In what has become an annual 24-hour charity chess marathon organized by the English Chess Federation, the British Red Cross Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) raised over £18,000 ($23,636) last weekend for its Ukraine crisis appeal. GM Keith Arkell emerged as the winner of the marathon like last year.
The English Chess Federation’s 24-hour charity marathon for Ukraine took place during April 2-3, 2022 on Chess.com. There was an impressive turnout of English GMs, WGMs, IMs, and WIMs playing and/or streaming as part of the round-the-clock commentary stream that was also broadcast on Chess.com/TV, which matched up to $1,000 of donations for an hour.
One place for donations was the website Tiltify, and it is still accepting donatations.
Titled players and others taking part included GM Michael Adams, GM Matthew Sadler, GM Keith Arkell, GM Mark Hebden, GM Peter Wells, GM John Emms, GM Chris Ward, GM Jon Speelman, IM Chris Baker, WFM Kanwal Bhatia, WIM Natasha Regan, IM Tom Rendle, IM Ali Mortazavi, MrDodgy, WFM Shohreh Bayat, FM Jonathan Blackburn, and Freddy Gordon.
A big contingent of Ukrainian players joined the broadcast as well, including GM Mikhail Golubev, IM Viktor Skliarov, Oleksander Matlak (Executive Director of the Kyiv Chess Federation), Mykola Fuzik, Mikhail Safronov (who finished sixth), and others joining from Kiev and other parts of Ukraine.
A total of 461 competitors joined the event with over 6,000 games played in total during the 24 hours, making it the largest ECF marathon to date. Arkell, who played all 24 hours, won the marathon with a massive score of 728 points with 204 wins, 21 losses, and 23 draws across 248 games. Baker came in second with 399 points and Hebden third with 386 points. A full list of standings and games can be found here.
In 2020, an estimated £10,000 (over $12,000) was raised for the British Red Cross in the fight against the coronavirus. In June 2021, another Covid-related marathon was held where over £5,000 was raised.
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