hess William Hartston
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Your support makes all the difference.The British Championship ended in a triumph for Chris Ward, whose last-round draw with Mark Hebden gave him an unbeatable score of 9 out of 11. The runner-up was Jonathan Parker on 81/2, with Aaron Summerscale in third place on 8. So none of the three grandmasters in the event featured among the top three. Matthew Sadler and John Emms were among the group sharing fourth place on 71/2, and Mark Hebden was a further half-point behind.
Harriet Hunt won the Women's title, with a score of 61/2 points; the same score gave 12-year-old Luke McShane his first International Master norm.
The following highly entertaining game settled the destination of second prize. Played in the penultimate round, it enabled Parker to overtake Summerscale. He continued his sprint finish by beating Matthew Sadler in the last round, picking up the under-21 title as a bonus.
Black's 5...f6, declining an invitation to enter the complex Botvinnik System after 5...Nf6 6.e4 b5, led to an original and messy position. Black kept his gambit pawn, but only at the cost of putting his pieces on some very odd squares.
White's 20.d6!? was either finely calculated or led to some inspired improvisation. After 22...Qc5 the natural 23.Bxb8 is met by Bf5! but White's 23.Qd1! made real the threat of Bxb8 while also introducing the idea of Bd6.
The result was an endgame in which Black still had his extra pawn, now even on the seventh rank, but once that pawn was surrounded and won, White's bishops were always going to be too much for the black knights.
White: Jonathan Parker
Black: Aaron Summerscale
1 d4 d5 23 Qd1 Bg4
2 c4 c6 24 Bd6 Bxf3
3 Nf3 e6 25 Bxc5 Bxd1
4 Nc3 dxc4 26 Bxf8 c2
5 Bg5 f6 27 Bxb4 Nd7
6 Bh4 b5 28 Rc1 Ne5
7 e4 Bb7 29 Bf1 Nf5
8 Be2 Be7 30 Bc5 Ng6
9 0-0 Nh6 31 Nc4 Rd7
10 a4 a6 32 Na3 Rd2
11 Qc2 Qb6 33 Bb4 Rd4
12 Rfd1 0-0 34 Bc3 Nf4
13 b3 b4 35 Nxc2 Bxc2
14 a5 Qd8 36 Rxc2 Rd5
15 Na4 c3 37 Rd2 h5
16 Bc4 Bc8 38 b4 Nd6
17 Nb6 Ra7 39 Bxa6 Ne4
18 d5 exd5 40 Rxd5 cxd5
19 exd5 Kh8 41 Bd4 Ne6
20 d6 Bxd6 42 Bb6 Nd6
21 Rxd6 Qd6 43 Bb7 1-0
22 Bg3 Qc5
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