Winning chess championships is only for the young? John Nunn disagrees. At age 70, he has won the 2026 Winton British Chess Solving Championship.
The Championship is held every year, and this year was at the elegant venue of Harrow School, on February 21st. The event consists of six rounds, each round having a different type of chess problem, including two-, three- and more-movers, helpmates, selfmates, and endgame studies. Competitors have to work out what the solution is, write down their answer, and they get points for how complete their answer to each problem is.
John won by the narrowest of margins, just ahead of David Hodge, the winner in 2023, 2024, and 2025. David nearly overtook John on the very last problem but was still writing down his solution to it when he ran out of time.
This win adds to John's many previous chess titles, both over-the-board and in solving. He was the World Chess Solving Champion in 2004, 2007, and 2010.
An Open event is held at the same time, and competitors in it have to solve the same chess problems as those in the British Championship. This was won by Joost Michielsen of the Netherlands. There's also a Minor event, with problems a little easier than those in the Championship and Open, and it has prizes for both overseas and British solvers. The British Minor was won by a new talent, and the youngest solver at any of the events – junior solver, Maksym Kryshtafor.
The competitions were generously sponsored by Winton, the quantitative investment management firm (winton.com).
You can find the full Championship results and problems on this site:
https://solving.wfcc.ch/wsc/2025-2026/info.html
The Minor results and problems are here:
https://solving.wfcc.ch/tourneys/2026/other-rst-2026.html
More information is available from Ian Watson ([email protected]).