The University of Warwick last hosted the British Championships in 1970, when the writer played in the British Under-18 Championship. The university campus is situated on the very periphery of the built-up area of Coventry, nearer as the crow flies to Kenilworth than to the centre of Coventry. I found Kenilworth to be the preferable place to escape the chess hubbub for a while and access facilities such as off-campus cafes and shops.

As in 1970, in 2026 the Routes Building was the venue for most of the main events, with the Warwick Arts Centre housing some events.

Perusal of the list of entrants to the various competitions makes it apparent, at first sight, that the British Ladies’ Championship has been scrapped: bad news for WGM Lan Yao who finished 1st in that event in 2022 and 2023, then 1st= in 2024 and 2025. Perusal of the prize list, however, reveals that besides the 10 main non-gender-related place prizes ranging from 1st £10,000 to 10th £200, there are now 6 women’s place prizes ranging from 1st £3,000 to 6th £250. So, maybe this manner of merger of what were previously two separate events is in an improvement.

Perusal of the list of entrants to the British Championship itself reveals that only 2 of the 5-player pool for the team to represent England in the 2026 Olympiad to be held from 15th to 27th September 2026 at Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Whilst Michael Adams and Luke McShane are competing in the British, Nikita Vitiugov and Gawain Maroroa Jones, who by rating both rank higher than all other entrants to the British, and Daniel Fernandez who outranks all but the top two of the of the entrants, are not competing.

There are three playing slots, used differently by different events: AM (morning) starting at 9.15, PM (afternoon) starting at 14.30, and evening starting at 19.00. The 9-round main British Championship is played on the afternoons of 1st to 9th August. All such information about other sections can be found on the Championships website at https://www.britishchesschampionships.co.uk/. Daily live reports on YouTube are to be found at https://www.youtube.com/@EnglishChessFederation.

Entrants to the main British Championship are as follows.

Rank	Name	Title	Rating
1	Adams, Michael	GM	2622
2	McShane, Luke J	GM	2597
3	Royal, Shreyas	GM	2502
4	Grieve, Harry	IM	2502
5	Bazakutsa, Svyatoslav	IM	2495
6	Ghasi, Ameet K	GM	2494
7	Harvey, Marcus R	IM	2470
8	Czopor, Maciej	IM	2458
9	Williams, Simon K	GM	2455
10	Waldhausen Gordon, Frederick	IM	2450
11	Willow, Jonah B	IM	2450
12	Mahadevan, Siva	IM	2448
13	Roberson, Peter T	IM	2439
14	Han, Yichen	IM	2437
15	Gordon, Stephen J	GM	2429
16	Kanyamarala, Tarun	IM	2426
17	Pert, Richard G	IM	2410
18	McDonald, Neil R	GM	2399
19	Golding, Alex	IM	2389
20	Jackson, James P	IM	2381
21	Sivanandan, Bodhana	FM	2359
22	Chow, Sam	FM	2358
23	Hebden, Mark L	GM	2345
24	Fava, Lorenzo	FM	2343
25	Banerjee, Supratit	FM	2342
26	Vijayakumar, Rishi	FM	2332
27	Badacsonyi, Stanley	FM	2325
28	Wells, Peter K	GM	2318
29	Balaji, Aaravamudhan	IM	2315
30	Han, Qixiang	FM	2311
31	Ledger, Andrew J	IM	2308
32	Yao, Lan	WGM	2308
33	Vaidyanathan, Adithya	FM	2307
34	Fitzsimons, David	IM	2307
35	Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan E	GM	2305
36	Mirzoeva, Elmira	WGM	2287
37	Turner, Max N	CM	2286
38	Bates, Richard A	IM	2286
39	Bezuidenhout, Roland	FM	2284
40	Davies, Nigel R	GM	2276
41	He, Tom Junde	FM	2266
42	Verbytski, Oleg		2260
43	Shearsby, Jude	FM	2254
44	Pigott, John C	IM	2254
45	Rudd, Jack	IM	2253
46	Murawski, Jan	CM	2251
47	Cancedda-Dupuis, Livio		2250
48	Norris, Zack	CM	2244
49	Hobson, Kenneth	FM	2244
50	Badacsonyi, Frankie	FM	2241
51	Lishoy Gengis Paratazham, Dildarav	CM	2233
52	Cummings, David H	IM	2233
53	Bowcott-Terry, Finlay		2232
54	Saunders, Aron		2225
55	Blackburn, Jonathan LB	FM	2221
56	Mannion, Steve R	IM	2220
57	Dupuis, Denis K	CM	2217
58	Toma, Katarzyna	WGM	2208
59	Kanyamarala, Trisha	WGM	2191
60	Stubbs, Oliver	CM	2187
61	Raju, Sooraj Menothuparambil		2186
62	Carroll, Thomas	NM	2184
63	Brahme, Avadhoot Lokesh		2183
64	Dicen, Elis Denele	WFM	2182
65	Varnam, Liam D	FM	2178
66	Crawford, Owen		2174
67	Khoury, Theo	FM	2172
68	Cont, Arya		2171
69	Majeed, Haroon		2171
70	Elgar, Tim		2166
71	Baker, Chris W	IM	2161
72	Deepak Ambattu, Rithvik	CM	2155
73	Wall, Tim P	FM	2154
74	Kolani, Arjun		2137
75	Fellowes, Billy	CM	2132
76	Hill, Alistair		2129
77	Cheng, Louis		2118
78	Nicholas, Koichi B		2114
79	Lentzos, Ioannis	CM	2110
80	Potter, John M		2094
81	Blackford, Ross		2091
82	Quaite, Toby		2085
83	Tahmankar, Mandar		2085
84	Patel, Zain		2082
85	Green, Michael		2072
86	Rida, Ruqayyah	WFM	2064
87	Sharma, Devesh		2063
88	Davis, Colin J		2056
89	Bhatia, Kanishka	WCM	2056
90	Rughani, Mahin		2054
91	Rich, Aaron	CM	2046
92	Terler, Bohdan		2035
93	Thomas, James		2005
94	Sefton, Adam		2003
95	Jermy, Jaden		2001
96	Zhao, George	CM	1998
97	Friar, Joseph D		1994
98	Gunatilake, Vinuda	CM	1993
99	Ortiz Sanchez, Luis		1977
100	Hariharan, Shambavi	WFM	1977
101	Vaddhireddy, Sai		1974
102	Camp, Imogen AL	WCM	1964
103	Cooke, Suzy G	WFM	1934
104	Nevska, Gerda	WCM	1860
105	Chapman, Luke		1856
106	Ruddy, Rachel	WCM	1681