New Year's Honours List

Firstly, many thanks to the Stewart Houten and Rachel Bingham for their parts in the maintenance of the database over the last year. This year we may very well have a new ratings system and database but in the meantime here is how 2025 panned out regarding titles and awards.

Titles

There are no new titles to give out this year unfortunately so let’s look ahead to next year where we could very well have 3 or 4!

Potential Experts (5 years of 170+ ratings)

• 4 years:

  • Chris Cummins
  • Jack Moran
  • Brian Po (including first 180+ rating)
  • Chris Lipe (including 2 180+ ratings in 4 years)

• 3 years:

  • John Ashmore
  • Chris Vicary

• 2 years:

  • Sam Crispin
  • Joel Davey
  • Marlon Prudencio
  • Ryan Wee (including 1 180+ rating in 2 years)

• 1 year:

  • Rasheed Balogun*
  • Mike Baron*
  • Nick Deller
  • Raymond Gbaraba*
  • Graham Haigh
  • Kong Chock Heng
  • Nsikan Iyanam*
  • Bob Linn
  • Samson Okosagah*
  • Ben Schoenbrun*

* - first 170+ rating

Rasheed, Nick, Raymond, Samson & Ben all recorded a 180+ rating which is also the first step towards GM.

Potential GMs (5 years of 180+ ratings)

• 1 year:

  • Calum Edwards

There are some with potential to get back on the ladder but with a rating higher than their previous best so they have been excluded. Let me know if you think there is anything amiss.

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Highest Rated Player Award

The Highest Rated Player Award is given to the highest rated ABSP Member on January 1st of each year, provided that they have played at least 30 games in the previous year.

The winner is Harshan Lamabadusuriya (193)

Harshan has had a phenomenal year winning several majors, and currently only Brett Smitheram who didn’t play in 2025 and Ben Schoenbrun, who isn’t a member and has not played 150 games yet, are ahead of him on the current active players list.

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Most Improved Player Award

The Most Improved Player award is given to the ABSP member (as at 31st Dec) who has a full rating at the start of the calendar year, plays at least 30 games throughout that year and improves their rating the most. The player's rating at the end of the year must be higher than any previous end-of-year full rating.

The winner for 2025 with an improvement of 30 from 137 to 167 is Ronan Dance. He played 282 games in the year and also increased last year by 18 ratings points when he was not eligible to win due to low number of games in the previous year. It is a strong improvement and I am not sure it is done just yet!

Four other players met the criteria and improved by at least 10.

• +14 (159) Richard Spencer
• +13 (109) Lisa Atkins (who has been top 5 years in a row after winning last year)
• +12 (180) Chris Cummins
• +11 (122) Richard Appleyard

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Some other stats:

• Most games played and most prolific Expert: Craig Solomons (518)
• Most prolific GM: Phil Robertshaw (224)

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Unweighted ratings for those with a rating over 150 plus details of highest games scores for 2025 can be found on the ABSP database. Well done to all winners - and those that missed out - keep trying!

Wayne Kelly