British Championships 2026

Warwick University, Coventry

Sat Aug 1 to Sun Aug 9 2026

The British Championships consists of 33 events plus Rapid, Blitz and variants tournaments. This year is billed as the biggest ever, with 1970 entrants, which comes down to 1066 after players who are in more than one tournament are taken into account, but still way more than prior to the post-pandemic popularisation of the game.

The Championship itself has been billed as an elite event for the last few years but is now back over 100 players, and six Bristol qualifiers are taking part.

	Ranking	Club	Qualification Route
Zack Norris	48/106	Clifton
Aron Saunders	54	Downend	Last year's Championship
Oliver Stubbs	60	Downend	West of England Champion
Majid Haroon	69	Downend	British Championship Grand Prix
Colin Davis	88	Clifton	Major Open
James Thomas	93	Downend	Major Open

Also Freddie Pick (South Bristol) and Elmira Walker (Downend) are taking part in the Major Open, and Richard Johnson (Grendel) is in the Over 65s.

Play starts at 2.30 on the 1st, one game a day. Full listings are shown here and live games are available at Chess.com or Lichess.

Round One

3	Aron Saunders	2225	0	Shreyas Royal	2514 GM	1
9	Oliver Stubbs	2185	0	Maciej Czopor	2455 IM	1
18	Tarun Kanyamarala	2398 IM	0	Haroon Majeed	2153	1
37	Zack Norris	2275	1	Colin Davis	2056	0
43`	James Thomas	2005	½	Elmira Mirzoeva	2262 WGM	½