Brentwood chess coach takes British title

Brentwood School Chess Coach and International Master Richard Pert is now Speed Chess King having been crowned the 2021 British Blitz Champion.

Richard took the Championship Blitz title, a highlight of the British Online Chess Championships, against the strongest field of all the tournament events and headed by former World number 4 Jon Speelman. Alongside Jon, who has previously visited Brentwood School for a day’s coaching, were multiple other Grandmasters and International Masters, plus the qualified players.

Richard, who received a wildcard into the Speed Chess finals, was joined in the finals by his 13-year-old daughter Nina, a Brentwood School Year 9 student, who made it through the last qualifier.

Despite games being played with each player starting with only 3 minutes each on the clock for all their moves, the event ran for nearly 4 hours with multiple rounds and ongoing Zoom fair play checks needing to be performed between rounds on all the competitors.

A modest Richard explained: “Much to my surprise, a series of tight games went my way, including one very fortuitous win against a Scottish Grandmaster when he made an elementary mistake late in the endgame of a dead drawn position.

“After riding my luck I found myself leading with one game to go closely chased by a strong Australian Master. Facing Grandmaster Jon Speelman (who was lying 3rd at the time) in the final game I knew a draw would likely secure the title as I beat the Australian Master earlier in the tournament giving me the better tiebreak. After a “parking the bus” style performance against Jon I managed to secure the needed draw and with it the 2021 British Blitz Champion title! Nina performed admirably, finishing 25th.”

The British Online Chess Championships, which took place from the 24th July - 8th August, saw various events played online using Zoom to help ensure ‘fair play’. The best players in the country took part with Championship, Age Group and Women’s events taking place at both classical play (slow) and blitz (quick) time controls.

The first week was largely made up of qualifying events for the finals. Several players from Brentwood School took part in the qualifiers and whilst most didn’t make it to the finals, the performances were very respectable. Finals featured a handful of seeded players, with all other participants needing to qualify via the qualifiers played in the opening week.

Nina’s 11-year-old brother, Max Pert, a Year 7 pupil at Brentwood School, was the standout performer in the Junior finals finishing outright second in the Blitz Under 12 section, and 1st = (3rd on tiebreak from the 3 winners) in the standardplay.

Nina also did well finishing 4th in the Under 14 Rapid Finals and qualifying for both the Championship Blitz, and the Championship Ladies events. The future of Chess at Brentwood is looking very bright indeed!