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Hampshire Junior Chess News  
We want your local junior chess news. Please email your news to Jon Hunt at jh@wincoll.ac.uk.
 
Nigel Short Plays All-Junior Simul at Winchester College - Thu 17 Feb 2011
Nigel Short, the strongest English chess player of the 20th century, visited Winchester on Thursday as part of a week-long tour of the UK, accompanied by the President of the English Chess Federation, CJ de Mooi. Winchester College played host for the day to the former World Championship Challenger (Nigel played Garry Kasparov for the world title in London in 1993) and celebrity 'Egghead' (CJ is one of the panellists on the long-running BBC-2 quiz show). CJ's fellow Egghead Kevin, who lives locally, also looked in on the event.
32 juniors came from as far afield as London, Sussex and the Isle of Wight to line up against GM Short in the largest all-junior simul of the tour. The Winchester College squad took 11 seats, including the top two boards, with players from Yateley Manor and schools across Hampshire filling most of the rest. It was undoubtedly the strongest junior side Hampshire has ever fielded - but to no avail, as Mr Short swept all before him. He himself came to prominence aged 10 when he beat then World No. 2 Viktor Korchnoi in a simultaneous, but there was to be no repeat of such giant-killing on this occasion. Final score: 32-0, in just over three hours.
 
Mr Short awarded prizes to some of the players at the end of the simultaneous display, and Matthew Grattage, the recent U13 South of England Champion, was awarded the prize for 'Best Game'. Then, while Nigel took a well-earned break, CJ demonstrated one of his best-ever games, before the Grandmaster himself returned to show off one of his most famous triumphs - the "king march" from his 1991 game against Jan Timman. The pair then invited questions from the floor. Nigel answered questions on his career and imparted some valuable advice to Hampshire's next generation of players, and both he and CJ gave their views on the latest Candidates' Tournament and their favourites to challenge Anand for the world title in 2012.
The tour has been greatly oversubscribed, and so a second, longer tour is being organised for October 2011. Winchester College has been invited to host another event then, so watch this site for details. Meanwhile, we would like to take this opportunity once again to congratulate Nigel on his eight wins and second place with 8.5/10 in Gibraltar, and to say 'thank you' to him and to CJ for choosing to visit Hampshire as part of this tour. We wish them well for the rest of the tour and hope they will return soon!