Ilkley Open 2026

The last twice I've played the Ilkley Congress I've been in the U1900 section and scored 4/5, and I did the same in Huddersfield in March this year. My rating has recently crept up to a new peak of just over 1850 before subsiding a touch to 1842 (aside: I may also blog about this, it's now clear to me that my initial rating when I restarted playing a few years was somewhat over-stated and I've been struggling to justify it ever since). So I thought it was reasonable to test myself against stronger players in the Open this year, though I don't really think I'm playing reliably at the 1900+ level. Occasional games, maybe, but not consistently. Anyway I thought it was worth trying just for once - after all, what's the worst that can happen?

In previous years there's been several others playing up. This time I was a bit more worried when I saw there were only two, and even they were both on the cusp of 1900, 50 points higher than me. Oh well.

5 round Swiss, 80+10 time control I've talked about before, with 3 games on a tough Saturday and 2 on Sunday. It's a lot of chess but then again the games are not individually quite as gruelling as the 5h county matches I've been playing in. A few long thinks and the 80 mins dwindles, there's no option but to speed up and it basically finishes as a rapid game if you get that far. Which I tend to do, still being a bit of a time trouble addict (I'm working on it!)

As the bottom-ranked player I was fully expecting a pairing bye at some point, as the number of players always varies a bit through the rounds as people take byes or drop out. This eventuality was avoided by some fantastic planning and organisation by Andy who ran the event, as he called on a couple of local players to step in and fill gaps as necessary. So even though one entrant dropped out on the morning of the event making us an odd number of players from round 1, there wasn't a single pairing bye all weekend in the Open.

First game I was black up against someone rated exactly 2000. He thumped me fairly comprehensively, to be fair. I wasn't sure of the opening, but it actually went ok for a while, until it didn't, and then he took me apart quite convincingly.

Ah well, onward and....downward? I was already on the bottom board of course, so didn't have anywhere to go for Round 2. I didn't even get to change seats as I was black again, which seemed to be rubbing it in a bit. My opponent was still 100 points higher rated than me. I put up a slightly better fight in the opening, but missed some positional details and again got quite convincingly squashed.

Round 3 and I had the thrill of moving up a few boards...but only because a bunch of people took the last game off. At least I was white, but my opponent was again well over 100 points above me. He played a slightly wacky opening, I failed to take advantage but didn't make a fool of myself and managed to cling on...and even got to a slightly better endgame (which I realised when he offered me a draw). I played on a couple more moves but couldn't see a way to make progress and so we had a peaceful and early end to the game. My first half point!

Sunday morning dawned another day. And to my surprised, I was drawn white against a (marginally) lower rated player! One of the local floating subs, Jacob who I'd played a couple of times before and beaten. However that was back when he was 1700 and he's gained a lot of points since then. He actually played above me in one of the Yorkshire county matches this season, though is currently just a few points lower again. It was a challenging game, I was losing heavily for a while but managed to fool him into thinking I had some counterplay and when he swapped into a worse endgame, I was able to hold it together and convert the win on the increment.

Last round, black again, another opponent just shy of 2000 points. Another Tromp, another struggle to work out how to play the opening though again I didn't do too bad a job at first. However in my eagerness to swap everything off I put myself in a very passive position and was soon losing, down a good pawn. I recalled two games in Huddersfield where I'd been down a pawn to higher rated players and held them to a draw, so resolved to fight as hard as I could. Somehow, the counterplay turned into genuine problems for my opponent. We both missed several chances in the endgame, but eventually a lovely tactic fell into my lap and I was suddenly a piece up and winning!

So I finished off on 2.5/5, right in the middle of the table (albeit on a horrible tie-break) and probably gained about 10-15 rating points. Not an earth-shattering performance, but a very acceptable one considering where i was seeded. Will I repeat the experiment next year or return to U1900? I don't know. I may not have the choice (LOL).