The 54th Hull Chess Congress took place at Hymers College, Hymers Avenue, Hull, HU3 1LW, from Friday 27th October to Sunday 29th October 2017. The sports hall provided the main playing area. Last year the venue was the University Staff House, and the move saved a significant amount on room-hire.

For those who are interested, the main fabric of Hymers College dates from 1893; for a photograph and the origins of the school click here. The Sports Hall is less photogenic, being part of the modern expansion of the school.

This year’s event hosted the Yorkshire Individual Championship, so the Open section was of added interest to Yorkshire’s stronger players; the winner of the Yorkshire Champion title was John G Cooper of Hull.

Section first-place winners:			Prizes:
Open:	GM Mark Hebden (Guildford)	4½ out of 5	1st	£350
Major:	P Robson (Durham)	4½ out of 5	2nd	£200
Intermediate:	D Stothard (Hull)	4½ out of 5	3rd	£100
Minor:	Malcolm Hara (Beverley)	4½ out of 5

Click here for a list of all prizes-winners

A curious feature of the results was that in each section there was a clear 1st-placewinner on 4½, followed by two players sharing 2nd-3rd places on 4.

On other pages:

Detailed Results:	Photographs:
Open Section	The playing hall	Charlie Storey, Jim Burnett	David Stothard v Peter Catt
Major Section	The control desk	Steve Hodge v Tim Hilton	Minor Section
Inter’ Section	Bookstall	Mark Hebden, Charlie Storey	Malcolm Hara v Robert Stokes
Minor Section	Michael Adams poster	Graham Lee v Bill Egan	Mark Hebden v John G Cooper
Game:	Yorkshire Champ. trophy	John G. Cooper v Tony Slinger	Richard Britton
P. Owst v I. Lamb	Jim Burnett v Mark Hebden	Alec Grice v J. Gerry Johnstone	Paul Robson v Dean Hartley

The prize fund was reduced this year. Nevertheless, the number of participants was up compared with last year, which may in part be due to hosting of the Yorkshire Championship. Distribution across the four sections in the two years being was follows:

Open

Major

(<=166)

Intermediate

(<=141)

Minor

(<=116)

Total

2016

105

2017

123

Yorkshire Championship

The two highest-scoring players eligible for the Championship under the Championship competition rules were John Cooper and Richard Britton (assuming Richard has maintained his membership of Hull Chess Club), who finished on 3½ out of 5. John won on tie-break by sum of progressive scores.

Free Entry

Hull congress offers free entry to the winner of the Open in the previous year, and Mark Hebden availed himself of this, having been last year’s winner, and won again this year. The opposition was less challenging that he experienced at Scarborough a week earlier.

Failure to Find Venue

On the Friday night, one of the leading contenders in the Open, Ali Jaunooby, didn’t turn up, and a loss by default had to be recorded against his name. Then, at around 11 o’clock on Friday night a phone call was received from him to say he hadn’t been able to find the venue! In the circumstances, he was credited with a half-point bye for round 1, and played in the remaining rounds.