The English Chess Federation has announced today (19/09/2017) that the 2018 British Chess Championships are to be held in Hull, more specifically in the Hull City Hall, Queen Victoria Square, Carr Lane, Hull, HU1 3RQ, from 27th July to 5th August, 2018. This announcement has been expected for some time, but did not come early enough to include definite mention in the hard-copy YCA Year Book. (It has however been added to the on-line Yorkshire Chess Calendar.)

This slightly misses coinciding with Hull being 2017 UK City of Culture by a year.

Hull City Hall is a Grade II listed completed in 1909, facing towards a statue of Queen Victoria in the square in front of it. Council offices are in the Guildhall, leaving the City Hall primarily as a venue for events of various kinds.

The British Championships were last held in Yorkshire in 2011, in Sheffield. Venues since then have been:

2012	North Shields
2013	Torquay
2014	Aberystwyth
2015	Coventry
2016	Bournemouth
2017	Llandudno

Yorkshire twice in eight years, an’ t’ North four times in eight years hardly leaves room for complaint, unless you live down south! (Note Llandudno counts as “North” in that it is within the scope, presumably, of the Cheshire & North Wales Chess Association, and hence that of the Northern Counties Chess Union.)

Details of the event should in time appear on the British Chess Championships website, which at the time of writing carried details of the 2017 event.