Hastings beat holders Lewes in the first round of the Paul Watson Trophy!!!
Christmas is a time of miracles and that’s certainly what occurred on Thursday evening.
Hastings having never progressed past the 1st round of the Paul Watson Trophy and matched up against Lewes who are the holders and have reached the final in the past three consecutive years, the result was never in doubt.
However, someone on the Lewes team must have been on the naughty list as Santa granted a miracle to Hastings.
Mason fell quickly to a quick Christmas novelty, leaving the three Musketeers of John Sugden, Henry Cove & Daniel Evans-White the hard work of bringing home the victory. Whilst looking on with a hot mince pie & cream, Mason witnessed three Christmas crackers unwrapping Lewes to secure our first ever victory in this competition.
Hastings now have a short journey to Bexhill in the New Year to contest the Quarter Finals.
Hastings & St Leonards 2.5-1.5 Lewes Paul Watson Trophy 2025/26
Hastings drawn against holders Lewes in the first round of the Paul Watson Trophy 2025/26
Hastings will be underdogs for the match and with our past record of never progressing past the first round of this trophy, the situation looks grim for us.
The Paul Watson Trophy is a 4 board 1825 average tournament.
The match is scheduled for tomorrow evening at 7:30PM at home.
Underdogs Hastings(3) triumph in Brighton(2) 3.5-0.5
In the words of Bjørge Lillelien.
“We are the best in the second division! We are the best in the second division! We have beaten Brighton & Hove seconds in Chess!!! It is completely unbelievable! We have beaten Brighton! Brighton the birthplace of Mods and seaside Pride and giants! Sir Winston Churchill, David Gilmour, Chris Eubank, Fatboy Slim, Steve Ovett, Nick Cave, Zoe Ball, Lewis Dunk. We have beaten them all. Holly Willoughby can you hear me? Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!”
Relegation favourites Hastings 3 had an amazing win on Monday night against promotion hopefuls Brighton 2.
Arriving with an under-strength Third team and expecting a 4-0 drumming, Hastings instead won amazingly 3.5-05 (see match card below).
First to finish was Derek on bottom board playing Paul Selby. Whilst having the bishop pair in the end game and smashing up Paul’s pawn structure, Derek decided to accept the draw although the computer put him +0.99 up after proceedings. After a tough game it wasn’t worth risking it.
Birthday Boy Marc Bryant on board two, hoping for gifts from his opponent, wasn’t disappointed. Chris Lake defaulted two minutes of time after wrongly accusing Marc of an illegal move on move 3!!! All Marc’s moves should be made illegal but on this occasion, it was just bonkers but rattled Chris straight away. The moves were 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 (Ruy Lopez) Nce7 !? giving up the pawn on e5 but unsettling his opponent as compensation. It worked!! A super unusual opening with constant threats gaining multiple tempi and Marc easily ahead in development. A beautifully crafted attack then followed and Chris was just an on-looker. 1.5-0.5
White to play and save the game
(In the above position Marc is attacking, White only has a single move to save the game, can you find it? Details below)
High after his stunning victory over Luke Chapman the week before WGM Mason pulled off another upset. This time Paul Edwards, slow development by Paul and Mason saw his chance to sack his knight for a pawn to open the position and get to the King in the middle after smelling blood Mason was relentless with attacking play and initiative. 2.5-0.5
White makes a move and black resigns
(In Mason’s game black just moved Nc5 threatening the bishop and possibily looking to exchange queens on c7 and getting a cheeky back rank mate but can you find the winning move for white?)
With the match won it was only left to Jim who was also outgraded on top board to complete the rout. His opponent played the currently popular Caro-kann but Jim was ready with his own creative response. What followed was an ambitious Brighton stalwart having fun picking up pawns with his queen whilst Jim slowly carried on with development. A pawn down but ready for some fun of his own Jim came out swinging and chased that queen down, slowly but surely improving his position in the meantime making some mate threats. In the end Jim got that early game Minx and once gone the lack of development for Albert was no compensation. 3.5-0.5
On the drive home there was plenty of singing in the car and the heavens opened up, probably the tears of Brighton players past trying to drown us out! A fabulous result & performance by our Thirds. Could we do it again? Never in a million years, Brighton are just quality but we will certainly cherish this moment.
Result of Marc’s puzzle:
g3 was played in the match attempting to win the bishop but the assesment is +2 to Marc as Bxg4 is coming. The only saving move for white is the odd looking Re7 and white is +0.8 any other move and +2 or greater for Marc.
Arriving at our club on a bright sunny day in Hastings, we looked forward with excitement and anticipation to our annual match against our neighbours from Bexhill, always a highlight of the chess calendar.
The teams were spread across both floors of the club, and play commenced promptly at 1 o’clock with clocks set at 65 minutes plus a 30-second increment.
The first result came on board 3, where John secured a solid draw. Not long after, Bexhill struck first with a win on board 10, as Rose produced an excellent game against Keith – clearly a player to watch for the future.
Two more draws followed in quick succession on boards 13 and 12, with both Steve and Alex putting in strong, steady performances. Hastings then recorded their first win on board 8, with Sarah once again showing her continued rise up the ratings list is no fluke.
The match was now level, and excitement built among those who had already finished. Paul then added another point for Hastings with a fine win on board 7, but Marc’s loss on board 9 quickly cancelled out the advantage.
The next two results also balanced each other out. Daniel won well on board 6, before Martin went down on board 11, leaving the match finely poised once again.
On board 2, Francis scored a valuable win, only for Henry to lose soon after on board 4 – once again leaving the scores tied. Terry then produced a determined performance on board 5 to edge Hastings ahead going into the final game.
All attention turned to the top board, where at one point it looked as though defeat might allow Bexhill to snatch a draw in the match overall. However, Daniel held his nerve in a tense endgame to secure a draw around 4 o’clock, which was enough to clinch overall victory for Hastings in this year’s Challenge Trophy.
Disappointment and heartbreak as East Grinstead triumphed 4-2 on Monday night, retaining the McArthur Cup.
Our boys and girl couldn’t have done much more, that was the absolute strongest team we could possibly field but East Grinstead brought an even stronger team with them!
Some really interesting games which you would expect from such quality on display.
First to finish with an early draw was Francis (black). Got into a strange position after the opening both fianchetto’ed on the g file, a pretty symmetrical affair and the queens off on move 11 on the ‘a’ file??? This left Francis with a knight on the rim but had a little initiative although he said in the analysis he hadn’t got a clue what was going on. Computer gave white 1.5+ up with correct play but Peter Kemp said he wouldn’t have found the moves to get to that position so a draw was a fair result. Ng5 after Qxa4, Nxa4, b3 and a draw agreed.
Rasa opened with her customary English opening as was very solid until a slight inaccuracy/mistake which I missed and her position collapsed quickly although her opponent said it was defendable but it wasn’t pleasant and Rasa was struggling with time so it would have a been tough ask for her to find the correct responses to hold it together.
John had good opening (with black) facing an English-ish, set up with a Kings Indian Defence, got a good lead in development and pressure against h3 with a Q+B battery, however his opponent got back in the game and John was hit with a bit of crisis of confidence as he had been blundering a lot in recent games and so offered a draw which was accepted. A good result given that he was nearly 100 points outgraded and had the black pieces.
Daniel (white) came out fighting, blitzing out his moves until move 11, then once the dust had settled, he had this super centre pawn duo, good bishop v bad bishop and pressure down the open c file. In the car home, Daniel admitted he had never had that position before, which made me chuckle, how he blitzed out his moves like that and still had a great position with no theory, gives hope to us lesser mortals. An exchange of queens on g6 gave Daniel a teeny tiny advantage that was snuffed out later in the game with the pushing of said pawn destroying Daniel’s King cover and lots of mating threats, coupled with the pushing of pawns on the queenside that was difficult to stop. Eventually arriving on the second rank and it was time to resign.
Henry opened well, getting a great lead in development against a dutch with his catalan/KIA setup and looking to double fianchetto but went Ba3 and exerted a lot of pressure along the diagonal. In the end his development/pressure dwindled as his opponent kept swapping off pieces and it resulted in a same bishop ending 6v6 with Henry having the good bishop. His opponent refused to accept a draw much to the annoyance of everyone as the match had ended (this was the last game to finish and EG had already won 3.5-1.5). His chess etiquette was lacking all evening, having during the game moving and pressing the clock with different hands and consulting with his captain while Henry was trying to concentrate.
The titanic struggle on board 1 was a good watch between Mark Rich (black) and Chris Baker. Opened as English-ish then Mark morphed into a Najdorf structure but against a central bind, it was really hard to see how he would fix his backward d6 pawn with white pawns on e4 & c4. Anyway it went really positional and Chris manoeuvred pieces from the queenside to the Kingside then smashed up Mark’s King position where he had his King hiding in the corner behind a lone pawn but a semi open g file. Then it came, the queen retreating to d2 from h6 after being threatened by Rf6 forming a queen-sandwich against Mark’s d pawn which was only lightly defended. In came the rook to take the pawn and go material up but then Mark found this awesome Nd4 move trapping the rook which he had to give up an exchange otherwise potentially losing a queen, Rxf6 doesn’t work as Nf3+ is just nasty. After Rxd4 exd4 Qxd4, f4 was played and few moves later a draw was agreed and East Grinstead won the Cup.
East Grinstead came ready for the fight and although we got the very best team out that we could they still out-graded us. We may have call up and fly in our GM’s Stuart Conquest and Bogdan next year if we want to win this, the standard has got really high.
Many congratulations to East Grinstead on a fine display and winning the McArthur Cup 2025.
Congratulations to our own Henry Cove, who was the competition’s highest scorer with 2.5/3
Hastings & St Leonards Chess club took a massive step forward in their pursuit of silverware this season by winning their SCCA McArthur Cup semi-final away to Bexhill 2 on Friday night and booked their place in the 2024/2025 final.
Wins by Francis Rayner, John Sugden, Henry Cove & Terry Hoxey and a draw on top board by Daniel Lowe secured the win 4.5-1.5
A reduced-strength Bexhill due to many cup-tied players, gave a good account of themselves, but it wasn’t to be their night.
Hastings now await the victors of the other semi-final, East Grinstead (holders) v Horsham.
Should the home team progress, then Hastings will be at home for the final, however and interestingly should the away team win, then lots will be drawn. The format for lots in the final will be determined on the outcome of another random sporting event, an MLB Baseball match during the week. Hastings were offered the choice of which team to represent them in the draw and although we could have selected the Yankees or Red Sox or even the Dodgers, the choice was obvious, the Pittsburgh Pirates! We are of course, the pirate capital of the world (Guinness Book of World Records holder), so how fitting for us to cheer on the Pirates for us to get home advantage in the McArthur Cup final
Friday 7 March 7:30 PM
Bexhill (2) 3-3 Hastings & St Leonards
(Hastings win 7-8 on board count)
Unbelievable as it sounds, Hastings were the underdogs against Bexhill’s second team in the quarter-final clash of the SCCA McArthur Cup but managed to progress by the skin of their teeth anyway. Giving away over 200 grading points in total across the six boards but still coming up trumps.
To be fair Bexhill did field all their best players sans Howard Tebbs for this fixture, gambling that they would have to play us eventually as their First team was also on the same side of the draw playing Crowborough and would meet us anyway, which indeed is the case as Bexhill 1 won setting up a semi-final clash against Hastings. In this tournament players can only play for one team, effectively being cup-tied so Hastings will now play a much reduced Bexhill next time out with eyes on progressing to the final.
The match itself was a tense affair mainly due to the confusion of the time control. The McArthur Cup is a prestigious tournament and so should reflect this in the time control. The default for a mid-week game was 40 moves in 90 minutes with 10s a move from move one. What the players didn’t realize was that the clocks just added 10s from move one and hence they had to work out that the cut-off time for move 40 was when there was 6:40 left on the clock (40x10s). No one realised this and hence the time control was not met in many the games. This didn’t really affect the final score so the captains let it slide.
In the match Francis was first to finish after agreeing a draw with Anh Nguyen, Francis’ position looked a little open and hard to defend but solid enough that Nguyen couldn’t find any answers. 0.5-0.5
Drawmaster Jim showed his mastery on how to draw a game when two pawns down, with opposite ‘B’s (sorry Henry) Andrew was never going to convert his advantage and after quite a number of moves had to concede the draw. 1-1
Young William Cobb was solid on board 4 going an exchange up and managing his time perfectly compared to his opponent who when playing close to the increment and facing a pair of connected passers on the Kingside thought better of the struggle and resigned. 1-2
John Sugden had a commanding position early in the game with a monster bishop on an outpost deep in enemy territory and with Luke’s King very drafty due to the Dutch opening he played, John just needed to bring his forces to bare and victory was assured. However a few inaccuracies and down on time allowed the youngster back in the game with vigor and vim and converted for the win. 2-2
Adrian, who was heavily outgraded played solidly and although fell for a tactic midgame losing a pawn kept the game complex and unclear right up to the end which was crucial to the match as Henry’s opponent had to keep an eye on the result to determine what to do in his own game.
Henry facing the Jobova London System set up in semi-slav fashion and having his queen’s knight forced to spend time offside on a6 due to defending the Jobova’s typical Bf4-Nb5 manoeuvre threatening the Nxc7 fork had to play a long positional game. However with time short and Adrian’s game unclear Henry’s opponent didn’t realise that he wasn’t getting anymore time when his flag fell and let his flag fell and lost on time. 3-3
The match ended in a draw but Hastings won 7 to 8 on board count and thus progress to the semi-finals.
Hastings face Bexhill again in the semi’s but as both teams were away in the previous fixture lots needed to be drawn to determine who has home advantage. Lots were chosen based on the result of the outcome of last night’s UEFA Champions League match between Liverpool & PSG with Hastings being assigned Liverpool and Bexhill PSG. Suffice it to say Liverpool LOST! and so Bexhill will be at home. However Hastings “will never walk alone” when we face our French cheering counterparts on the 18th April, the date of the SCCA McArthur Cup Semi-final.
You watch, I bet Liverpool go and win the Carabao Cup final this weekend but couldn’t do it last night to give us home advantage!
Friday 18 April 2025 7:30 PM
SCCA McArthur Cup Semi-Final
Bexhill (1) v Hastings & St Leonards
Hastings’ teams in all four divisions/cups entered this season have reached the semi-final stage.
Our Harvey team was runners-up in the Mid-Kent division despite a thumping 5-1 win against Weald Of Kent our final game of the season. An away Semi-Final against Petts Wood & Orpington(5) tonight is the reward.
In the En Passant Cup, our team topped the division and have home advantage against Charlton on Saturday 11th.
Henry’s Super Stevenson Team scraped through as runners-up having the same number of match points and board points as third-placed Rainham but due to head-to-head results were given the nod. Another away semi-final match to Petts Wood & Orpington on Friday 17th. Charlton awaits the winners in the Final.
Umberto’s Underdogs were runners-up in the Tom Fuller Cup and now have a plum tie against Charlton away to look forward to on June 1st.
It’s very rare to have all our teams reach the semi-finals and may cause a bit of a problem if all make it through to the final as we may not have enough players, but that will be a nice problem to have if it happens.
Congratulations to our Third team in the Sussex league who, on Thursday evening won their final game of the season to gain promotion to the second division!
Third placed Horsham fourths put the pressure on us by spanking Haywards Heath seconds on Tuesday night 4-0 winning their game in hand and coming within a point of our team. With one game each, Hastings had to win to seal the promotion , a draw may have been enough but given the form of Horsham, another 4-0 win would draw on match points but their board difference would be superior, denying us promotion.
Hastings currently sit top of the table but Brighton have two games in hand and only a point behind. The title might be ours but it’s unlikely Brighton will slip up.
On the night all our players went up early in all games with Marc a pawn up and 6th rank monster pawn in a Roy Lopez which he converted eventually. Adrian a pawn up in a Queens Gambit and as usual navigated the tactics perfectly to bring home the win. Mason an exchange up in a Sicilian Mengarini variation (an unusual line involving an early wing attack for white), surrendering the fiachettoed black squared bishop and groveling for the rest of the game but eventually getting a draw. New team member Caelan Rooney played a little trick in the opening to get massive pawn duo centre although gave up castling rights when his opponent sacked a bishop on f2. The strong centre was too much and Caelan dominated the game from then on.
(b) Falvey James 0-1 Caelan Rooney
(w) Matthew File 0.5-0.5 Mason Woodhams
(b) Alan Davey 0-1 Adrian Cload
(w) Chris Baldry 0-1 Marc Bryant
Congratulations to all team members and good luck in Division 2 next season. The Thirds were:
Adrian Cload
Mason Woodhams (Captain)
Derek Cosens
Chris Hann
Marc Bryant
Jim Wheeler
Leon Sazkissyan
Caelan Rooney
Greg Chandler.
Two Hastings teams in both the Sussex and Kent leagues had great results this week. Our Third team in the Mid-Sussex Third Division took a big step towards promotion with a 4-0 win over Worthing(2), the Thirds are just one game away from automatic promotion. Haywards Heath(3) stands in our way to the promised land of the second division.
In the Kent league our En Passant team swept aside last years’ finalist, Weald of Kent 3.5-2.5 on Friday to set up a crunch game against top of the table Medway with the winners guaranteed a place in the play-offs. Hastings didn’t disappoint and scraped a narrow victory 3.5-2.5, and with a game in hand, Hastings can top the league and will play either Charlton or Sidcup in the semi-finals.
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