Play in this year’s British Championship proper started at 2.30 (assuming things went to schedule), on Saturday, 28/07/2018. For those entering one of the three “weekend” events, play actually started a little earlier on the Friday evening.

Entries

The pre-event published list of entries totalled these at 996, with superficially looks like 4 less than 1,000 players. Actually, that total of 996 includes each separate entry by any one player into up to as many as 4 events. The total includes 712 individual players, analysable as follows:

entering	1	event	500	players
	2	events	157
	3	events	39
	4	events	15
	5	events	1
		total	712	players

The player entering 5 events, with a schedule of 32 games in 9 days, is under-8 Sanjit Kumar, of Richmond (Surrey), who entered the Under-9 (6 games, Fri. 27th & Sat. 28th), U-8 (6 games, Sun. 29th), Under-10 (6 games, Sun. 29th to Sat. 4th, mornings), U-100 grade (5 games, Mon. 30th to Fri .3rd, afternoons), and the Rapidplay (Sat. 4th & Sun. 5th). A half-point bye in round 1 of the Under 10 was necessary due to the overlap with Under 8. The clash of round 7 of the Under 10 with rounds 1 & 2 of the Rapidplay may necessitate a withdrawal from the Under 10 after 6 rounds.

Of the 996 “entries” listed before the event, 127, nearly 13%, are from “Yorkshire” players (who live in Yorkshire, or play for teams in the YCA league, or represent Yorkshire). Of the 712 listed participants, to which late entries to (say) the Rapidplay could add more names, 99, nearly 14%, are Yorkshire players. Of the 996 “entries”, 50 are identifiably from Hull & District. These are not “final” figures, but give a flavour of things. There are of course “emigree” Yorkshire-born players such as Richard Britton not included.

The section with the least number of entries is the Under-16 Championship, presumably because at this age the stronger players are aiming higher than mere junior events. There used to be U-18 and U-21 titles contested, but these have been discontinued, presumably for this reason.

Web Coverage

The British Championships website carries the following links to live coverage on the internet:

Commentary	https://videos.chessbase.com/Replay/EmbedLive
Championship Games	https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/british-chess-championship-2018/1/1/1
Major Open Games	https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/105th-british-championships-major-open-2018/1/1/1
Pairings, Results	http://chess-results.com/tnr367973.aspx?lan=1 (see below for each individual event’s link)

Direct links for each event to its round-by-round pairings, game results, and tournament standings on chess-results.com, are as follows:

British Championships	Entries *
Championship (proper)	65
Over 65 Championship	54
Over 50 Championship	32
Under 16 Championship	21
Under 14 Championship	32
Under 12 Championship	39
Under 11 Championship	60
Under 10 Championship	35
Under Championship 9	68
Under 8 Championship	50

Non‑Championship Week‑Long Events
Major Open	73
Open AM	31
Under 2050	42
Under 1900	46
Under 1750	78
Under 120	47
Under 100	44

Non-Championship Weekend Events
Atkins weekend tournament (Open)	40
Soanes weekend tournament (U‑1825 / U‑150)	53
Yates weekend tournament (U‑1600 / U‑120)	53

Non-Championship One-Day Event
Rapidplay	91

* Number of entries shown on chess-results.com

Schedule

See https://www.britishchesschampionships.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/BCC-schedule-2018.pdf.