BY MALCOLM PEIN

BRITAIN'S biggest chess tournament, the Saitek UK Chess challenge came to a climax with the Terafinal held at the Mindsports Olympiad at Olympia, west London.

Sixteen children out of an original 35,000 qualified from the year- long event through local and regional finals and megafinals. Their number included David Howell, aged eight, and it is a sign of the strength of British junior chess that Howell, of Seaford, East Sussex, who was to defeat GM John Nunn the following day, only came third equal.

Victory went to Thomas Rendle, of Hastings, East Sussex. Rendle finished ahead of the hot favourite and winner in 1998, Adam Hunt, brother of Harriet, Britain's top woman player.

Both players scored 3.5/4 but Rendle had a superior tie-break score.

Hunt nearly came unstuck against a new star, Thomas Sharp, aged 10, of Kent, who has a BCF grade of 125, equivalent to 1600 ELO and clearly far too low.

Sharp won a pawn but could not convert his advantage and finished equal third on 3/4 and was the top under-11 player.

Rendle took full advantage of Hunt's slip with incisive wins over Jamie Hillman, a promising 11- year-old, and the top girl in the event, Iva Anguelov, of London.

Terafinal: 1, Thomas Rendle 3-5/4; 2, Adam Hunt 3-5/4; 3, Thomas Sharp 3/4. Also on 3/4 were Lorin D'Costa and David Howell.

Challengers: 1, Matthew Broomfield 5-5/6; 2, Richard Jones 5/6; 3, Chris Dorrington 4.5/6.

After seven rounds of the Coulsdon Chess International, GM Bogdan Lalic, of Sutton, south London, leads with 5.5/7.

At the Interplay US championships in Salt Lake City, Utah, both semi-finals are tied at 1.5-1.5.

Yasser Seirawan defeated Boris Gulko in their second game to level the scores after Gulko tried too hard to win a superior position with black. Alexander Yermolinsky and Grigory Serper have drawn all three games.

Black should have spared a move for the defence 22.. .Rg8 after which 23.b4 a5 or 23.h4 Bd5 (23...b4 24.Rc4 Qa5 is also good) would lead to complications that favour black: