Steven Jones finishes 2nd at the British Championship

The 2023 British Championship will be remembered as being close to providing one of the biggest shocks in the history of the competition.  The annual competition held in Leicester attracted an extremely strong field.   Included were no fewer than 30 titled Chess Masters including International Masters. On top of that there were 5 Grandmasters in the field of 63 entrants.

However it was an untitled chess player who stole the show. Steven Jones the top player at Basingstoke Chess Club finished second and scored some notable wins along the way. Jones who lives at Popley finished with an amazing 6 wins and 1 draw with just 2 defeats from the 9 games played.  The Swiss style competition was played over 9 days and the Basingstoke player played some outstanding chess throughout. In the first round he lost to the top player in the country, Michael Adams a Grandmaster, after a very close game. Adams was the eventual winner. Then as the tournament progressed Jones started making inroads into the opposition with much exciting chess which kept his opponents on the back foot. He moved gradually up the leader board and saved the best until the last round. This produced a shock win over Grandmaster Daniel Howard Fernandez.  Steven Jones playing with the black pieces responded to his opponent’s king pawn opening move with his favoured Sicilian Defence. A closed variation ensued and gradually the Basingstoke No 1 player got on top. Towards the latter stages Jones put together a brilliant attack which finished up with him checkmating his opponent to secure 2nd place.

Congratulations Steven.