored a full level on Sunday, beating prodigy Supratit Banerjee to complete tied for second with McShane | Photograph: Yury Krylov
Now Royal has transformed his promise into his first British Championship title. Sivanandan’s achievement is equally extraordinary and, in a single respect, unprecedented.
The 11-year-old has turn into the youngest-ever British ladies’s champion after overcoming Kanyamarala in a playoff to take the title. Within the sooner codecs of the sport, Sivanandan is already the reigning UK Open Ladies’s Blitz Champion and joint British Ladies’s Speedy Champion. Victory within the classical occasion provides her an unbelievable triple crown of titles.
Earlier than the championship, Sivanandan had been recognized because the participant to observe, with organisers highlighting her probability to interrupt the file held by Elaine Pritchard, who received the British Ladies’s Championship outright in 1939 aged 13. Akshaya Kalaiyalahan had subsequently shared the title in 2013 when she was simply days wanting her 12th birthday. Sivanandan has now surpassed them each.
The north-west London participant has spent the previous 12 months rewriting the file books and establishing herself amongst Britain’s strongest feminine gamers regardless of being solely 11. She additionally produced one of many standout outcomes of the championship by defeating GM Ameet Ghasi.
Her playoff victory over Kanyamarala now provides the most important home title but to an already exceptional record of achievements.
Playoff video games – Sivanandan v. Kanyamarala
Trisha Kanyamarala and Bodhana Sivanandan shake arms after drawing the primary recreation of the fast playoff | Photograph: Yury Krylov
The Ragozin Defence (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Bb4) has turn into a cornerstone of recent chess principle. With 3.Nf3 gaining reputation as a solution to keep away from Nimzo-Indian setups and the challenges Black faces within the Queen’s Indian, the Ragozin provides a stable and dynamic various.
Free video pattern: Introduction
Free video pattern: 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bf4
The 2 prodigious British representatives smile as they maintain the championship trophy | Photograph: Yury Krylov
Bodhana Sivanandan, the youngest-ever British ladies’s champion, together with her father, Siva | Photograph: Yury Krylov
Royal and Sivanandan’s victories are notably putting as a result of each have been among the many younger gamers attracting consideration earlier than the championship started, and each have left Warwick as British champions.
Their success additionally displays the altering face of British chess.
The 2026 championships have been billed as the most important within the occasion’s 122-year historical past, with greater than 1,750 entries and a file £34,000 prize fund for the open championship. The ladies’s prize fund was additionally greater than doubled, whereas organisers expanded the competition programme with junior coaching, social occasions and competitions for gamers starting from under-8s to seniors.
The match introduced collectively gamers throughout generations, from established grandmasters to a few of Britain’s most promising juniors.
And on the finish, the 2 names on the prime of the outcomes have been Royal and Sivanandan.
Two generations of British chess superstars – Luke McShane sharing fun with Shreyas Royal | Photograph: Yury Krylov
