Bartosz Socko Poland 2570 (6) ½ Vladimir Belov Russia 2552 (8)

Our surprise visitor was Charles Clarke, The Home Secretary. He was visiting the area for ministerial reasons and came to Hastings for a brief, ut non-flying visit. Indeed, after elevenses at the Police Station, he walked up to the venue. Charles is the so n of the late Sir Richard Clarke, who designed the English chess grading system. He himself is also a player and, while Minister for Education, did his best to encourage chess. He met with a number of people and discussed a number of issues. BCF President Gerry Walsh was on hand to welcome him. When he went down onto the congress floor, we didn't allow security to accompany him. Games were going on and having a whole entourage of people would have been disturbing. One must get one's priorities right.

Unfortunately he couldn't stay for the interesting final where Black gave up a pawn in order to win it back later and steadfastly head towards a dynamic draw. Thus the young Russian won the Premier and also made the highest overall score between the two events. Incidentally, he also gained 19 Rating points, but this was his only extra reward for finishing a point ahead of the whole field in two tournaments

Socko M (7) ½ Barsov (7)

Zude (6½) 0-1 Neverov (6½)

Pert N (6½) ½ Gonzales (6½)

Lalic (6) ½ Kotronias (6½)

Efimenko 1-0 (6) McNab(6)

Hebden (6)0-1 Hendriks (6)

Bluvshtein (6) ½ Gwaze (6)

Houska (6) 0-1 Gormally (6)

Monika Socko made up for her husband only finishing runner-up in the Premier by having a quick draw in the last round of the Challengers and thus coming first equal with Alexei Barsov and Vladimir Neverov. Thus the Ukrainian made up for his dreadful start. It was thought likely Bogdan would have an early bath against Vassilios. At least this meant he could quickly return to his usual perch in the Commentary Room.

Statistisics about the event and perhaps more gossip will appear later.

PREMIER ROUND 7 Game 1

Vladimir Belov (Russia 2552) (7) 1-0 Bartosz Socko (Poland 2570) (6)

The young Russian played clinically and well to take the lead in the final against the more experienced Pole. I expected youngsters to fare particularly well in the speed play-offs, but of course it has not usually reached that stage in his case. Thus Bartosz must win in the last game in order to reach a play-off. You would expect the Poles to be very downcasted, but read on.

Barsov (6) 1-0 Zude (6½)

Kotronias (6) ½ Pert N (6)

Hendriks (6) 0-1 Socko, Monika (6)

Gormally (5½) ½ Hebden (5½)

Neverov (5½) 1-0 Ziatdinov (5½)

Lalic (5½) ½ Gwaze (5½)

Gonzales (5½) 1-0 Pavlovic (5½)

Knott (5) 0-1 Efimenko (5)

Cherniaev (5) 0-1 Houska (5)

Howell (5) 0-1 Bluvshtein (5)

Britton (5) 0-1 McNab (5)

Erik Zude’s wonderful run came to an abrupt end today, when he lost to the extremely experienced – and previous Premier winner – Alexei Barsov. Monika Socko had a good win against the German IM Willy Hendricks. I am not sure whether this put an end to all hopes of anybody obtaining a GM norm here. My principal concern is not whether people achieve norms, but whether they have the opportunity to get them. However, clearly it is good marketing for players to be aware that the opportunity will be there in future tournaments.

Vassilios Kotronias once again could make no impression on his opponent and only drew. The Danny Gormally v Mark Hebden draw was a very smooth affair and the commentary audience thought it very worthwhile.

I thought Robert Gwaze was a very raw player. However, today he defended the endgame impeccably and scored an impressive draw. Many organisers think draws are inferior, but a well-fought encounter is the best type of chess.

Sadly, from his point of view, Milos Pavlovic lost on his 41^{st birthday. Elsewhere there was a worrying moment that Jovanka Houska would be unable to win with bishop and knight against bare king. Fortunately she eventually put it away and there was no embarrassment. Would Alexander Cherniaev have played on against a man of the same strength?}

Thursday will see the last round starting at the normal time of 2.15pm. It is hoped a surprise guest will attend. Read this space to learn all about it. As the sports commentators say, “They have everything to play for” – and that is enough platitudes for one congress.

PREMIER ROUND 6 Game 2

Socko (5½) ½ Barsov (5½)   (Socko won play-off 2-0)

Pavlovic (5½) 0-1 Belov (6)

Thus the final will be between Vladimir Belov of Russia and Bartosz Socko of Poland. I was puzzled by the second game of the match between Socko and Barsov was such a lukewarm, quick draw. However, when Bartosz showed me the game, such as it was, it all became clear. Socko had slightly the worst of it and Barsov did not think to play on, having the Black pieces. He was to pay the penalty, having been knocked out after making no effort to win in either of the standard play games.

Milos Pavlovic played really rather badly against the younger Russian. Vladimir played several little tactical coups, but all these should have achieved. Then Milos lost his objectivity and tried to win a drawn bishop of opposite colour ending.

One odd thought, Belov has nothing extra tangible to show for the fact that he has scored 7/8, whereas Socko has only 6, and Zude 6½ in the Challengers. He has had fewer play-offs and gained an extra 5 rating points. Had the money been there, we would have had a prize for the best overall rating performance from the two events combined.

Hendriks (5½) ½ Kotronias (5½)

Zude (5½) 1-0 Cherniaev (5)

McNab (5) 0-1 Pert N (5)

Gwaze (5) ½ Gormally (5)

Socko (5) 1-0 Britton (5)

Hebden (4½) 1-0 Wegerle (4½)

Stevens (4½) 0-1 Neverov (4½)

Greet (4½) 0-1 Lalic (4½)

Ziatdinov (4½) 1-0 Pascall (4½)

Marusenko (4½) 0-1 Gonzales (4½)

Erik Zude of Germany has been something of a revelation for this event. After losing to Milos Pavlovic, he has run through the field and will gain a gm norm if he draws in the 9th round. Milos was bemoaning the fact that, despite doing well in the Premier, he was now only 6th equal in the Challengers. Remember though that anybody who reached the Premier has already won a prize.

One just mustn’t fall into the slovenly habit of assuming things. Today Bogdan joined us early in the commentary room. He is the most helpful of the GMs in this regard. I took it for granted that he had drawn quickly. This wasn’t so at all. He had dispatched the young promising Englishman, Andrew Greet extremely rapidly, despite having the Black pieces.

PREMIER ROUND 6 Game 1

Barsov (5) ½ Socko (5)

Belov (5½) ½ Pavlovic (5)

My associates are referring to this as round 7. This is incorrect for the Premier, it is the first game of the sixth round. And it was pretty boring too. Alexei Barsov drew rapidly with the White pieces for the second time. Perhaps he believes the extra time gives Black the advantage. I now realise that two game matches are more likely to lead to boring draws than one game matches. Yet, our gut feeling is that matches with one White and one Black must be the correct way.

CHALLENGERS ROUND 7

Kotronias (5) ½ Zude (5)

Gormally (4½) ½ Hendriks (5)

Gwaze (4) 1-0 Hebden (4½)

Lalic (4) ½ Marusenko (4)

Cherniaev (4) 1-0 Howell (4)

Britton (4) 1-0 Bluvshtein (4)

Pert N (4) 1-0 Houska (4)

Rudd (4) 0-1 Socko M (4)

McNab (4) 1-0 Wege (4)

Pascall (4) ½ Stevens (4)

Wegerle (3½) 1-0 Knott (4)

I was busy in the Commentary Room looking at a couple of games. As you can see there were no changes at the top. You will have to settle for yourself whether these were dull draws or not. Mark Hebden really didn’t play well against the young Zimbabwean, Robert Gwaze. He has now been living in England for a couple of years. Uncharacteristically Mark seemed to lose his way in a Benko Gambit. Bogdan Lalic bemoaned the fact that his opponents never seemed to play badly against him. Thus his game against Petr Marusenko, who is making his 11th visit to Hastings, was a very fair draw. I was very surprised that Richard Britton beat the young Canadian Mark Bluvshtein. I expect Mark will look back on this tournament as a failure. I reminded Bogdan of the theory of personal bedevilment, which would tell him his opponents reserved their best games for him. Thus also, I can expect Mark to win his last 3 games because of the previous statement concerning him.

Further down the pairing list the two most wayward grandmasters, Neverov and Efimenko made some progress by winning against their much lower rated opponents. A couple of players are now withdrawing as they must return to school. This is not unlike Richard Pert’s withdrawal when he was knocked out. He returned to work at MacDonalds.

T is the total score of the player after 5 games.
M is the score after one game of the two game match.

I was quite surprised that Alexei Barsov won with black against the young Mark Bluvshtein. Milos Pavlovic rapidly got a winning advantage against Thomas Rendle, the local hero. I asked him how late in the game he would have accepted a draw. He stood better after just a few moves and said he would still have accepted a draw a little way into the game. The point is that a win gains rating points. More importantly, should he be knocked out after the semi-final; then he would have a valuable extra half point in the Swiss Challengers. Thus we see the system doing its job of encouraging more forceful play. But, the extra half point achieved by Pavlovic and Belov will mean nothing except 5 rating points to the winner of their semi-final match.

CHALLENGERS ROUND 6

Hebden (4) ½ Kotronias (4)

Zude (4) 1-0 Pert N (4)

Hendriks (4) 1-0 Gwaze (4)

Stevens (3½) ½ Cherniaev (3½)

Gormally (3½) 1-0 Wegerle (3½)

Marusenko (3½) ½ McNab (3½)

Knott (3½) ½ Britton (3½)

Greet (3½) 0-1 Paschall (3½)

Although four grandmasters have come through to the semis of the Premier, the two leaders of the Swiss Challengers are the untitled Erik Zude and IM Willy Hendriks. The quite mature Zude is having quite a tournament. Bogdan Lalic was good enough to demonstrate his loss to him from the previous round. It is not easy to beat the Englishman/Croatian. As Bogdan said, he was blown away, but he regarded it as unlucky to analyse immediately after a loss. Revel in that Round 5 game played in the little-known Marshall Gambit in the Semi-Slav.

There was a positive invasion of the commentary room today by leading players. Naturally matches are now over more rapidly as there are few knockout ties to be resolved. This came as a considerable relief to me as I have been substituting in the action of Chris Ward, who is generally regarded as the best commentator anybody has seen. Of course I have greater experience, having introduced live commentaries in London in 1975. I reckon Bent Larsen, Tony Miles and John Nunn rank alongside him, although their styles are different. Stuart Conquest does a wonderful job in Gibraltar in both English and Spanish.

The semi-final pairings are Barsov v Socko and Belov v Pavlovic on Monday and Tuesday.

Barsov (3½) ½ Bluvshtein (3½)

Rendle (3½) 0-1 Pavlovic (3)

Socko (3½) ½ Howell (3½)

Belov (3½) 1-0 Ziatdinov (3½)

So we heaved a sigh of relief. 7 of the 8 players who qualified for the Premier had scored 3½/4, and only one as low as 3/4. Only two players are in the Challengers with 3½/4. The system has worked. Of course, it well may be that somebody in the Challengers will make a bigger score than in the Premier. It may even be that s/he will get a better rating performance and less money. But we are already well-used to the anomalies turned up in a well-regulated Swiss.

Alexei Barsov played the News Year’s Day Gambit against the young Canadian and they drew in just a few moves, although it was not pre-arranged. I said to the Chief Arbiter David Welch that this was foolishness on the older-man’s part to give away the advantage of the White pieces. He said, “What advantage?” Remember Black receives extra time to compensate him for the disadvantage. Players could have agreed to play at even time, if they wished. In my opinion, this would be foolish because then they would suffer a disadvantage if knocked back into the Challengers. I still believe that the rate of play favours White, but only the statistics will demonstrate whether I am correct. See this space after the tenth round. Since Alexei had finished so early, I persuaded him to commentate on his games in the previous round. His English is excellent and the quite large audience was appreciative.

Bartosz Socko and David Howell also drew. The young (well, who isn’t relative to me?) Englishman exchanged down to a drawn endgame extremely competently.

Vladimir Belov was big favourite to win the match against the older, Russian/Israeli/American Rashid Ziatdinov, now living in Ireland. Of course there were errors and both players ran short of time, but Vladimir eventually broke through.

Although Milos Pavlovic has perhaps been the least convincing of the qualifiers so far, his experience told in the game against the home town boy, Thomas Rendle.

This is the first day without play-offs and was very much appreciated by the control team as all the games were concluded at a much earlier hour.

Kotronias (3½) 1-0 Greet (3½)

Paschall (3) 0-1 Hebden (3)

Zude (3) 1-0 Lalic (3)

Cherniaev (3) ½ Wegerle (3)

Pert N (3) 1-0 Eames (3)

Britton (3) ½ Gormally (3)

McNab (3) ½ Stevens (3)

Gwaze (3) 1-0 Snape (3)

Wu (3) 0-1 Hendriks (3)

Although nobody commentated to me about this, those who worked knocked out last year, now had to recover from their disappointment. Of course, this is true of any tournament, but it must be greater where you are playing in a tournament where there is a fork in the road. Nicholas Pert won quite rapidly and then came along and demonstrated his win to a small, but appreciative audience. Even showed us here he went wrong and let Robert Eames back into the game – an opportunity which the older Englishman failed to grab. For the last several years, we have had Chris Ward do the commentary, but reduced support from the Hastings Council means that something has to give. The good news is that this slide over the past few years is unlikely to continue as the new Council is more favourably disposed towards the congress.

Surprise result of the day was the win of Erik Zude over Bogdan Lalic. He is renowned as a player who is very difficult to beat. On this occasion he was blown away.

The 17 year old Canadian Christian Stevens tried to claim a draw against Colin McNab with king and rook against king, rook and knight. He didn’t realise that the addition of one minute per move was partly designed to overcome problems with such positions. Black should be able to defend, if he is competent, and thus there is no reason for the arbiter to step in. I think it is Geurt Gijssen who said there are many players who do not understand the quickplay finish rule, but have a vague idea they can sometimes claim a draw. Certainly this non-incident bears him out. Anyway, the game was eventually drawn.

On lower boards, Petr Marusenko played a fine combination to beat Valerij Neverov. He has only been slightly less out of form than Zahar Efimenko. Last year’s winner of the Challengers won his first game at this event and that against an unrated player. It must be bitterly disappointing to him to be losing 20 rating points, when he had come within 6 points of breaking the 2600 barrier.

Round 4

Score First game result Play-off result Score

Bluvshtein (3) ½-½ 2-1 Kotronias (3)

Pavlovic (2½) ½-½ 2-0 Wu (2½)

Efimenko (1) 0-1 Socko B (2½)

Gormally (2½) ½-½ 0-2 Belov (3)

Hebden (2½) ½-½ ½-1½ Barsov (3)

Greet (3) ½-½ 0-2 Rendle (3)

Howell (2½) 1-0 Huss (2½)

Ziatdinov (2½) 1-0 Cherniaev (3)

Thus nobody succeeded in reaching 4/4, although the Seeding System was simply top half versus second half. We had begun to speculate that Efimenko might win the Premier without ever winning a game. This would be possible. He would draw all his remaining games, draw the rapidplay play-off games, get Black in the Armageddon games \and draw them as well, thus winning the event. I have yet to work out a way to avoid this type of thing. Frankly I had not expected a grandmaster to lose in the first round, after all the rating difference was about 300 points and the stronger player is expected to score 85%. OK, they might draw in the first round, then be knocked out and become a lucky loser, but to lose! Anyway Alexei Barsov put paid to that scenario and I must confess, I felt a certain degree of relief. If you can solve the problem, please don’t be shy.

Thus only 5 of the 13 GMs made it to the Premier of 8 players. Whether that is good or bad is just a matter of opinion and perhaps only time will tell. One certainty is that it shows how democratic the system is.

The match which attracted the biggest crowd of spectators was that between the young Englishmen Andrew Greet and local lad Thomas Rendle. It has come as no surprise that the system favours younger players. I had made Canadian grandmaster Mark Bluvshtein favourite to reach this stage of the event because he is only 16 years old. It came as no surprise that Mark Hebden and Vassilios Kotronias were knocked out in the rapidplay games. They are renowned not to be so successful at this form of chess. Even if that is a misconception, there is the matter of confidence, indeed arrogance, which is such a desirable trait for any sportsman.

I found the Bluvshtein Kotronias game fascinating, possibly because I used to play this line about 40 years ago. Due to the fact that I am conducting the commentary room for a couple of hours each day, I am seeing more of the play than usual. Note, I am trying to avoid actually doing the commentary, preferring to get players to come in after the have won their games to explain them. People who have lost are much less obliging, apart from Bogdan Lalic who will always share his thoughts on the games. It is true that I did commentary at the Fisher-Spassky match in Reykjavik, Kasparov-Karpov in London in 1986 and text messaging commentary at the Kramnik-Kasparov match in London in 2000; but I was younger and brasher than – and also a better player.

We are getting virtually all the play-off game scores by having the arbiters record them, and sometimes with the co-operation of the players. How we will manage to get those onto the internet is a real problem. Any volunteers? This is one of the normal functions which has had to go due to lack of funds.

Round 3

I didn’t see much of the action today as I was too busy with the more important Pairs at the Pig tournament that was won by Jack Rudd and John Brooke.

Efimenko continued on his merry way, managing to draw in round 3 , but winning the play-off. He has no scored 1/3 and yet is in the fourth round of the knockout. This has raised some eyebrows, including mine.

Vassilios Kotronias has been nost impressive, winning his games very smoothly. But the revelation of the tournament has been Li Wu, who has 2.5/3. His game against Efimenko was very fine indeed. I haven’t really looked at the Challengers either.

Round 2

There were a substantial number of close clashes this round and a certain amount of blood was spilt on the carpet. First casualty was Bogdan Lalic who lost to the young Canadian, one of three here, Christian Stevens. Aficionados were looking forward to Bogdan winning the tournament by drawing every game and then winning the speed matches. It was shown that this was a risky system as Christian went through. Having lost in the first round, Valerij Neverov found himself up against Danny Gormally. Again they drew the FIDE Rated game and Danny won the play-off match. It was interesting that Valerij could have given up his bishop for a pawn and then had to defend rook against rook and bishop. When he chose to hang on to his bishop, he was quickly overwhelmed by the pawn.

Of the few games I managed to see, 16 year old Marc Bluvshstein won extremely smoothly against Mark Lyall. Vladimir Belov was similarly impressive against Alan Smith.

Naturally the play-offs can be quite fascinating. I am astonished more players do not hang around for this spectacular feast of good moves and blunders. The rate of play of all the moves in 10 minutes plus 10 seconds from move 1 provides an excellent blend of speedy and sophisticated player.

Milos Pavlovic clearly had considerable difficulty beating Ian Snape as did Vassilios Kotronias in beating Jovanka Houska. Indeed many Gms went on an extremely long time and none longer than that between Nicholas Pert and Zahar Efimenko. In the first game, it took them over 80 moves to reach the endgame king and rook against king, rook and bishop. I had little doubt that the young Englishman would hold this, but they reached move 130. Adding on one minute each time a player moves, takes all the heartache out of such games. Then they drew the first two rapidplay games. Then it was on to Armageddon. White received 6 and Black 5 minutes. If Black drew then he would go through. I speculated that the twins would go to the toilet and exchange clothes. Then Richard would return and play the Armageddon game relatively relaxed. No, if truth be told, it is possibly to tell them apart. Efimenko won and thus he has reached the third round, despite losing in the first. Is that totally fair? Well, that is a difficult question and a purely philosophical one.

You would think an event in its 81^st incarnation would have solved all problems. This not so, each year is unique. For one thing there are seven different versions of the calendar, depending on which day of the week 28 December falls.

This year has seen the biggest change in the congress format since the organisers changed from having round-robin sections of 10 to Swisses. Arguably it is an even greater turmoil. There just wasn’t the financial resources to run a 10 player round-robin Premier and a 10 round Challengers Swiss where players could gain GM forms.

Thus we decided to combine the Premier and Challengers. That’s easy people said, just have one big open , oh and also we don’t want to lose the traditional of the Premier. Thus we have changed the event into a knockout. Once players have been knocked out, they proceed into an open Swiss, called, would you believe, the Challengers. Committee member David Sedgwick insisted we not call the knockout the Premier straight from round 1. Thus the Premier does not start until there are only 8 players left.

Of course there are technical problems. For the first 4 rounds it is a one round knock-out. White would normally have a tremendous advantage. Thus the rate of play is 40 moves in 70 minutes for White and 90 minutes for Black, plus all the moves in 20 minutes, adding on one minute from the start. I presumably nobody else has ever thought of the idea of compensating Black in this way. It is completely within the Laws of Chess and also the FIDE Rating Regulations.

But there were only 84 entries and we could not know the precise number until after the first round started. Eventually one must have 64, 32 and so on players. An extra round for the weakest 40 and they be joined in the second round by the first round byes. That discriminates against the 40 players and we would not know he exact number required until just before the start of play. Thus we decided on 42 winners and 22 lucky-losers.

OK, those people who drew in the first game and then lost could all be in this category. But there was no chance there would be 22 of those. The reminder could be drawn at random, well that would certainly be lucky losers! The ethos of pairing systems has gone away from random pairings for many years. Also I did not really want the GMs to be knocked out.

Then there is the matter of players after draws. The system used first has rapidplay and then Armageddon. In the first round there were only 3 play-offs and none reached the dreaded Armageddon system, which is grossly unfair.

So we settled on our system and had 64 players after round 1. Then came the pairings. It is completely unfair and a terrible defect of the Seeded Swiss System that, if a weaker player wins, then he retains his seeding position and keeps getting clobbered by higher rated players. If we were trying something new, then we wanted it to be fair. Thus, the lower ranked player takes up the rank of his opponent, if he wins the first game. Makes sense yes? But what happens to the higher ranked player who is a lucky loser. Logically his ranking must go down severely. The effect of this is that Efimenko and Neverov find themselves playing Nick Pert and Danny Gormally in round 2. Fair enough for the two foreign GMS, but it I not completely fair for the two Englishmen.

Due to the fact it was a seeded Swiss, the difference in rating between the higher rated and lower rated player was around about 300 points. I expect no surprises in round 1. Yet two GMs lost in the first round.

Most games seemed to have more bite than usually. Players were unwilling to exose themselves to the ‘lottery’ of the play-offs and tried harder to win. Of course nobody was surprised that Bogdan Lalic drew with Black, but he said his opponent played well.

It is too early to say whether the experiment is a success, but I do know that White won more games, despite the small time handicap.

Really by the way, the whole event should be called THE HASTINGS SYSTEM, it is not a knockout as there are lucky losers.

The three grandmasters can be found in the Challengers, but there are still 10 left in the Knockout.