Two’s a crowd

The British Championship, which finished in Aberystwyth last week, has been shared by international master Jonathan Hawkins and the defending champion David Howell. Curiously, this is the first occasion on which a tie at the top has resulted in a shared title, rather than some sort of tie-break or play-off, as occurred with Hartston and Basman in 1973 (won by Hartston) and Adams and Short in 2011, where Adams won the decider. In 1954 Leonard Barden and Alan Phillips tied for first prize and also tied in the play-off. In 1997 a four-way play-off took place which resulted in Matthew Sadler and Michael Adams being joint winners.
 
Without wishing to denigrate the achievements of the two fine players who won jointly at Aberystwyth, I do feel that the public deserves to have one champion. If there was not time for a play-off, would it not have been better to break the tie on which of the two faced the stronger opposition? In this case, Hawkins’s tournament rating performance was 2621 against 2615 for Howell, and this would have been sufficient to decide the championship in favour of Hawkins.
 
Howell-Hawkins; British Championship2014
Here the players agreed a draw but Hawkins must have been kicking himself since the simple 32 … a5 leaves Black close to winning. He is a pawn up and his queenside majority is more threatening than White’s, for example 33 g5 a4 34 h4 a3 and now 35 h5 can be met by 35 … Nxg5 36 Nxg5 Rg3+ and wins.
 
Howell-Hebden: British Championship 2014
In this last round encounter Howell caught up with Hawkins by outplaying Hebden in the endgame. 40 Bc1 Kg8 41 Bxe4 Rxe4 42 Rexe4 Bxe4 43 Rxe4 a4 44 Kf1 Kf7 45 Ke2 a3 46 bxa3 Bxc3 47 Kd3 Bf6 48 a4 c5 49 Be3 Be7 50 g4 Bd6 51 Bd2 Bc7 52 Be3 Bd6 53 h4 Bf8 54 h5 Bd6 55 Bd2 Bc7 56 Be3 Bd6 57 f4 Kf6 58 Bd2 Bc7 59 Bc3+ Kf7 60 g5 Black resigns
 
Zhou-Pert: British Championship 2014
Richard Pert finished in the group on 7½ and scored the following fine finish. 27 … Bxd4! 28 b3 The main point is 28 Bxd4 Rf1+! 29 Qxf1 Nd2+ winning the queen. 28 … Nc3+ 29 Ka1 Qxd3! 30 cxd3 Bxe3 31 Qg3 Rf1+ 32 Kb2 Rf2+ White resigns 33 Kxc3 d4 is mate.