England scored their finest win for many years on Friday at the 170-nation chess Olympiad in Baku, when they demolished China, the No3 seeds and reigning Olympiad champions, 3-1.

The former world title contenders and now veterans Michael Adams, 44, and Nigel Short, 51, made the winning points, Adams with a slow crush in a queen and rook endgame against Wang Yue and Short by brilliant in-depth defence against Li Chao. David Howell against Ding Liren and Luke McShane against Yu Yangyi both achieved good draws in complex games.

This shock victory puts England potentially in the silver medal position with four rounds to go. Rounds eight and nine (of 11) are this weekend. Games start at noon, and all the England games can be viewed free and live online with grandmaster and computer commentaries.

Earlier, England crashed 0.5-3.5 to the Netherlands but recovered strongly with wins against Indonesia, Canada, Vietnam and Chile.

The team’s high spots have been Adams’s calm, controlled and profound strategies, Gawain Jones’s brilliancy against Vietnam where he sacrificed his queen for bishop and knight in the style of the legendary Mikhail Tal, and Short’s Indian summer on bottom board, where he has outclassed most opponents and has 5/6.

The United States, widely predicted for the gold medals, defeated the previously unbeaten Indians 3.5-0.5 and now lead on 13 points out of 14, ahead of Russia, Ukraine, England, India, Georgia and Latvia on 12.

The world champion, Magnus Carlsen, underperformed at the last three Olympiads so came to Baku with ambitions for the individual top board gold medal. However, lower-ranked opponents looking for their hour of glory still give him problems and he conceded draws against Romania, Australia and the Philippines. Australia’s David Smerdon seriously considered starting with 1 d3 e5 2 d4, thus playing a Scandinavian 1 e4 d5 as White, but instead opted for another opening beloved of internet and club players, the c3 Sicilian 1 e4 c5 2 c3.

Smerdon followed up with an individual twist of castling queen’s side. It foxed the world champion, and near the end when Smerdon sacrificed a rook for an honourable draw by perpetual check he could instead have played 21 Bxh7+ with advantage for White.

David Smerdon v Magnus Carlsen
1 e4 c5 2 c3 d5 3 exd5 Qxd5 4 d4 Nf6 5 Nf3 e6 6 Na3 Qd8 7 Nc4 Be7 8 Be3 cxd4 9 Qxd4!? O-O 10 O-O-O!? Nd5 11 Qg4 Nxe3 12 fxe3 Qc7 13 Bd3 Nd7 14 Qf4 Qc5 15 b4 Qc6 16 Nd4 Qxg2 17 Rhg1 Qh3 18 Rg3 Qh4 19 Qxh4 Bxh4 20 Rh3 Bg5 21 Rg1?! h6 22 Rxg5 hxg5 23 Bh7+ Kh8 24 Bd3+ Kg8 25 Bh7+ Kh8 26 Bd3+ 0.5-0.5

3459 White needs to have his own rook away from h3 (where Rxh3 would give check) at the same time that the black rook is away from h6 (where hxg6 can be met by Rxg6). That accomplished, White won by 4 hxg6! Rxh2 5 g7.

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The 92nd Hastings International Chess Congress is under way from 28 December. Watch LIVE

The event runs until January 5 and is dedicated to the memory of Con Power, Congress Secretary from 1983 until 2015.

I particularly remember that period for the centenary summer congress of 1995, not least its extremely strong qualifying event for the Intel Rapid Grand Prix in London.

There are tournaments throughout this year’s Congress for players of all abilities, including a weekend congress from Friday 30 December until Sunday 1st January.

The top section is the 9-round Masters, which thanks to the support of Tradewise Insurance boasts a first prize of £2,000.

At the time of writing 11 grandmasters are down to play with the 2649-rated Indian GM S.P. Sethuraman the top seed.

The home challenge is headed up by Hastings stalwarts Keith Arkell, Danny Gormally and Mark Hebden.

The last-named of those finished just outside the prizes at the London Chess Classic, but played a strong field, giving along the way a master class in the Benko Gambit.

6…Bg7 7.e4 0-0 8.Nf3 Qa5 is the modern interpretation, hoping for 9.Bd3? Nxd5!, but Hebden prefers the traditional main line.

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.cxb5 a6 5.bxa6 g6 6.Nc3 Bxa6 7.Nf3 d6 8.g3 Nbd7 9.Bg2 Bg7 10.0-0 Nb6 11.Re1 0-0 12.e4 Nfd7! (Bringing another piece over to the queenside where Black plans to attack) 13.Qc2 Nc4 14.Bf1 Nde5 15.Nh4 Qa5 (Black’s pieces flow to good squares and already White may have nothing better than the radical 16.f4 Ng4 17.Bxc4!? Bxc4 18.Nf3) 16.Kg2 Rfb8 17.h3? 17…Nxb2! (Crashing through, and if 18.Bxb2 Bxf1+ 19.Rxf1 Nc4 resembles the game) 18.Bxa6 Rxa6 19.Bxb2 Nc4 (The pressure down the long dark-square diagonal ensures Black will regain the piece) 20.Rab1 Nxb2 21.e5 Rab6 22.Nf3 c4 (Hebden exploits another common Benko motif, the hole on d3) 23.Re3 Nd3 24.Rxb6 Qxb6 25.Na4 Qb5 26.exd6 exd6 27.Re4? (Now White must either lose d5 or a piece, but even 27.Nc3 Qa5 28.Ne4 Qxd5 looks extremely grim) 27…Nb4! 28.Qxc4!? Qxa4 29.Qc7 Qa8 30.Ng5 Rb7 31.Qxd6 Bf8 32.Qf4 Nxd5 33.Qf3 Ra7 34.Kh2 h6 35.Rd4 hxg5 36.Qxd5 Rxa2 37.Qxa8 Rxa8 38.Rd5 Be7 39.Kg2 Ra2 40.Kf3 Rc2 41.Ke3 Kg7 42.Rb5 Ra2 43.Kf3 f5 44.Rb7 Kf7 45.Ke3 Ke6 46.Rb6+ Bd6 0-1

Arkell was below form at the World Senior Championships in Marianske Lazne last month, but bounced back at the London Chess Classic, where in the Open he defeated the eventual co-winner, Sebastian Maze of France.

Hawkins – Compton, LCC Open. The 2015 British Champion began the Open in style. White to play and win:

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The Caplin British Online Championships will take place over two weeks from 18th December 2020 to 3rd January 2021 on the Chess.com platform. The event is being run by the English Chess Federation in collaboration with the Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Ulster, Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man Chess Federations/Unions. The British Online will include separate Championships – Open, Women’s, Junior, Senior and Rating Limited. The format is based on one week of qualifier events followed by a week of finals for each Championship.

Each Championship will consist of a qualifier and finals stage with a number of separate events at four different time controls (Standard, Rapid, Blitz and Bullet) as shown in the table below. Players may take part in one or more championships for which they are eligible (e.g. Open, Women’s, Junior etc), and one or more events within their selected championship(s) (e.g. Standard, Rapid, Blitz etc), subject to the entry conditions and playing schedule.

All Standardplay events will be based on a game a day with 7 rounds of qualifiers and 7 rounds of finals each in Swiss format. Standardplay games will be based on direct challenge matches on Chess.com, started by an arbiter. Faster time controls (Rapidplay, Blitz and Bullet) will be run as platform Swiss tournaments. Further details can be found in the Tournament Summary and Schedule.

Entries
Entry will be via an online form, with Single Qualifier and All Events options as follows –

• Single Championship Ticket – allows the player to take part in qualifiers for one championship, including one or more events at different time controls within that championship, subject to eligibility and playing schedule.
• All Events Ticket  – allows the player to take part in any/all championships they are eligible for, including one or more events at different time controls across championships, subject to eligibility and playing schedule.

Eligibility
In order to participate in these Championships, all players must either –

• Have a FIDE Nationality of ENG, IRL, SCO, WLS, GCI or JCI; or
• Have been continuously resident in England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Guernsey, Jersey or the Isle of Man since 1st January, 2020; or
• Be a British or Irish citizen.

All players must be members of their National Federation. English players should be members of the ECF at Supporter level or higher

Prizes
Championship titles will be awarded separately for each event (e.g. British Online Open Standardplay Champion or British Online Open Rapid Champion etc.)  Further details of the prizes will be published shortly and will include trophies and/or medals for the top placed finalists in all Championship events.

Regulations
Detailed competition regulations will be issued shortly, including details of arbiter arrangements. ECF Online Fair Play regulations will be in force at all times with tournament specific rules.

Ratings
All games will be rated in the ECF Online Rating List.

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