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05/08/2021 British On-Line Championship 2021, Round 7
Round 7 of the 2021 on-line British Chess Championships was played on 05/08/2021.
In the top-board game Bogdan Lalić versus sole leader Keith Arkell, the opening was a symmetrical Slav Exchange which was agreed drawn after White’s 12th move, neither side having made any indication of a desire to play for a win.
More fighting spirit was shown in board-two game Paul Dargan v Michael Adams, but that too drifted to a draw, agreed after White’s 39th move.
On board 3, young Yichen Han took a tumble in a lively game against “unrated” Gerasimos Giachos, who consequently joined Keith Arkel in the lead. (Click here to play through Yichen Han 0-1 Gerasimos Giachos on screen.)
Gerasimos Giachos appears to be the 32ish-year-old-Greek player whose name is spelt by FIDE “Gerasimos Giahos”, and has a FIDE rating of 1989 (or about 173 in the old grading system), and is currently a research student at Lancaster University. The spelling of the surname hinges on how you choose to transliterate the Greek letter we call (in English) “chi”. This subtlety seems to have been lost on the organisers, as Γιαχος (spelling his name in Greek) was paired in round one as though his rating was zero, rather than 1989, which would have ranked him 22nd instead of 35th.
Meanwhile, down on 10th board, Robert Starley managed a win after losing in the previous two rounds; it did not look easy in the opening and middle game, but superior endgame technique won in the end. On 11th board, Mark Hebden also scored a win, easily, against a much weaker opponent than himself. (Click here to play through Robert Starley 1-0 Jonathan MacKay on screen.)
In the joint lead now are Keith Arkell and Gerasimos Giachos on 5½ out of 7, followed by Michael Adams, Bogdan Lalić, Paul Dargan and Jonathan Blackburn on 5.
Round 8 (the penultimate round), on 06/08/2021, sees the leading pairings
Gerasimos Giachos v Keith Arkell, Michael Adams v Jonathan Blackburn, Bogdan Lalić v Paul Dargan.
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