The chess club at Margate, a seaside resort in England, held the first of five consecutive international tournaments in the spring of 1935. Former world champion Jose Capablanca was invited to participate and he was amicable considering his success at numerous British tournaments such as Hastings. Samuel Reshevsky participated on behalf of the United States, and Ernst Ludwig Klein traveled from Austria. The remaining seven seats in the tournament went to the following chess masters from the United Kingdom: William Albert Fairhurst, women's world champion Vera Menchik, Jacques Mieses, Philip Stuart Milner-Barry, Brian Patrick Reilly, Edward G Sergeant, and George Alan Thomas. The tournament proceeded in a surprising fashion, largely due to the aggressive and often brilliant play of young Reshevsky. Conventional wisdom had Capablanca as the sure bet going into the competition, and he took an early lead following his win in the third round against 70 year old Mieses. But the turning point came in the fourth round when Reshevsky (who was only 23) defeated the former champion of the world in this game: Reshevsky vs Capablanca, 1935 From that point on Reshevsky took the lead and never gave it up. Three games are omitted from this collection due to their scores being incomplete. These include a draw in the third round between Milner-Barry and Reilly, a draw between Fairhurst and Sergeant in the seventh round, and an eighth round draw between Reilly and Mieses. In spite of the absence of these games, the results remain and are included in the score table below. The tournament was also marred by the surprising behavior of Klein, who the other players grouped against and later published their complaints about following the tournament's conclusion. Nevertheless, Klein later settled in Great Britain and became a citizen of the United Kingdom.

Although Reshevsky and Capablanca both finished with 6 wins each, the young American master's win over the former world title holder gave him the extra half point to finish sole first at an impressive 7½/9. The victory here was the first of a string for Reshevsky in the 1930s that would herald his rise as one of the best players in the world.