John Anderson (ENG) Wahbi Kheit(ISR), Alexander Longson(ENG) shared the prize for Best Performance by a non GM or IM
14 year-old Theodore Slade won the Alan Hustwayte Prize + £200 for the Best U-2200 Rating Improvement Theodore also won the prize for the best performance by a player aged under-21.
English GM’s Keith Arkell and Jonathan Hawkins shared the Southern Counties Chess Union (SCCU) prize of £200 and jointly hold the Glenroy Trophy for one year.
Cllr. Maureen Charlesworth presented her trophy for the best performance by a local player which was won by Jeremy Hudson of Bexhill who played in the Christmas Morning and Weekend events.
Additional prizes were offered this year by CHESS.COM – who presented subscriptions to their on-line magazine for the Best Game each day. One of the winners was Theodore Slade who also won two of the above prizes.
Norms were achieved by Tereza Olsarova (CZE) who gained her final WGM norm. Ronald King (RSA) and Matthew Carr (ENG) both achieved International Arbiter Norms.
This year’s Congress ran smoothly. The staff at Horntye Park worked exceptionally hard and won praise from players and organizers alike. There was a great deal of exciting chess and Chris Ward’s excellent commentaries bore testament to this. Stewart Reuben who, once again, put together an extremely interesting field of players was unable to be at the Congress owing to ill health. He nevertheless managed to watch the games on-line and write daily reports on the games which can be viewed on the web-site.
Hastings Borough Council must once again be thanked for their continued and much appreciated support. The White Rock and Lansdowne Hotels, KC Computers and Orion Energy must also be thanked for their support.
This year the Congress received a significant boost when it was awarded £6,000 by the Kowitz Family Foundation in collaboration with Chess in Schools and Communities (CSC). The donation was to help revive interest in the Congress among local spectators and junior competitors alike and to encourage an interest in chess by young players in general. The Congress used the funding to offer bursaries to 20 young players. They also presented £500 to Sussex Junior Chess Association at the end of the SJCA Junior Championships held at St.Mary Magdalene School on 4th January 2015. Congress Director, Con Power, made the presentation.
Juniors were well represented at the Congress including at the FIDE rated Blitz tournament held as an evening event. It is hope that this can be built on year on year.
Illustrating the continuing legacy of the Hastings Chess Congress was Mr. Power’s grandson was playing in the Junior Championships along with 10 year-old Timothy Marusenko from Ukraine whose grandfather was playing in the Masters for the 24th year.
The New Year Tournament also ended on 6th January and results are given below.