Hastings 2025-26

[Roger de Coverly]

This starts on Sunday 28th.

The entrants list is at https://s2.chess-results.com/tnr1323430 ... 1&SNode=S0

Top seed is GM Laurent-Paoli, Pierre of France with a rating of 2539

Total entrants as of writing is 111 with quite a long tail of players rated below 2000. I think they will use acceleration for pairings.

Just 3 English players, Stephen Gordon, Simon Williams and Danny Gormally in the top 15, but mostly ENG after that.


(edit) Pairings now published, accelerated as expected.
https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1323430 ... 1&SNode=S0

Rating differences are around 200 on many boards, so a number of the higher rated players may be held to draws or worse from their viewpoint.
(/edit)

[Rob Coles]

6 players on 4 points going into round 6 shortly.

14-year old Cian Ward flying the ENG flag on board 1, there's also good representation within the large group on 3½

1 IM Deuer, Marius 2475 4 4 Ward, Cian 1947
2 IM Wang, Hao(Zj) 2426 4 4 IM Kaasen, Tor Fredrik 2471
3 IM Ghimpu, Samuel-Timotei 2428 4 4 IM Hagner, Bennet 2451

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Here is Cian's round 5 victory over a 2392 rated IM:
https://lichess.org/broadcast/hastings- ... X/Fy1ZWfNc

[Nick Burrows]

Is that Simon Williams’ brother, Tony?

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Is that Simon Williams’ brother, Tony?

I don't know, but whoever he is, he's doing very well so far, with draws against Adams and Sadler.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Did not know that SKW even had a chess playing brother, you learn something new every day.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Did not know that SKW even had a chess playing brother, you learn something new every day.

In this interview with Simon Williams, he mentions a strong, chess-playing older brother called Tony:
https://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot. ... iew-i.html

And in this tweet from just a few months ago, it seems that Paul Williams has started playing serious chess again:
https://x.com/ginger_gm/status/1966892058213576717

[Leonard Barden]

Tony Williams scored the only draw against Anatoly Karpov in August 1977 when the then world champion defeated England under 17s (who included future GMs Short, Hodgson, Watson and King as well as Forumite Ivell) by 9.5-0.5 in his Lloyds Bank clock simul.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Simon was born in 1979, so Tony must be a fair bit older?

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Simon was born in 1979, so Tony must be a fair bit older?

Born in 1961, I think.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I recall playing against Woking (I think) in the Surrey League which had about 5 Williams in a team of 8. Tony was about 2100 - 2200 in 1979-81 and was on a high board, probably 2. Most of the Williams were related, except I think they had Howard Williams as well on top board. Tony was rather useful. In the 1981 game, I lost with white in 24 moves, when my king surprisingly got mated on e5...

[Simon Brown]

Tony was my contemporary, and we were joint Southern Counties U-14 champions in 1975. Strong player with his own style, his Hastings game in the French Winawer with Qd7 was exactly what he played 50 years ago.

[Nick Ivell]

Thank you for resurrecting pleasant memories, Leonard.

The Karpov draw was so lack-lustre that I always wondered: was this Karpov being 'nice', so as to avoid an embarrassing whitewash?

On the other hand, he could be lack-lustre with Black; and this may be a long-suppressed jealousy coming out, after so many years!

[Nick Burrows]

From Britbase:

[Event "Lloyds Bank Clock Simul v England U17"] [Site "London"] [Date "1977.08.14"] [Round "9"] [White "Williams, Anthony M"] [Black "Karpov, Anatoly"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "A34"] [PlyCount "48"] [EventDate "1977.08.14"] 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 c5 3. e4 Nc6 4. f4 d6 5. Nf3 g6 6. g3 Bg4 7. Bg2 Bg7 8. d3 O-O 9. O-O Nd4 $2 (9... Bxf3 {and Rb8 with a6 and b5 - Karpov}) 10. Ne2 Nxf3+ 11. Bxf3 Bxf3 12. Rxf3 a6 13. Nc3 Ne8 14. f5 e6 15. Be3 b5 16. Qd2 Nc7 17. Bh6 Bxh6 18. Qxh6 Qf6 19. Kg2 Qg7 20. Qd2 f6 21. Raf1 b4 22. Na4 gxf5 23. exf5 e5 24. b3 Kh8 {(" My opening play was inaccurate but White played careful and sensible moves" Karpov. He awarded this game the Lloyds Bank Junior Trophy for the best game of the match by an English Junior)} 1/2-1/2

[Nick Ivell]

Thank you. More pleasant memories.

My suspicions are confirmed; that looks to me the type of position Anatoly could have ground out, had he been so inclined.