Hastings

[Mark Howitt]

Think it's worthwhile having a thread about Hastings on this chess forum!

I think David Howell looks a reasonable bet to at least have some share of first with his new January rating. Will be interested to hear anyone's inside info on the tournament.

[IM Jack Rudd]

I won my first game.

The big surprise result of the first round so far was Chris Briscoe's win against Andrew Greet.

[Mark Howitt]

Thanks Jack- good to see Howell and Jones won too.

[Claire Summerscale]

The official tournament website is here: http://www.hastingschess.org.uk/default.asp

so we can keep up to date with the results and online games. Good luck to everyone.

A shame that the ecf website, as per usual, doesn't even mention Hastings.

Claire

[Matthew Turner]

I would take Howell and Kurnosov against the rest, but I expect David to have a tough game today against Adam Hunt - perhaps a draw?

[JustinHorton]

Chris Briscoe has knocked over a few good players in the last couple of years.

[Ian Kingston]

Can anyone explain (in principle, not necessarily in detail) how the pairings work at Hastings? I know they use some kind of accelerated pairing scheme, and it looks as though high-rated losers are being paired against low-rated winners in some cases, but what are the criteria for these pairings? How do players know that the pairings are correct?

[David Clayton]

Hope the transmitting of the live games went out fine yesterday. I have just been wiring up another set of boards, so hopefully we will have a third display today.

David

[IM Jack Rudd]

Can anyone explain (in principle, not necessarily in detail) how the pairings work at Hastings? I know they use some kind of accelerated pairing scheme, and it looks as though high-rated losers are being paired against low-rated winners in some cases, but what are the criteria for these pairings? How do players know that the pairings are correct?

As I was there to witness the draw last night:

Round 1: top quartile paired against second quartile; third quartile paired against fourth.

Round 2:
A: top-half winners paired against each other. Median (Hendriks) downfloated to highest-rated top-half non-winner with the right colour (Gormally).
B: bottom-half winners paired against top-half non-winners. These non-winners were chosen so that, if this could be done, there would be enough top-half losers to pair against bottom-half drawers. (As it happens, this was impossible, but the principle was followed such that all the top-half drawers played bottom-half winners.) The chosen top-half players were paired against bottom-half winners in order of seeding, irrespective of whether they had scores of 0 or ½.
C: if there had been any top-half drawers left, they would have been paired against each other.
D: bottom-half drawers paired against top-half losers. There weren't quite enough top-half losers, so the three strongest bottom-half losers with the correct colours were added to them. Again, both sets of players went in in seeding order.
E: bottom-half losers paired against each other.

[Ian Kingston]

Thanks Jack. I'd come to some sort of similar conclusion but wasn't quite sure.

[John Saunders]

I went to Hastings yesterday and took some photos. I have put some of them up on the BCM website...

http://www.bcmchess.co.uk/news/hastings0809.html

[IM Jack Rudd]

I also have taken some photos at Hastings:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7 ... =569261179

[JustinHorton]

Hope the transmitting of the live games went out fine yesterday. I have just been wiring up another set of boards, so hopefully we will have a third display today.

David

Looking fine, enjoying the coverage. A couple of very minor notes: first, Simon Knott is displaying as im rather than IM, and second, if accents are possible, I suspect it's Alarcón.

[David Clayton]

Simon Knott is displaying as im rather than IM, and second, if accents are possible, I suspect it's Alarcón.

Thanks for that Justin. I have managed an accent in my master list and it was OK when I tested it on another computer.

David

[John Upham]

I was sent this from a UK chess mailing list :

"Despite there being lots to watch and enjoy down on the Sussex Coast,
to keep warm people have been playing chess. In round two of the
Hastings Masters the pairing between a new IM and a new GM
understandably drew the crowds. I think white's sac at move 18 was
easy to spot (the follow-up was not!)

Hastings Masters 2008-9
J Rudd
SK Williams
Sicilian Dragon

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 a6 (Old
Reshevsky liked to pepper his Dragons with ... a6, I wonder what he'd
say to this effort. The text is risky and I have to wonder why Simon
Williams tried it. Had he hoped that Jack Rudd, a man of great
invention, might play his favourite 3 Nc3 & 4 e5 anti-Sicilian
system? If so, full marks to Jack for variety.) 7. f3 b5 8. Qd2 Bb7
9. O-O-O Nbd7 10. Kb1 Rc8 11. Nb3 Bg7 12. Ne2 O-O 13. Bh6 (Quite a
common trade, white exchanging the firing breathing Dragon bishop.)
13 ... Nb6 14. Bxg7 Kxg7 15. h4 Nc4 16. Qc1 h5 17. Nbd4 e5 18. Nf5+
(The point of no return. This move says: You are a lot higher rated
than me so a draw would be great and so would the possibility of
white victory. You have far more to lose than I do..) 18 ... gxf5 19.
Ng3 Ne8 20. Nxf5+ Kg8 21. Rh3 Qf6 22. Rg3+ Kh7 23. Rg5 Rh8 24. g4
hxg4 25. Bxc4 Rxc4 26. Rg1 Bxe4 27. R1xg4 (Fritz, that little tinker,
prefers: 27. Rh5+ Kg8 28. Rxg4+ but black's alive here too, of
course) 27... Bxc2+ 28. Qxc2 Qxg5 29. Rxg5 Rxc2 30. Kxc2 Rg8 31. Rh5+
(I would have hated either combatant to go home without at least
something for an enjoyable game.) 1/2-1/2.


YHM"