2025 Simultaneous Exhibition

International master Jose Camacho Collados playing Cardiff Chess Club
Images at the bottom of the page

In this year’s 2025 Summer Programme, we have once again hosted a simultaneous exhibition with IM Jose Camacho Collados. Jose is currently the highest rated player in Wales in both FIDE and WCU ratings. As of April this year, he is also now the Welsh Champion!

As with last year, there were 23 challengers all rated below 2000, ranging from beginners to experienced nearing the 2000 mark. Although he was offered the option of facing fewer opponents, Jose chose to play the same number as before to give as many players as possible the opportunity to take part in this unique experience.

Despite the average elo of the challengers being approximately 40 lower this year, they seemed to be putting up a tougher fight. After 1 hour, pretty much every board was locked in a competitive battle with no clear result in sight.

Around the 2hr mark, most of the games were still ongoing. I was genuinely surprised by how much resistance everyone was putting up. With the YMCA’s closing time approaching, Jose had to speed up considerably. I was quite worried that this would result in a total collapse of his concentration. However, it seemed his blitz/bullet skills were on show and he ended up losing only 1 game in the whole event despite everything.

The final results for Jose were:
Wins: 16
Draws: 6
Losses: 1

That’s 19-4. A very admirable score. The challengers managed to squeeze one extra half point compared to last year (19.5-3.5).

Congratulations to Piotr Graczyk for being the sole winner!
Congratulations to Bill Harle, Jeff Rowland, Emma Kong, Peter Quinn, Bertie Carvey and Nick van Noorden for holding the master to a draw.

A few players sent me their games, including the winner, naturally. I’ll take a quick look at some of the more interesting positions.

First up is the second highest rated challenger (1975) and one of the trickiest players in Wales – Jake Hurley. I believe his plan was to make the game as complicated as possible hoping the master wouldn’t be able to keep up while juggling so many boards. After an interesting opening and a few gambles taken, Jake found himself in this position:

Jose has just played Qxh5 (grabbing a pawn). If things calm down, black will be in a losing endgame given how many pawns have been taken. Can you spot the only sequence for black to stay in the game?

Click here for solution

1…Nxc2+ 2.Bxc2 Bxf2+! 3.Kxf2 Rxd2+ 4.Ke1 Rxc2 5.Qxf5+ Kb8 and black will get enough pawns back for the piece. Although the engine still likes white, the white king is stuck in the middle and black can at least fight. Jake managed to equalise about 10 moves later but in the end Jose did manage to convert the endgame.

The next position comes from the highest rated challenger Nick van Noorden (1980). The game as a whole was quite strange and I still don’t feel I understand completely what is going on.

In this position, Jose (white) is up a pawn having grabbed it with Bxf7. The point being that black doesn’t win a piece with gxf5 due to Bxh5 winning it back. Nick instead played Bg5. This reveals the queen and threatens Qxf7. White has only one move to keep the advantage.

Click here for solution

1.Bxg6+! This needs to be played. If white retreats the bishop then that trick of winning the knight on h5 doesn’t work anymore. 1…Kxg6. So white is now down a piece for two pawns. You could argue that this is ok as the black king is being dragged into the open, but Jose can demand more. 2.h4! Bf6 3.g3 Ne6. The knight is kicked away leaving the knight on h5 defended only by the king on g6. To sort the king out you can play Qg4+ and you will win your piece back.

Nick is a strong player and foresaw that he was losing too much material. So he decided to complicate further. Instead of 3…Ne6 he played 3…Rg8 counter attacking down the g-file. A complete mess! White is better with accurate play.

From here, the eval swung back and forth. At one point, Nick (black) managed to get a winning position but he wasn’t able to find the precise move. In the following position, Nick played the natural Rxh4+. But the white king runs away. Later the queens trade and the players agreed a draw. Can you find the move that would have taken down the master?

Click here for solution

1…Qg8! Only move. It is important to keep the rook on the g-file and so keep the king on the h-file. Now the threat is Rxh4. White can’t play Kh3 as the bishop also attacks the h-pawn so Rxh4 would be mate. White has literally no choice but to give up the queen to stop mate. From there it should be trivial to win.

In hindsight it seems obvious, but to actually pick that move out as a candidate is not so easy!

And now the final game from Piotr (the winner). The game started out naturally. Jose seemed to gradually build an advantage. His pieces looked a bit nicer. Piotr played an interesting Qc8 creating a battery with his bishop on d7. Potentially causing problems for white’s king in the future.

Jose must have completely forgotten about the unorthodox Qc8 move when he returned to the board because he blundered horribly with Nf5?? A free knight!

However, if I were white, I would definitely not resign just yet. White will get a lot of tempi in the form of e4 and f4 and despite being a piece down, white’s pieces are well placed for an attack. Piotr needed to be careful. For anyone who has played LeelaKnightOdds, you have probably been conditioned to be terrified of such tempo gaining moves. They can get out of control!

Piotr however handled it perfectly. Jose was never able to get into the game.

In the following position, although not the only move, what is a fun idea for black to dampen white’s initiative?

Click here for solution

1…Neg4+! Not the only move, but a practical one. Piotr clearly saw two rooks and a queen all just waiting to be forked on e3. 2.hxg4 Nxg4+ 3.Kh1 Ne3 family fork! Very satisfying.

Just to be extra precise, Piotr finished the combination with an …f5! which stops the pawn storm in its tracks.