We wish FM William Claridge-Hansen all the best on his birthday.

William Joseph Claridge-Hansen was born on Saturday, September 11th in 1999 in Chesham in the registration district of Chiltern, Buckinghamshire.

“Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit of …)” by Lou Bega was top of the UK singles chart.

William learnt chess at the age of 5 and his father Hans-Peter, is a strong county player having been over 200ECF for a number of years.

William is a keen table-tennis player as is his chess playing brother, Douglas. His father Hans-Peter is also a strong chess player.

Whilst living in Chartridge William attended Great Missenden Church of England School and whilst there was selected for England:

William attends The University of Exeter and resides in London.

William plays for Exeter University, Buckinghamshire CCA and 4NCL Oxfordshire and has a current ECF grading for 230B and a FIDE rating of 2290 for standard play.

His first BCF / ECF grading was 63D in July 2008 aged 8.

His first title was to win the West of England Junior (U12 Challengers) in 2008 with 5.5/6 and followed by sharing the British U8 title with Mark Kenyon & Rohan Shiatis. In the following year William shared the British U10 title with future IM Matthew Wadsworth

He was rapidly recruited to the AMCA (Andrew Martin Chess Academy) 4NCL squad and quickly climbed the board order within the squad. The AMCA squad morphed into the BCM (British Chess Magazine) squad.

In 2013 William won (with 6/7) the British U-13 Championship in Torquay.

In 2015 William became a FIDE Master.

[pgn]
[Event “Coulsdon Jessie Gilbert 10th”]
[Site “Coulsdon”]
[Date “2017.08.24”]
[Round “7”]
[White “Claridge Hansen, William”]
[Black “Wall, Gavin”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “A21”]
[WhiteElo “2273”]
[BlackElo “2329”]
[Annotator “British Chess News”]
[PlyCount “57”]
[EventDate “2017.08.21”]
[EventType “tourn”]
[EventRounds “9”]
[EventCountry “ENG”]
[SourceTitle “CBM 180 Extra”]
[Source “ChessBase”]
[SourceDate “2017.10.06”]
[SourceVersion “1”]
[SourceVersionDate “2017.10.06”]
[SourceQuality “1”]

{[%evp 0,57,19,-12,31,26,23,-10,32,14,19,12,6,-47,-33,-23,-5,-6,-17,1,1,-7,8,9,
66,34,29,60,58,57,31,62,65,49,35,8,43,39,77,87,138,101,138,138,151,147,245,245,
251,251,223,242,225,225,225,246,251,293,276,274]} 1. c4 f5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 d6
4. Nc3 e5 5. d3 Be7 6. e4 fxe4 7. dxe4 O-O 8. Nge2 c6 9. O-O Be6 10. b3 Qd7 (
10… a6) 11. f4 exf4 {[#]} 12. gxf4 $1 $146 (12. Nxf4 {is also fine}) 12…
Bh3 13. f5 (13. Ba3) 13… Bxg2 14. Kxg2 Na6 15. Nd4 Nc7 16. Qf3 Qe8 17. Ba3
Nd7 18. Rad1 Ne5 19. Qg3 Rf6 $6 20. Nf3 $16 Nf7 21. c5 $1 {[%cal Gg3c7]} Rd8
22. cxd6 Bxd6 23. e5 $1 Bxe5 24. Rxd8 Bxg3 25. Rxe8+ Nxe8 26. hxg3 $18 Rxf5 27.
g4 Rf4 28. Kg3 g5 29. Bc1 {and Black resigned} 1-0
[/pgn]

In 2016 William was British U-18 Champion and now had an ECF grading of 220. He scored 7/11 in the British Championship.

By now William was playing for Oxford in the Four Nations Chess League.

With the white pieces William plays the English Opening with an early king side fianchetto.

As the second player William plays the Hyper Accelerated Dragon and the Queen’s Indian Defence so clearly a student of the Hypermodern School of the 1920s!

In December 2021 William competed in the 2nd EJCOA Forest Hall Invitational event and gained his first FIDE International Master norm with a score of 6/9 and TPR of 2472.

[pgn]
[Event “GBR-ch 103rd”]
[Site “Bournemouth”]
[Date “2016.07.29”]
[Round “5”]
[White “Claridge-Hansen, William”]
[Black “Oyama, Akito”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “A36”]
[WhiteElo “2299”]
[BlackElo “2183”]
[Annotator “British Chess News”]
[PlyCount “87”]
[EventDate “2016.07.25”]
[EventType “swiss”]
[EventRounds “11”]
[EventCountry “ENG”]
[SourceTitle “CBM 173 Extra”]
[Source “ChessBase”]
[SourceDate “2016.08.29”]
[SourceVersion “1”]
[SourceVersionDate “2016.08.29”]
[SourceQuality “1”]

{[%evp 0,87,20,-27,12,25,11,18,0,14,3,3,46,6,-35,-57,-16,-52,-28,-20,-26,-72,1,
12,69,57,57,73,80,64,92,111,116,69,79,81,174,154,149,101,124,84,144,149,162,
159,158,166,158,165,164,164,98,123,227,221,276,274,263,204,230,210,247,252,234,
253,268,100,155,44,54,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,611,612,607,607,603,603,29993,29994,29995,
29996,29997,29998]} 1. c4 c5 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 Bg7 4. Nc3 Nc6 5. a3 e6 6. Rb1
Nge7 7. b4 d6 8. e3 cxb4 9. axb4 d5 10. c5 e5 11. b5 Nb8 $6 (11… Na5 $142)
12. d4 Bf5 13. Ra1 e4 14. Qb3 Be6 15. Nge2 O-O 16. Ra3 Nd7 17. Nf4 g5 $2 18.
Nxe6 fxe6 19. Bh3 (19. Nxe4 $142 dxe4 20. Qxe6+ Kh8 21. Qxe4 $18) 19… Rf6 20.
Qa2 Rh6 21. Bg4 Qc8 22. Bd2 a6 23. Be2 Nb8 24. Ra5 Qd8 25. Na4 e5 $6 (25… Nd7
$142) 26. dxe5 (26. Nb6 Ra7 27. dxe5 Kh8 28. Bg4 $18) 26… Bxe5 27. Nb6 Ra7
28. Nxd5 Nxd5 29. b6 Ra8 30. Bc4 Kg7 31. Bxd5 Nc6 32. Ra4 Qe7 33. Rxe4 Qxc5 34.
Bxc6 (34. Qc4 $142) 34… Qxc6 35. Rxe5 $5 Qxh1+ 36. Ke2 Rf6 37. Rxg5+ Kh6 38.
Rf5 $11 Rxf5 $2 (38… Raf8 $142 $11) 39. Qe6+ $18 Kg7 40. Bc3+ Kf8 41. Qxf5+
Ke7 42. Bb4+ Kd8 43. Qf8+ Kd7 44. Qd6+ 1-0
[/pgn]