BCN wishes Happy Birthday to GM Daniel Fernandez who at 26 is currently England’s youngest Grandmaster. The previous GM title holder was Jonathan Hawkins in 2014 making two in seven years.

Daniel Howard Fernandez was born in Stockport, Manchester on Sunday, March 5th 1995.  “Think Twice” by Celine Dion was top of the UK hit parade.

Daniel started playing chess at the age of seven (after his father taught him the rules) and at this time attended King’s School, Harpenden.  His first chess club was Little Heath which became the ECF Small Club of the Year in 2015. They play in the Potter’s Bar area and include IM John Pigott in their membership.

At Little Heath Chess Club Daniel was coached by Mark Uniacke (who worked extensively on the early chess engine HIARCS).

Daniel went up to Queen’s College, Cambridge to read mathematics and left to become a Data Analyst at Mu Sigma Inc. He can speak several languages (including Serbian!) and works as a translator when opportunities arise.

He currently lives in Australia offering coaching and writing chess books (for Thinkers Publishing) and columns for Chessbase. In his spare time (!) Daniel is studying for The Master of Complex Systems degree at The University of Sydney.

Daniel’s first ECF graded game was rapidplay on July 5th 2003 in the SCCU Junior Under-14 Final.

His first standard play game was in August 2003 at the Edinburgh based British Under-8 Championship.

Daniels ECF grading profile demonstrated rapid improvement :

On August 13th 2004 in Scarborough Daniel became British Under-9 Champion sharing the title with Daniel Hunt & Saravanan Sathyanandha.

The Fernandez family relocated to Singapore in August, Daniel attending the Anglo-Chinese School in Singapore. He was swiftly recruited into the Singapore Chess Federation’s (SCF) National Junior Squad. Also in that squad were Danielle Ho and Howard Chiu (remember this for later!).

Barely three weeks after his Scarborough triumph on September 4th 2004 Daniel played his first FIDE rated game in the 5th Asian Under-10 Championship organised by the ASEAN Chess Confederation. His performance in this event was rewarded with a FIDE Master title in 2005. Because he was no longer active in English events the ECF had the unusual scenario of having a ten year old FIDE Master with a published grade of ~120!

In typically modest fashion Daniel confesses  that he did not “deserve” the FM title at this time and that it was the consequence of the strong position of the ASEAN and SCF organisations  within world chess. At the same event Wesley So gained his FM title in the Under-12 section.

Another interesting consequence of the relocation was that when Daniel returned to England in 2012 his last published grading went from ~ 120 to ~230!

One of the motivations of  returning to England was to obtain the necessary entrance requirement to study mathematics at Cambridge. This he did by studying for A-levels at Manchester Grammar School.

Consequently Daniel’s FIDE rating profile also showed a fast pace of development:

Sydney 2009 and Sydney 2010 both provided IM norms with the third one coming from Kuala Lumpar 2010 and with these Daniel became an International Master in 2010 the title being confirmed at the 3rd quarter Presidential Board Meeting 2010, 24-25 July 2010, Tromso in Norway.

He won the Budapest Sarkany Tournament in 2014 as follows:

earning his first GM norm in the process.

BCN asked Daniel for three of his favourite games. The first one is this Polish Defence game from 2015 played at the Visma Arena in Vaxjo, Sweden. First we have the crosstable showing that Daniel earnt his second GM norm from this event.

and here is the game:

[pgn]
[Event “Vaxjo Visma GM”]
[Site “Vaxjo”]
[Date “2015.06.27”]
[Round “7”]
[White “Smith, Axel”]
[Black “Fernandez, Daniel Howard”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “B00”]
[WhiteElo “2452”]
[BlackElo “2447”]
[Annotator “British Chess News”]
[PlyCount “86”]
[EventDate “2015.06.24”]
[EventType “tourn”]
[EventRounds “9”]
[EventCountry “SWE”]
[EventCategory “10”]
[SourceTitle “CBM 167 Extra”]
[Source “ChessBase”]
[SourceDate “2015.09.14”]
[SourceVersion “1”]
[SourceVersionDate “2015.09.14”]
[SourceQuality “1”]

{[%evp 0,86,63,13,126,116,101,97,97,97,84,96,96,57,79,51,50,52,38,58,82,70,93,
31,-1,-22,-19,-35,-16,-50,29,-1,0,-22,-36,-36,-36,-92,-81,-92,-84,-82,-73,-104,
-95,-79,-36,-33,-51,-74,-42,-51,-51,-91,-86,-99,-91,-87,-87,-82,-105,-100,-127,
-111,-148,-160,-139,-127,-136,-254,-164,-257,-259,-257,-309,-663,-691,-933,
-153,-747,-809,-824,-875,-986,-1014,-2303,-2794,-29999,-30000]} 1. d4 b5 {
The Polish Defence as used by Spassky against Petrosian.} 2. e4 a6 3. Nf3 {
When is it the right time for White to play a4?} Bb7 4. Bd3 e6 5. O-O c5 6. c3
d6 ({more common is} 6… Nf6 7. Re1 Be7 8. Bg5) 7. Re1 Nd7 8. Nbd2 Qc7 {
A rare choice but must be reasonable.} (8… Be7 9. Nf1 Ngf6 10. Ng3 O-O 11. h3
Qc7) 9. a4 $18 {[#] and eventually we get the thematic break against …b5 The
engines are complimentary of White’s position.} c4 10. Bb1 $6 {This would
appear to be a strange decision.} (10. Bf1 {Maintaining the presssure on
Black’s pawns must be superior.}) 10… Be7 11. Nf1 {You’d imagine that b3 at
some point would make sense leaving the pressure on c4.} Ngf6 12. Ng3 O-O 13.
h4 Rfe8 14. h5 {White seems to be struggling to find a decent plan.} e5 15. Nf5
Bf8 16. axb5 axb5 17. Rxa8 Rxa8 18. Nd2 g6 $1 {If Black can expell the knight
on f5 then probably he is better.} 19. hxg6 hxg6 $17 20. Ne3 Bg7 {Strong
pointing e5 further.} 21. d5 Nc5 {[#] Black is gaining the upper hand.} 22.
Ng4 Bc8 23. Nxf6+ Bxf6 24. Qf3 Bg5 25. Nf1 Qe7 26. Ne3 Nb3 27. Bc2 Nxc1 28.
Rxc1 {Black can now really dominate the dark squares.} Ra2 29. b3 Qa7 30. bxc4
bxc4 31. Qe2 {[#]} Bg4 $1 {Ouch! Perhaps White had missed this shot?} 32. Qe1
Bxe3 33. fxe3 Qa3 $1 {and it is all over bar the shouting…} 34. Kh2 (34. Rb1
Rxc2 35. Rb8+ Kg7 36. Qh4 Qc1+ (36… Bh5 37. Qe7 Qc1+ 38. Kh2 Rxg2+ $1 39.
Kxg2 Qd2+ 40. Kg3 Qe1+ 41. Kh2 Qe2+ 42. Kh3 Qf1+ 43. Kh4) 37. Kh2 Bh5) 34…
Kg7 35. Qf1 Be2 $1 36. Qe1 Qb2 37. Bb1 Ra1 38. Rc2 Qxb1 (38… Qxc2 $1 {
is more efficient} 39. Bxc2 Rxe1) 39. Qxe2 $2 (39. Qxb1 Rxb1 40. Rxe2 {is a
better defence.}) 39… Qg1+ 40. Kg3 Re1 41. Qf2 Rxe3+ $1 42. Kg4 Qd1+ 43. Kg5
Qh5# 0-1
[/pgn]

and during the 2015/15 4NCL season Daniel obtained his final GM norm playing for Wood Green.

In March 2015 he made his first of three Varsity match appearences for Cambridge re-uniting with Danielle Ho and Howard Chiu (remember those names from earlier?).

Daniel won the 10th Jessie Gilbert Memorial in 2017:

and also in 2017 Daniel was awarded the Grandmaster title at the 88th FIDE Congress 2017, 7-15 October, Goynuk, Antalya, Turkey.

On March 11th Daniel represented Cambridge in the 135th Varsity Match at the RAC Club in Pall Mall.  According to chess24.com ‘IM Daniel Fernandez, playing board 2 for Cambridge, was awarded the Brilliancy Prize by GM Ray Keene in consultation with McShane and Speelman, for his “high-class swindle” after recovering from a bad blunder.’ See here for details.

In 2018 Daniel ventured into the world of book writing when Thinker’s Publishing released The Modernized Caro-Kann on September 8th 2018.  This was a repertoire book for Black based around the Smyslov Variation :

[fen]r1bqkbnr/pp1npppp/2p5/8/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq – 0 1[/fen]

and was reviewed in this place favourably and quickly established Daniel as a significant author.

From the rear cover we have:

“GM Daniel Fernandez (born 1995) has been an active and accomplished player for several years. He represented his native Singapore twice at Olympiads (2010 and 2012) before transferring to the English chess federation. There, he won the national classical titles at U-18 and U-21 levels and worked to become a Grandmaster while simultaneously studying at Cambridge. The Caro-Kann was instrumental in his quest for that title. Currently, Daniel is known in the chess scene not only as a solid player, but also as a mentor figure to younger English players, as a producer of well-received commentary and analysis, and as a multilingual chess coach. This is his first book.”

From January 2019 we have this interesting encounter between Gawain Jones and Daniel from the annual 4NCL meeting of Guildford and Wood Green:

[pgn]
[Event “BCF-chTa 1819 (4NCL)”]
[Site “Daventry”]
[Date “2019.01.13”]
[Round “4.13”]
[White “Jones, Gawain C B”]
[Black “Fernandez, Daniel Howard”]
[Result “1/2-1/2”]
[ECO “B12”]
[WhiteElo “2691”]
[BlackElo “2465”]
[Annotator “British Chess News”]
[PlyCount “124”]
[EventDate “2018.11.10”]
[EventType “team-tourn”]
[EventRounds “11”]
[EventCountry “ENG”]
[SourceTitle “CBM 188 Extra”]
[Source “ChessBase”]
[SourceDate “2019.02.26”]
[SourceVersion “1”]
[SourceVersionDate “2019.02.26”]
[SourceQuality “1”]
[WhiteTeam “Guildford”]
[BlackTeam “Wood Green”]
[WhiteTeamCountry “ENG”]
[BlackTeamCountry “ENG”]

{[%evp 0,124,21,36,69,63,74,50,56,34,45,48,52,37,37,37,46,8,46,16,76,62,52,40,
40,13,13,29,32,28,16,22,24,9,9,14,15,11,11,-15,33,8,42,8,-4,-4,0,0,-14,0,0,-63,
-75,-75,-21,-61,-23,-91,-96,-75,-106,-110,-113,-111,-111,-111,-111,-111,-111,
-111,-111,-111,-78,-102,-123,-119,-124,-122,-122,-128,-128,-125,-82,-62,-92,
-111,-102,-130,-126,-123,-137,-182,-142,-164,-127,-127,-127,-127,-122,-202,
-196,-196,-209,-204,-173,-242,-218,-303,-244,-244,-244,-244,-242,-222,-98,-98,
-89,-87,-57,-52,-26,-31,-9,-13,-11,-8,-8]} 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. h4 h5
5. Bd3 (5. c4) 5… Bxd3 6. Qxd3 e6 7. Bg5 Qb6 8. Nd2 Ne7 (8… c5) 9. Ngf3 Qa6
10. c4 Nf5 11. O-O Bb4 12. b3 Nd7 13. Rfd1 O-O 14. a3 $146 (14. Nf1) 14… Bxd2
15. Rxd2 Nb6 16. c5 Qxd3 17. Rxd3 Nd7 $11 18. b4 {[#]} b6 $1 19. Rc1 $6 (19.
Rb3 f6) 19… Rfc8 {Black now proceeds to outplay his higher rated opponent.} (
19… bxc5 20. bxc5 Rfb8 $17) 20. Bd2 f6 21. Re1 Kf7 22. g3 bxc5 23. bxc5 Rcb8
24. Bf4 Rb2 25. Rdd1 Rb3 26. Kg2 a5 27. a4 Ra7 28. Re2 Rab7 29. Ra2 Rc3 30.
Raa1 Rbb3 31. Nd2 Rb2 32. exf6 gxf6 33. Nf3 Rbb3 34. Nd2 Rb4 35. Nf3 Rcc4 36.
Rab1 Kg6 37. Bd6 Rxb1 38. Rxb1 Nxd4 39. Nxd4 Rxd4 40. Rb6 Ne5 41. Bxe5 fxe5 42.
Rxc6 Kf6 {[#]} 43. Ra6 $2 (43. Rc8 Rxa4 44. Rf8+ Ke7 45. Rh8 e4 $19) 43… Rxa4
$19 {Black has the upper hand.} 44. f3 d4 45. Ra7 Ra2+ 46. Kf1 Ra3 47. Kf2 e4
48. fxe4 Ke5 49. g4 hxg4 50. h5 Rf3+ 51. Kg2 Kxe4 {Surely Black is winning?}
52. c6 Rc3 53. Rc7 d3 ({Better is} 53… Kd5 {but White’s h-pawn is little
concerning.}) 54. h6 d2 55. Rd7 Rxc6 $6 (55… Rd3 56. Rxd3 Kxd3 57. c7 d1=Q
58. c8=Q Qf3+ 59. Kg1) 56. h7 Rc8 $6 {Sadly this lets the win slip.} ({Better
was} 56… Rc2 57. Kf1 d1=Q+ 58. Rxd1 Rh2) 57. Rxd2 Rh8 58. Rd7 Kf5 59. Kg3 a4
60. Rf7+ Ke5 61. Kxg4 a3 62. Ra7 a2 {and the position is drawn.} 1/2-1/2
[/pgn]

With the White pieces Daniel has played  a wide range of first moves but the majority move by far is 1.e4. His choice versus the Najdorf is some eclectic : sometime ago 6. Rg1 was the favourite and now 6.a4 is preferred.

[fen]rnbqkb1r/1p2pppp/p2p1n2/8/3NP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKBR1 b KQkq – 0 1[/fen]

Against 1…e5 Daniel offers a main line Ruy Lopez.

What does a Caro-Kann expert play against the Caro-Kann? Nowadays the Two Knights Variation is employed!

As the second player he plays the Sicilian Najdorf as well as the Caro-Kann plus an equal mixture of the Grünfeld and King’s Indian Defences.

In 2019 Daniel was interviewed by Edwin Lam on behalf of ChessBase : fascinating reading!

In the same year Daniel joined IM Adam Taylor’s venture Making Grandmasters.

Our final games is from July 2019 :

[pgn]
[Event “Gent Eastman op 42nd”]
[Site “Gent”]
[Date “2019.07.22”]
[Round “6”]
[White “Fernandez, Daniel Howard”]
[Black “Michiels, Bart”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “A03”]
[WhiteElo “2466”]
[BlackElo “2563”]
[Annotator “British Chess News”]
[PlyCount “63”]
[EventDate “2019.07.20”]
[EventType “swiss”]
[EventRounds “9”]
[EventCountry “BEL”]
[SourceTitle “CBM 191 Extra”]
[Source “ChessBase”]
[SourceDate “2019.09.30”]
[SourceVersion “1”]
[SourceVersionDate “2019.09.30”]
[SourceQuality “1”]

{[%evp 0,63,19,-30,-33,-42,-34,-34,-35,-26,-27,-27,-5,-28,-2,5,14,-30,-62,-77,
-39,-90,-40,-79,-59,-73,-56,-52,-37,-37,-38,-105,44,60,63,56,98,17,60,3,86,32,
61,68,65,66,96,95,118,109,136,153,132,211,211,202,269,280,383,424,450,477,542,
539,782,836]} 1. f4 d5 2. b3 {Larsen would have been proud!} Nf6 3. Bb2 Bf5 4.
Nf3 e6 5. e3 h6 {Black creates a luft on h7 for his light squared bishop.
Otherwise with a knight on e5 combined with a h-pawn push Black could get into
trouble. You might not think it but …h6 scores best for Black and is
labelled “Hot” by Megabase 2020.} (5… Be7 6. Be2 O-O 7. O-O c5 8. Ne5 h6 9.
d3 {is a more usual way to proceed.}) 6. h3 (6. Be2 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. Ne5 Nbd7
9. d3 Nxe5 10. Bxe5 Nd7 11. Bb2 Bf6 12. d4 c5) {The first appearence for this
TN.} 6… a5 $146 7. g4 Bh7 {As facilitated by h6….} {Now pause the video….
} 8. Bxf6 $5 {I bet you did not predict this capture and nor did I!} Qxf6 9. d4
a4 (9… c5) 10. bxa4 g5 $1 11. fxg5 hxg5 $17 {I’d give Black the nod here but
only just.} 12. Bd3 {[#]} Bd6 (12… Nc6 {would take advantage of White’s lack
of control of b4 and is a bit awkard to meet. Black threatens ….Nb4}) 13. Ke2
{an ugly requirement with the h-file open. This is needed so as White may
re-capture on d3 with the queen.} Nd7 (13… Bxd3+ 14. Qxd3 Nc6) 14. Bxh7 Rxh7
15. c4 dxc4 16. Nbd2 Qg6 17. Nxc4 Ke7 18. Qb1 (18. Qb3) 18… Qxb1 (18… Rxa4
{seems natural}) 19. Rhxb1 Rxh3 20. Nxg5 Rh2+ 21. Kd3 Ra7 ({Why not} 21… Rxa4
{I don’t understand.}) 22. Ne4 $1 $18 {[#] white is getting on top.} Nf6 $2 23.
Nxf6 Kxf6 24. a5 $1 {black must be regretting leaving this pawn on and is
definately worse now.} Bf8 25. Rb5 Rf2 26. a4 Bh6 27. Rh1 Kg6 28. Rhb1 b6 29.
Ne5+ Kh7 30. Rh1 f6 31. Nc6 Ra6 32. Rbh5 {and Black resigned.} 1-0
[/pgn]

Daniel’s most recent publication is The Modernized Modern Defence from Thinker’s Publishing:

and BCN has been told that Daniel has a book in the pipeline about the Tata Steel 2021 tournament at Wijk aan Zee.

And here it that book!