A field of 350 played an 11-round qualifying event to produce 16 finalists. Gawain then whittled the opposition down, ultimately beating Alexei Shirov by 2½-½ in the final, which is pretty impressive. See result details below.

He is due to play in the British On-Line Blitz Championship on 30/12/2020.

The event started with an 11-round qualifying Swiss contested by 323 players, the top 16 of whom qualified for the final, knock-out section. Only two players from the British Isles participated, both from England, with not even a Scottish player participating.

The top 16 in the 11-round 323-player Swiss were:

Final Place	Initial Ranking		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4
1	3	GM	Radoslaw Wojtaszek	POL	2705	9	74.5	79.5	5	6
2	35	GM	Robert Hovhannisyan	ARM	2642	9	73.5	78.0	6	7
3	142	GM	Levan Pantsulaia	GEO	2553	9	72.5	77.0	5	8
4	63	GM	Vladimir Onischuk	UKR	2622	9	69.5	73.5	6	7
5	87	GM	Aleksandar Indjic	SRB	2604	9	66.5	71.5	5	8
6	6	GM	David Navara	CZE	2697	8½	74.5	80.0	5	7
7	14	GM	Gawain C B Jones	ENG	2670	8½	74.5	79.0	6	8
8	171	GM	Mikhail Demidov	RUS	2523	8½	74.5	78.5	6	7
9	22	GM	Alexei Shirov	ESP	2662	8½	68.5	73.0	5	6
10	55	GM	Bogdan-Daniel Deac	ROU	2625	8½	67.5	73.0	5	8
11	103	GM	Eltaj Safarli	AZE	2598	8½	65.5	69.5	5	8
12	49	IM	Deniz Ozen	TUR	2397	8	81.5	88.0	5	6
13	11	GM	Matthias Bluebaum	GER	2670	8	76.0	80.0	5	7
14	50	GM	Mustafa Yilmaz	TUR	2630	8	71.5	74.5	6	7
15	54	GM	Manuel Petrosyan	ARM	2628	8	71.0	76.5	6	7
16	51	GM	Georg Meier	GER	2628	8	71.0	75.0	5	5
The only other UK player was:
213	238	GM	Daniel H Fernandez	ENG	2466	4.0
out of 323

There were 15 players on 8 out of 11, and the top 5 on tie-break qualified for the final 16.

“Eighth-Finals” – 19/12/2020 at 20.00

Rtg	Name	Score	Name	Rtg
2705	Radoslaw Wojtaszek	2-3	Meier Georg	2628
2628	Manuel Petrosyan	3-2	Hovhannisyan Robert	2642
2553	Levan Pantsulaia	3-2	Yilmaz Mustafa	2630
2670	Matthias Bluebaum	2½‑½	Onischuk Vladimir	2622
2604	Aleksandar Indjic	3-0	Ozen Deniz	2397
2598	Eltaj Safarli	1-3	Navara David	2697
2670	Gawain Jones	2½‑1½	Deac Bogdan-Daniel	2625
2662	Alexei Shirov	3-2	Demidov Mikhail	2523

Curiously, none of the 5 players with the highest score of 9 points in the 11-round Swiss got through this first K-O round!

Quarter-Finals – 19/12/2020 at 21.32

Rtg	Name	Score	Name	Rtg
2628	Georg Meier	1-3	Alexei Shirov	2662
2670	Matthias Bluebaum	3-1	Aleksandar Indjic	2604
2697	David Navara	2½‑½	Levan Pantsulaia	2553
2628	Manuel Petrosyan	2-3	Gawain Jones	2670

Semi-Finals – 20/12/2020 at 20.00

Rtg	Name	Score	Name	Rtg
2662	Alexei Shirov	3-2	Matthias Bluebaum	2670
2697	David Navara	2-3	Gawain Jones	2670

Final – 20/12/2020

Rtg	Name	Score	Name	Rtg
2662	Alexei Shirov	½‑2½	Gawain Jones	2670