Smith and Williamson British Championships

There were three Ulster players competing: IM Brian Kelly, James McDonnell and Timothy Douglas.

Defending champion Julian Hodgson retained his title. 
Brian Kelly shared the British under-21 title with Nicholas Pert.

Final leading scores: 11 round Swiss: 68 players:
(1) Julian Hodgson 8.5, 
(2) Chris Ward 8.0, 
(3-6) Murray Chandler, Danny Gormally, Mark Hebden and Jon Speelman 7.5, 
(7-13) Brian Kelly, Bogdan Lalic, Tony Miles, Nicholas Pert, Aaron Summerscale, Peter Wells and Alexander Wohl 7.0. 
Timothy Douglas and James McDonnell both finished on 4.0.

Selected Games by Ulster players

After posting details of the Championship in the Chronicle I received this e-mail (edited for publication) from Paul McKeown.

"I note that in your Ulster Chess Chronicle News Digest you reported on the performances of three Ulster players in the Championship event. To my knowledge there were at least two other Ulster players competing in Street, Paul McKeown and Richard McMaster, both in the Major Open. I scored 6/11 and should have achieved a FIDE rating of 2084 in the Jan 2001 list from the 9 FIDE rated opponents that I played. Richard scored 5/11 and a partial FIDE rating of 2045 based on his 8 FIDE rated opponents.

In case no-one remembers me, I played for the Downpatrick Chess Club (and occasionally for Newcastle) as a junior, until I went to University in England in 1985. I last played chess in Ulster in the Ulster Championships in December 1985 and in the Belfast Civic Festival in May 1986, but I am planning to make my comeback this December, again in the Ulster Championships (having been unable to resist the blandishments of J.J. McDonnell!). During my years in the wilderness I studied for 3 years in England, worked in Germany for 18 months and then in the Netherlands for over 7 years before returning to England in January 1997. Somehow Belfast seems closer these days!"