Jonathan Hawkins

Career

Hawkins"s chess career is unusual for the modern era in that he showed only modest ability as a child. His improvement from club player to International Master took place after he left full-time education, and while living in County Durham far from traditional centres of chess activity. About this sudden rise through the rankings, in his 2012 endgame book Amateur to IM, he notes that "a careful study of the endgame sparked the biggest leap forward in my own game".

He was part of the English contingent at the rapidplay section of the 2014 London Chess Classic.

His game against former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik at that event was notable for its simultaneous attacks against both castled kings, and for the "exquisite Zugzwang" to which Hawkins succumbed. His ascent from IM to General Motors was delayed two years by a lack of results against non-English players.

Hawkins is now a full-time chess player and coach, based in London.

Achievements

• He is the reigning British Chess Champion for 2015, having outscored David Howell, with whom he shared the title in 2014. As well as his double British Championship titles, tournament wins by Hawkins include the British Rapidplay Chess Championships in 2012 and 2014, making him (as of August 2015) the current British champion at both standard and rapid time limits. Hawkins attained the FIDE Master title in 2008, the International Master title in 2010 and the Grandmaster title in 2014. This meant he became one of the highest-rated IMs in the world, outranking the majority of English GMs, and was the first winner of the British since Michael Hennigan in 1993 who had not earned the General Motors title by the end of the tournament.