Kovchan and Golding tie for first place at 99th Hastings Congress

Decisive action in the final round

The 2025/26 edition of the Hastings Chess Congress was held from 28 December 2025 to 2 January 2026 at the Horntye Park Sports Complex in Hastings. The main tournament was a nine-round, FIDE-rated Swiss played over six days, with a time control of 90 minutes plus a 30-second increment per move. As in many previous editions, the event attracted a strong international field and produced a closely fought finish.

Throughout the tournament, third seed Marius Deuer appeared the most likely winner. The German IM, aged 17, held the sole lead after round six and regained it after round eight, when he remarkably defeated second seed Sarunas Sulskis. Going into the final round, Deuer led a chasing group of four players by half a point and needed only a draw to guarantee at least a share of first place.

In the decisive ninth round, Deuer had black against experienced Ukrainian GM Alexander Kovchan, who was one of the four players trailing him by half a point. The others were IM Bennet Hagner from Germany, GM Simon Williams and IM Alex Golding from England.

A well-known Caro-Kann line that quickly simplified the position appeared on the top board, seemingly suiting Deuer’s needs from a tournament perspective. However, the young German lost control of the game, allowing Kovchan to first seize the initiative and then reach a favourable endgame. In the technical phase, Deuer made a further error, losing a knight to a tactical sequence, and Kovchan converted his advantage to win in 49 moves.

Kovchan 1-0 Deuer

Annotations by Martina Gerdts

A decisive game was also played on board two. Williams, true to his attacking approach, sacrificed a pawn from the black side of a Ruy Lopez. Although this gave him some initiative, his 22-year-old opponent defended accurately and later emerged with extra material. Golding converted his advantage cleanly to score a 37-move victory, moving level at the top of the standings.

On board three, the final potential challenger, Bennet Hagner (aged 17 like Deuer), was unable to generate winning chances against Koby Kalavannan and agreed a draw after 30 moves. As a result, Alexander Kovchan and Alex Golding finished tied for first place and were declared joint winners of the Hastings Chess Congress.

Doesn’t every chess game get decided by mistakes? Absolutely. But most players never truly comprehend that they are making the same kind of mistakes over and over again.

The outcome capped another competitive edition of one of the most tradition-rich tournaments in the chess calendar, with Hastings now looking ahead to its centenary edition next year.

Final standings

…112 players

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