Hastings Grand Prix, 2nd January 2010

The New Year got underway in style with a bumper entry of 60 contestants aged 5 - 17. Once again, catering operations were caught out under-stocked!

We were very pleased to welcome the Burkart brothers, on holiday from Germany and missing their chess, who further strengthened an already strong U18 section. Luckily Gary McCullough was on hand to converse in the common language of French. All sections were exceptionally strong - there were no easy wins today - and the arbiters were very pleased to report that rare event - a game in the U11 Minor being lost on time!

Many of the children were match-fit from the recent LJCC events - Josh Higgs, David Liu, and James Reid all scooping trophies; not to mention Cosima Keen (U11) who swept the teenage boys aside to win her second major trophy in 4 days! Mention should also go to Copthorne Prep who provided 4 of today's trophy winners.

Prizegiving was particularly enlivened by a special guest appearance by British Champion (and ex-SJC) GrandMaster David Howell. The alert amongst you may have spotted him on TV recently, and the programme featured some vintage footage of him as a child wearing his blue SJC teamshirt. David graciously autographed numerous Hastings CC souvenir programmes and posed for photographs. Thank you David - very inspirational for our youngsters.

Thanks to St. Mary Star of the Sea School for the venue, conveniently placed just a 5 minute walk from the Hastings International Congress. Despite the snow on the playground, children and teens enjoyed bracing games of football between rounds.

All this would not be possible without our tournament stalwarts:-

Special thanks to pairers Iain Rose and Phil James who remain calm, impartial and unflappable despite being in the same room as their competing offspring all day. Today we benefited from Chris Lear's IT expertise trialling automated tournament software - this will hopefully automate much of the drudgery involved in collating and reporting results, and in submitting games for grading.

Brian Stockham, Dave Graham, Gary McCullough and Tim Woods made for a very experienced arbiting team, and a guest appearance by regular trainer Chris Jones allowed us to run a post-match analysis room for the first time in a long while.

Catering was heroically run by Michelle Blake and Punam Aggarwal ably assisted by Bridget Haxby and Mandy Holman.......with the occasional special appearance by Trevor Norton.

For a photo gallery, click HERE.

Updated Grand Prix placings are HERE.

Trainer Dave Graham discusses a few interesting positions observed during the day.....have a look at Game 1, Game 2 and Game 3.