England’s success in senior events has been outstanding in recent years, but there are indications that the golden era, which was already challenged by US over-50 team victories in 2023 and 2024, may be undermined further by individuals and teams from Eastern Europe.
At the European individual 65+ championship in Lignano Sabbiadoro, on the Adriatic coast in northern Italy, the holder, GM John Nunn, was the strong favourite, but finished only sixth with 6.5/9. The grandmaster and eminent author from Bude in Cornwall was unbeaten, and his fourth-round win was in his vintage attacking style, but a run of four successive draws spoiled his chances.
England’s FM Terry Chapman was the silver medallist in the 2022 European 65+ event. That success gave him an international master norm, and he almost made his second norm last week, when he was edged out of the medals on tie-break as an unbeaten fourth, including a hard fought endgame win over a grandmaster. GMs took the top three spots, with Georgia’s Zurab Sturua winning, Slovakia’s Lubomir Ftacnik second and Germany’s Rainer Knaak third.
Chapman is best known in chess for his odds match against Garry Kasparov in 2001, which included a game victory. He is consistently successful for England senior teams, and has again been selected, along with three GMs and an IM, for the over-65 squad, who will be strong favourites to retain their world crown at Prague in February 2025.
Before that, Chapman is competing in the 2024 World 65+ individual championship, which starts on 17 November in Porto Santos, Madeira. Neither Nunn, who won the 65+ crown in 2023, nor Michael Adams, holder of the 50+ individual championship, will be defending their titles.
The over-50 world team championship in Prague is shaping up to be the senior equivalent of the biennial chess Olympiad, since it is the only senior event in which the US and England, the dominant senior nations, take part, along with several strong European squads.
In 2022, England won the world over-50 teams with a group led by the eight-time British champion Michael Adams and the 1993 world title challenger Nigel Short. The two were both at their best, but the winning margin was still only a point. In 2023, with Short absent, the US turned the tables, while in 2024 England, still without Short, dropped to the bronze medal position behind the US and Italy.
For 2025, GM Stuart Conquest. who performed well at the 2024 European senior teams, is the new second board behind Adams, and there are other changes on the lower boards, where GM Keith Arkell has been controversially omitted, and GMs Mark Hebden and Peter Wells are newcomers from 2024. Hebden was the third board gold medallist in 2022, and all five players are survivors from the 1970s and 1980s generation who took England to No 2 behind the former Soviet Union.
The US quintet has its own strong bonding identity. All five of the US players in the last three years, although they include an ethnic Latvian and an Estonian, learned their chess skills in the USSR, influenced by the great teachers Mark Dvoretsky, Yuri Averbakh and Artur Yusupov.
The US team for Prague 2025 could well prove even stronger. GM Vladimir Akopian, 52, won the 2024 US senior championship, scoring an unbeaten 7/9, taking the title with a round to spare, and winning impressively in just 25 moves against an opponent who was board one or two for all three US teams in 2022-24.
Akopian’s track record includes three Olympiad gold medals (2006, 2008 and 2012) for Armenia, plus a win against Kasparov in a World v Russia match, also in 25 moves. This was after Kasparov had dismissed Akopian as “a chess tourist”.
To have a realistic chance of outpacing an Akopian-led US team in Prague, England needed to include their own class acts. They are Short, who still plays the occasional high level tournament despite his work as a Fide director, and Matthew Sadler, best known for his books Game Changer and The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement, whose last competitive games were in 2020 but who still has a Fide inactive rating of 2694, higher than any other English player.
However, it is understood that neither Short nor Sadler was available for Prague, and that was also the case with the retired four-time British champion Julian Hodgson and the former world semi-finalist Jonathan Speelman.
On Wednesday 13 November at 12.15pm GMT the controversial GM Hans Niemann will challenge the world in an internet match which anyone can join, with no entry fee or registration required. For more details, go to chess.it.com.
England will host two major chess events in the next few weeks. The XLX London Classic at the Emirates Stadium from 29 November to 7 December will include a Fide-rated Masters open and other events for players of all standards. The traditional Hastings Congress from 28 December to 5 January will also feature a competitive international open.
3945: 1...Rxe5! 2 dxe5 (if 2 Qxe5 Qc1+ 3 Kf2 Qf1+ 4 Ke3 Qe2 mate or 2 fxe5 Re4 wins the queen) Rxf4! and White resigned. If 3 Qxf4 Qe2 mate. The threat is Rf1 mate, while if 3 Rg7+ Kxg7 4 Qg3+ there is no perpetual check draw.
