Pro-Biz Bios Michael Adams GM ELO Rating: 2716 4 times World Chess Championship candidate, FIDE World Championship finalist and 7-time British Chess Champion. Mickey Adams’ chess history begins in his native Cornwall where, as a young boy; he won the Cornish U9, U13, U15 and U18 championships all at the same event. Current top-rated English player, Mickey Adams is beyond doubt one of the finest chess players this country has produced. Place your Bid David Howell GM ELO Rating: 2658 Howell is one a cadre of English Millennial Grandmasters. He holds the distinction of being the youngest Briton ever to achieve the title of Grandmaster, which he achieved aged 16. But Howell was showing his prowess before becoming a teenager, he famously broke the world record to defeat a Grandmaster in an official Blitz game when he was aged just 8! Place your Bid Luke McShane GM ELO Rating: 2674 Without doubt the strongest player who is not a professional, McShane was a child chess prodigy who won the World Under 10 Chess Championship aged 8. McShane boasts incredible chess acumen being able to play at top level whilst not playing professionally. A regular at the London Chess Classic, the site of his 2010 victory over Magnus Carlsen and Rapidplay Open 2015 1st place win with 9.5/10. Place your Bid Gawain Jones GM ELO Rating: 2670 Gawain Jones GM holds a unique distinction amongst our Grandmasters, he managed to beat the charity’s own International Master Malcolm Pein; at the tender age of 9! Thus securing his world record holder of youngest to beat an IM. He went on to score 7/11 in the 97 World U10 Championship and nearly gained a medal in the 99 World U12. Since 2008 he has consistently been one of the country’s top chess players, having won an Individual Silver Medal playing for England at the 2019 World Team Championship. Place your Bid Matthew Sadler GM ELO Rating: 2694 No one treats their “hobby” quite like Matthew Sadler treats his chess hobby. Winning the British Championship in 1995 at the tender age of 21. He retired from professional chess in his 20s, only to return to with a vengeance later on! He jumped right back in o the World Top 100 in 2012 after a string of strong tournament performances, and now writes about the cutting-edge developments of Artificial Intelligence in Chess. Matthew has acted as a consultant for DeepMind on the AlphaZero project. Place your Bid Nick Pert GM ELO Rating: 2548 Nick Pert is just one of a whole family of competitive chess players (he will tell you the best of the lot, and its hard to disagree) having won the World U-18 Chess Championship in 1998. Nick Pert has represented England in Chess Olympiads since 2006. Like many before, Nick left professional chess to pursue academic studies. But the siren call of chess lured him back and in 2015 was the runner up in the Inaugural British Knockout Championship held at the London Chess Classic. Place your Bid John Nunn GM ELO Rating: 2568 If you expect tricky chess problems on your board, then John Nunn is the man for the task. 1975 European Junior Chess Champion and formerly in the world’s top ten chess players. John Nunn remains one of the finest Chess Problem Solvers in the world and a prolific chess author. Place your Bid Jon Speelman GM ELO Rating: 2503 A top English chess player since when he first took the British Chess Championship in 1978; Jon Speelman eliminated Nigel Short and progressed to the semi-final eliminator of the World Chess Championship in 1989. Nigel later quipped that he was able to secure his position England number one but was struggling to achieve hegemony in West Hampstead where they lived a mile or so apart. Acknowledged as one of the world’s leading experts on the endgame, Jon contributes regularly for Chessbase and can be found offering his insights on Twitch. Place your Bid Dagnė Čiukšytė IM ELO Rating: 2294 Dagnė is English chess player now but learnt her craft in her native Lithuania;so she has played for two national teams in the World, and European Team Champions for a decade. Her proudest achievement was qualifying for the Women’s Chess World Championship in Moscow 2001. She has one GM norm under her belt and focuses now on teaching students her accrued chess wisdom. Place your Bid Katarzyna Toma WGM ELO 2289 Katarzyna Toma (Woman Grandmaster) learned to ply her trade as a chess player in Poland, but has played for England since 2018. She works here as veterinarian, so her incising mind works across the the chess board just as well as in surgical theatre. She is the 2nd player in our line up to have played for two national chess teams. Having won the Europe Junior Championship in Novi Sad in 2001 to Coaching the South African Womens team for the Olympiad in 2014. Place your Bid Kanwal Bhatia WFM ELO 2010 Kanwal Bhatia made her debut for the England Women's Team in 2008 and has been a regular member of the national team since. Unlike every other chess maestro here, she is also an arbiter, but no ordinary one. Kanwal regularly performs as arbiter to Chessboxing, so whilst player her mind your manners and defend yourself at all times! She is also a two-time English Women's Champion. Away from the board, she is a machine learning researcher and founder of a sports technology start-up. Place your Bid Lorin D’Costa IM ELO Rating: 2381 In a Rapidplay tournament like this one, who better than a former British Rapidplay Champion? Lorin D’Costa was such a champion in 2016 with an unbeaten 9/11 points. One of the country’s top chess coaches; he has taught players who have gone on to compete in World, and European Youth Championships and captained the England Womens Chess Team at the last Olympiad. Place your Bid Marcus Harvey FM ELO Rating: 2440 Competitors will be keeping an eye on their Knights in this competition, but the real Dark Horse will be Marcus Harvey. Another young millennial whose 2500 rating is in arms reach, he won. Watch this space if there is an Adam-Harvey match. Near 300 rating points between them, but Marcus played Mickey at the last British KO, and Mickey only managed to beat him in their last game out of five! Place your Bid Ravi Haria IM ELO Rating: 2440 The youngest of our maestros, that only means he is more of a prodigal whizz kid the GMs need to worry about.The current holder of the British U21 title and regularly playing for the top chess team in the land (Wood Green), Ravi is well on his way to securing his GM title. Place your Bid Andy Horton FM ELO Rating: 2375 Securing his International Master title in 2018, Andrew has not rested on his laurels. Coronavirus has not stopped him from improving his play, if anything he is getting better. Andrew came 2nd in the English Online Blitz in May 2020; despite being seeded 8th and besting several IMs and GMs along the way. Now he is back and determined to claim more Grandmaster scalps… Place Your Bid