UK Open Blitz Championships 2024

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UK Open Blitz Finals 2024

The finals for the UK Open Blitz Championships 2024 were held at the Woodland Grange, Leamington Spa on 16th November. These were the fifth annual finals in an event which was established in 2018. The Championships included an Open and a Women’s final, each event having 16 players with 15 rounds of blitz games at 3|2 time control in an all-play-all format.

Natasha Regan’s excellent commentary featuring GM guests can be found here – https://www.youtube.com/@EnglishChessFederation

Format
Each of the finals was played as a 16-player FIDE-rated Round Robin tournament. The time limit was all moves in 3 minutes plus 2 seconds per move with the following schedule —

Round

Time

Round

Time

Round 

Time

Round 1

12.00

Round 6

14.15

Round 11

15.55

Round 2

12.20

Round 7

14.35

Round 12

16.15

Round 3

12.40

Round 8

14.55

Round 13

16.35

Round 4

13.00

Round 9

15.15

Round 14

16.55

Round 5

13.20

Round 10

15.35

Round 15

17.15

Finals Regulations
These can be found in the main regs document here. The Finals Regulations included updated tie-break rules taking account of the all-play-all format.

Pairings
The all-play-all pairings for the two finals were drawn randomly by the Chief Arbiter on the evening of 4th November, witnessed by the ECF Home Director and County Championship Controller.
Open: https://chess-results.com/tnr1053611.aspx?lan=1&art=2&turdet=YES&flag=30
Women: https://chess-results.com/tnr1053622.aspx?lan=1&art=2&turdet=YES&flag=30

Open Championship

ECF Home Director Nigel Towers presents the Open trophy to UK Open Blitz Champion GM Eldar Gasanov English Blitz Champion Danny Gormally

GM Eldar Gasanov came first in the Open Section with 11.5 points from 15 games to become the UK Open Blitz Champion for 2024. Eldar clinched the title in his round 15 game against GM Shreyas Royal.
GM Danny Gormally finished 2nd on 11 points to become the English Blitz Champion for 2024 (with the title awarded to the highest finishing ENG registered player).
FM Freddie Gordon and GM Shreyas Royal finished 3rd= on 10.5 points.
Final standings were as follows –

Place

 

Name

Rating

Pts. 

Prize

1

GM

Eldar Gasanov
UK Open Blitz Champion 2024

2472

11½

£1000

2

GM

Danny Gormally
English Blitz Champion 2024

2490

11

£500

3

FM

Frederick Waldhausen Gordon

2349

10½

£300

4

FM

GM Shreyas Royal

2288

10½

£200

5

CM

Supratit Banerjee

2211

9

£150

6

FM

Stanley Badacsonyi

2375

9

£150

7

IM

Aravamudhan Balaji

2314

8

£150

8

 

Rishi Vijayakumar

2145

8

£150

9

CM

Indy Southcott-Moyers

2161

£100

10

IM

Yichen Han

2310

7

£100

11

GM

Peter K Wells

2415

7

£100

12

 

Lorenzo Lucchi

2120

6

£100

13

IM

Volodymyr Tuschynskyi

2286

£100

14

 

Jacob Connor Boswell

2122

£100

15

 

Kamil Marchlewicz

2143

£100

16

 

Benedict Keohane

1979

£100

Women’s Championship

ECF Home Director presents the Women’s trophy to UK Open Blitz Women’s Champion WFM Eunice Hng 2nd= and Joint English Women’s Blitz Champion WFM Kamila Hyryschenko 2nd= and Joint English Women’s Blitz Champion WFM Bodhana Sivanandan

There was a three way tie in the Women’s Championship between WFMs Eunice Hng, Kamila Hyryschenko and Bodhana Sivanandan, who all finished on 12 points.
WFM Eunice Hng became the UK Open Blitz Women’s Champion on direct encounter tie break, with Kamila Hyryschenko and Bodhana Sivanandan becoming the English Women’s Blitz Champions as the highest placed ENG registered players.

Place

 

Name

Rtg

Pts. 

Prize

1

 WFM

Eunice Mei-Xian Hng
UK Open Blitz Women’s Champion 2024

1995

12½

£500

2

WFM

Kamila Hryshchenko
Joint English Women’s Blitz Champion 2024

2065

12½

£250

3

WFM

Bodhana Sivanandan
Joint English Women’s Blitz Champion 2024

2157

12½

£150

4

WGM

Emmanuelle Mei-En Hng

2040

11½

£100

5

 WGM

Elmira Mirzoeva

2128

11

£75

6

 

Madara Orlovska

1964

11

£75

7

 

Ruqayyah Rida

1970

9

£75

8

 

Kanishka Bhatia

2003

£75

9

 

Ana Williams

1854

£50

10

 

Nodirabegim Bakhtiyorova

1840

6

£50

11

 

Anusha Subramanian

1998

£50

12

 

Chrysa Mitraka

1748

5

£50

13

 

Florence Spirling

1747

£50

14

 

Alexandra Hardwick

1877

3

£50

15

 

ACM Irina Briggs

1658

2

£50

16

 

Julia McNab

1253

0

£50

Further details are available at the link below.

The full set of pairings and results for the Championships are available at these links:
Open Championshiphttps://chess-results.com/tnr851244.aspx?lan=1
Women’s Championshiphttps://chess-results.com/tnr851246.aspx?lan=1&art=1&flag=30

All games were played on live boards and broadcast via the DGT cloud and online providers with games available at the links below:

Open Final
Chess.com – https://www.chess.com/events/info/2024-uk-blitz-championship
Lichess.org – https://lichess.org/broadcast/uk-open-blitz-championships-2024/ZhLqzmKS

Women’s Final
Chess.com – https://www.chess.com/events/info/2024-uk-blitz-championship
Lichess.org –  https://lichess.org/broadcast/uk-womens-blitz-championships-2024/J6aLaicY

Games
PGN files for both championships can be found here – https://www.englishchess.org.uk/uk-open-blitz-championships-2024-finals-pgns/

Commentary

WIM Natasha Regan provided live commentary on the finals on her Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/WIM_natasharegan. She was joined by a number of guests during the streaming with further details as below.

12.00am – 3.00pm Rounds 1 – 7  – WIM Natasha Regan with GM Matthew Sadler
3.00pm – 6.30pm Rounds 8 – 15 – GM John Emms with GM Chris Ward