Freddy Waldhausen Gordon was only seeded 25th at the start, but the 15-year-old fourth-former from George Heriot’s School, Edinburgh, came through with a stunning burst to capture the annual British Rapidplay Championship in Peterborough with a score of 9.5/11, defeating the top-seed GM Gawain Maroroa Jones in the final round in a must-win game with a ferocious attack. No Scot had ever previously won this prestige event.
It was the 37th staging of the British Rapidplay, whose fast time limit of all the moves in 15 minutes for each player, plus a 10-second increment per move, makes it possible to hold an entire 11-round tournament in a single weekend. More than 200 players competed. The English Chess Federation’s organisation of the mammoth event was excellent.
Final scores were Waldhausen Gordon (Scotland) 9.5/11, Jones and Shreyas Royal 9, Yichen Han (Netherlands), 12-year-old Supratit Banerjee, and Siva Mahadevan (India) 8.5. Eight players on eight points included Trisha Kanyamarala (Ireland), Harriet Hunt and 11-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan, who tied for the women’s title.
Waldhausen Gordon, Royal, Banerjee and Sivanandan are teenagers or pre-teens, but whereas the last three are all being helped with their tournament expenses and coaching by the £1.5mn grant which chancellor Rachel Reeves has made available for the most promising English talents, Waldhausen Gordon will receive precisely zero pounds due to devolution rules.
