Hastings Chess Congress regains strength

No perfect scores

The 95th edition of the traditional Hastings International Chess Congress is taking place at the Horntye Park Sports Complex from December 28^th, 2019 until January 5^th, 2020. The Masters is a 9-round Swiss open with a rate of play of 40 moves in 100 minutes, followed by all remaining moves in 50 minutes, with the addition of 30 seconds for each move from the start. Rounds kick off at 15:15 CET and can be followed live at Live.ChessBase.com.

Back in 1895, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, a young unknown American, won a 21-round single round robin in Hastings, outscoring the likes of Mikhail Chigorin, Emanuel Lasker, Siegbert Tarrasch and William Steinitz. Over a century has passed and Hastings continues to receive chess professionals in an event that now takes place at the turn of each year.

Thanks to new sponsorship, the organizers have managed to attract stronger players than last year, but unlike the 2018/19 edition they have decided to reduce the number of rounds from ten to nine. Once again there will be no rest days, with the players fighting over the board both on New Year's eve and on the first day of 2020. 

Councillor Peter Chowney, leader of the Hastings Borough Council speaking at the opening ceremony | Photo: Dr John Higgs

The first two rounds of the event saw some of the favourites losing against lower-rated opponents, with unrated John Merriman and Maaike Keitman taking down grandmasters on boards five and nine. 

Meanwhile, top seeds David Howell and Romain Edouard won games of very different nature. Howell needed 69 moves to defeat Chinese WIM Lan Yao from a closed middlegame position in which the Englishman correctly sacrificed an exchange. Edouard, on the other hand, succeeded in attacking Viktor Stoyanov's king:

Castled long – attacking the king

The best target for an attack is undoubtedly the enemy king – especially if its position is weakened or still in the centre.

16...♝xa2+ was the beginning of the end for White. There followed 17.♔a1 ♛a4 18.♗b5 ♛xb5 19.♔xa2, and Black brought his knight to the attack with 19...♞d5 and 20...♞b4+. Edouard's queenside pawns moved forward until pushing White to resign on move 26.

The top boards during round one | Photo: Dr John Higgs

Howell and Edouard also won in round two, as did the third and fourth seeds, Erik van den Doel from the Netherlands and Deep Sengupta from India. Simon Williams a.k.a. Ginger GM, in the meantime, arrived as the thirteenth seed and, true to his style, managed to score a second victory of the event on Sunday with a fine tactical shot:

The London System with 2.Bf4

"Simple yet aggressive!" Enjoy this new exciting DVD by Simon Williams. Let the famouns Grandmaster from England show you how to gain a very exciting yet well founded opening game with the London System (1.d4 d5 2.Bf4).

The author of a number of ChessBase DVD series needed a little over a minute to find the killer 29.♖c8, and Ranesh Ratnesan accepted defeat immediately.

The second day of action saw no upsets on the top boards, although some of the strongest players in contention only scored half points against local representatives. Round three, on the other hand, saw five draws on boards one to five, which meant no one managed to keep a perfect score after merely three rounds. As plenty of players on 1½/2 scored wins, no fewer than nineteen participants are now sharing the lead.

Among the nineteen co-leaders is IM Richard Bates (2342), who got both to sacrifice his queen and give mate to veteran Mark Hebden, a seven-time British Rapidplay Champion. It is White to move, and there is mate-in-three on the board:

Mating Patterns

On this DVD, Grandmaster and worldrenowned commentator Maurice Ashley reviews some of the most interesting patterns with examples meant to educate and entertain.

Hebden allowed Bates to show the combination in full: 36.♕e6+ ♞xe6 37.dxe6+ ♚d8 38.♘f7#.

The playing hall | Photo: Dr John Higgs

Standings after Round 3 (top 25)

...123 players

All available games

Links

• Official site
• Full results (Chess-Results)