Four decades ago, the eighth and last series of BBC Two’s much-admired chess programme The Master Game was never screened in the UK, because of industrial action by technicians. Tony Miles defeated Anatoly Karpov in the 1983 final, the Englishman’s second victory over the then world champion after his stunning 1 e4 a6 win at the 1980 European Teams.
It was the end of an iconic programme, first launched in 1975 in the wake of the Fischer-Spassky boom. The Master Game’s innovative production made it appear that the players were speaking their thoughts on the game while it was in progress. Nigel Short, later a world title challenger, competed aged 11, in 1977, when his opponent Bill Hartston asked: “Has nobody told this boy never to accept pawns from strange men?” Short went on to win the event in 1981. An entire generation of English talents watched and learned from The Master Game.
The 2025 programme, Chess Masters: The Endgame, is very different, as all the 12 players are amateurs, chosen as much for their diversity and communication skills as for their chessboard abilities. Half of them are women, a contrast to the predominantly male environment at most chess events.
None of the dozen are fully named in the BBC press release, but it is possible to work out who most of them are from their photos, first names and locations. They will play a tournament including some puzzle solving, with expert commentary by the three-time British champion and Olympiad gold medallist David Howell.
A danger with this type of event is that a strong player slips through the selection process and dominates the field. Most of the competitors are rated in the 1600s and low 1700s, with higher numbers only from online games. However, there is at least one standout exceptio n among the contestants, an outlier who has a current English Chess Federation rapid over-the-board rating close to 1900. In a recent rapidplay, they defeated two nationally known experts from their home city, both with ECF ratings well above 2000.
There is no suggestion that this information was concealed by the player. It is publicly available on the ECF rating website and easy to find with a few clicks. Being the wide margin rating favourite in an all-amateur tournament does not guarantee victory, but it sure helps.
Nikita Vitiugov, the top seed, won last weekend’s British Rapidplay at Peterborough (15 minutes per player/game, plus 15 seconds per move increment) and its £1200 first prize, scoring 9/11. Vitiugov, the 2021 Russian champion who later transferred to England, has a peak Fide rating of 2751 – world top 20 level. He won an epic ninth-round battle against Ameet Ghasi, and went on to share first with Ukraine’s Alexander Kovchan before winning the playoff.
Gawain Jones’s run of victories from the English and British Championships and the London Classic was halted in the final three rounds, but he still finished tied third with some good wins, including this from his favourite King’s Indian.
Elmira Mirzoeva, the former Moscow champion, won the women’s title, with Bodhana Sivanandan, nine, second, and Elis Denele Dicen. 14, tied third with Susan Lalic. Other juniors also did well. Oleg Verbytski, 11, won a best performance prize, although he had a huge stroke of luck right at the end. His IM opponent in the final round could have mated in four (36…Kg3!) but instead chose a losing queen check and simultaneously overstepped the time limit.
Scotland’s Louis Cheng could be a major talent. The Edinburgh nine-year-old, whose queen sacrifice was this column’s puzzle on 10 January, scored 6.5/11 with a tournament performance of 2165, including five victories over 2000+ opponents. That is close to world class for an under-10.
The 2025 British Rapidplay was a single open tournament, without separate sections for lower rated amateurs, and attracted over 200 competitors. This format is normal in continental Europe, and arguably a superior model to most English congresses, where the profusion of majors, minors, and novice events limits improvement and encourages rating manipulation.
Shreyas Royal, 16, England’s youngest ever grandmaster, has performed well in the world junior (under-20) championship in Petrovac, Montenegro, where he totalled 6.5/11 after a defeat, only his second of the competition, in Friday’s final round. Royal is still eligible for this event, whose only English winner has been Tony Miles in 1974, for the next four years, so he should have chances for a medal in the future.
Hans Niemann, the enfant terrible of world chess, competed in Moscow’s Aeroflot Open this week after failing to be selected for the prestigious American Cup, which starts next weekend. It seems that the St Louis organisers have not yet forgiven the controversial 21-year-old for trashing his hotel room two years ago.
Niemann performed well, tying for second with an unbeaten 6.5/9, half a point behind the double world title challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi. His best win was in the mazy style of Mikhail Tal, a piece or even two pieces down for much of the game, and pouncing when his opponent blundered with 38…Ke7?
Niemann’s most watched games in Moscow are likely to be on Friday and Saturday, (3pm start, live on YouTube) when he is playing an 18-game blitz match against Magnus Carlsen’s former aide Daniil Dubov. At halfway, Dubov led 5.5-3.5.
The Dubov-Niemann feud surfaced in December at the World Blitz, when Dubov defaulted his game against the American. At first the Russian claimed he had overslept, but later he admitted it was because he still believed that Niemann had cheated against Magnus Carlsen at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup.
Now they have agreed to meet in the blitz match, whose winner can require the loser, linked to a lie detector, to answer a single question. No prizes for guessing what Dubov’s question will be.
3962: 1 Rh8+ Kg7 2 R1h7+ Kf6 3 Qxf5+! gxf5 4 Rh6+ Kg7/e7 5 Nxf5 mate.
