Britbase logo  BRITISH CHESS GAME ARCHIVE   BCM logo

Hastings Premier PGN Game Downloads

Last Updated: Tuesday December 4, 2007 11:50 AM

The following is a collection of all games played in the Hastings Premier tournament (during the Hastings Xmas Congress) from its beginning in 1920/1 to the final all-play-all Premier in 2003/4 (games from subsequent knock-out/swiss events appear in the main body of Britbase). Note that this does not include the famous Hastings tournament of 1895 which is not considered to be part of this series, nor one or two other competitions which have been played in Hastings from time to time. Note also that there were no tournaments played between 1940/1 and 1944/5 inclusively. There were 20 pre-war Hastings Congresses from 1920/1 to 1939/40 inclusive, and 59 congresses between 1945/6 and 2003/04, making 79 premier tournaments in all. The congress still continues, but without an all-play-all Premier, and not all games are recorded.Official Hastings Congress website: http://www.hastingschess.org.uk/

Unfortunately, though the files contain a game entry and result for every game played in the competition, there are still many missing and incomplete game scores. Player names and game results have been thoroughly cross-checked against printed sources and a great many corrections and additions made to results and scores as published in ChessBase's Mega Database. This will enable you to compile accurate crosstables and statistics via standard ChessBase functions. Any chess writers or historians making use of this source are asked to show the courtesy of acknowledging Britbase as the source of their information and should if possible quote the web address.

Because of the large number of games, they have been divided up into separate files for downloading purposes, corresponding to a decade.


Hastings 1: 1920/31 to 1929/30 -  414 games
Hastings 2: 1930/31 to 1939/40 -  433 games
Hastings 3: 1945/46 to 1949/50 -  246 games
Hastings 4: 1950/51 to 1959/60 -  450 games
Hastings 5: 1960/61 to 1969/70 -  471 games
Hastings 6: 1970/71 to 1979/80 - 1080 games
Hastings 7: 1980/81 to 1989/90 -  834 games
Hastings 8: 1990/91 to 1999/00 -  483 games
Hastings 9: 2000/01 to 2003/04 -  180 games

2003/04 was the last all-play-all Hastings Premier for which all games were recorded. For subsequent knock-out/swiss events, see the main body of Britbase

Update (4 Dec 2007): DGT viewer added, files divided into decades. The game Smejkal-Clarke (1968/69) corrected to show Smejkal winning with White (some sources have him winning with Black). My thanks to John Blackstone for pointing this out.
Update (23 July 2006): Update to show round numbers for the 1988/89 tournament.

Update (11 May 2004): many thanks to Andy Ansel who has found four of the missing 1947/8 games. I've added another from the same tournament which appeared in BCM in 1948.

Update (19 April 2004): many thanks to Bernard Cafferty who has loaned me the published bulletin of Hastings 1952/3 which had all the games of the Premier. This was one of three missing post-war Hastings Premiers, so that only leaves 1947/48 and 1958/59 still to find (can anyone help?). As well as the 29 missing games from 1952/3, I discovered a number of discrepancies in the other 26 games, so you would be well advised to overwrite your database with the new file.

Amendments (16 Nov 03): Winser-Horne Hastings Premier 1949/50 Black's 14...Rb8 amended to 14..Re8 as suggested by Brian Denman. Also, Winser-Barda, Hastings Premier 1949/50 - Black lost on time. My thanks to Brian Denman.

Game added (19 Sept 2003): Mackenzie-Morry (1939/40): many thanks to Brian Denman for suppyling the score;

Amendments (10/10/2003) to 1948/9 games to show W Arthur Winser rather than William Winter / name change passim to Victor Buerger / also notes added to Norman/Tartakower from the 1924-25 Hastings, and Michell/Menchik from Hastings 1931-32

Missing and Incomplete Game Scores: tournaments from 1959/60 onwards are complete. However there are significant gaps before this time. Numbers of missing/incomplete games scores are shown in brackets: 1920/1 (2), 1922/3 (12), 1922/3 (16), 1924/5 (1 from section games and some unidentified play-off games), 1925/6 (16), 1927/8 (18), 1929/30 (19), 1930/1 (13), 1931/2 (10), 1933/4 (1), 1939/40 (21), 1947/8 (35), 1958/9 (32). Anyone who can help with finding these missing scores, or who identify any inaccuracies in the downloads, should contact John Saunders via email.

Back to Britbase

BCM logo
BCM Online