Photo: David Llada

This weekend, Michael Adams became the winner of the Caplin British Online Chess Championship. England's top-rated player defeated IM Ameet Ghasi in an exciting play-off for the title, after both scored 7 out of 9 in the main event. 

This is the 8th national title for Michael Adams, who first won the British Chess Championship in 1989, at just seventeen years old. In between, he also won in 1997, 2010, 2011, 2016, 2018, and 2019. His dominance in the national competition seems to be only increasing over time as if he had left behind his peer group, while none of the young talents has progressed enough to catch up with him. 

Final standings open:

1. Michael Adams (2716) – 7
2. Ameet Ghasi (2485) – 7
3. Matthew Wadsworth (2416) – 6½
4. Matthew Turner (2509) – 6
5. Daniel Fernandez (2466) – 5½
6. Mark Hebden (2453) – 5½
7. Bogdan Lalic (2402) – 5½
8. Harry Grieve (2351) – 5½
9. Tanmay Chopra (2273) – 5½
10. Tristan Cox (2141) – 5½    

Photo: Paul Truong

In the women’s competition, the main favorite Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (pictured above) steamrolled her opponents and finished with a perfect score of 7 points out of 7. Despite low rating Nina Pert came in second, two points behind the champion; Dagne Ciuksyte is third, thanks to better tiebreaks over Trisha Kanyamarala and Olivia Smith.

Final standings women: 

1. Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (2380) – 7
2. Nina Pert (1537) – 5
3. Dagne Ciuksyte (2294) – 4½
4. Trisha Kanyamarala (2180) – 4½
5. Olivia Smith (2012) – 4½
6. Lara Putar (1930) – 4
7. Tashika Arora (1744) – 4
8. Imogen Dicen (1630) – 4
9. Alice Lampard (1763) – 4
10. Maria Emelianova (2113) – 3½

The Caplin British Online Championships included 20 different tournaments for various age groups from cadets to seniors held on the Chess.com platform with different time controls and stretched from December 21 to January 3. All standard play events were based on a game a day with 7 rounds of qualifiers and 9 rounds of finals each in Swiss format.

Official website: www.englishchess.org.uk