The Winter Cup began on September 12 with 72 players across 3 grades. There are 8-player A and B Round-Robin grades and 56 platers in a C-Grade Swiss. This is probably close to the maximum number of players the club can hold.
Notices:
- School Holidays start on the 26th of September and many younger players will be away (some that the Chess events in Palmerston North). Please make sure you let us know what days you will miss in advance. Letting us know means you get a half-point bye and also that another player doesn’t miss out on a game waiting for you.
- The final round of the B-grade Interclub was played on on Sunday the 25th of September. The ACC team ( Tim Ha, Scott Treanor, Stephen Peak, Nicole Qin, Wayne McDougall and Aaron Wang) drew with the North Shore (3 wins each). Thank you to these players plus Eric Wu and Pouya Seifi for taking their time out on Sundays to play for the club.
- Unfortunately this year out Interclub teams only managed 4th (out of 4) in the competition. First place was taken by Papatoetoe for the first time ever.
- Some photos from the B Grade Interclub are online: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3.
Results from Round 1
PGN file by Alex Nagorski for round 1
A Grade
Watson vs Goodhue saw opposite side castling and both sides playing pawn-storms. After some aggressive play the dust cleared and Watson was significantly ahead.
Mike Steadman deployed his 1. b4 against Allen Fan obtained equality but lost the exchange. He resigned in a difficult but perhaps not totally lost position.
In an Interesting unbalanced game John Duneas followed a gambit and obtained 3-4 pawns for a bishop against Alphaeus Ang. After much to-and-fro John Won.
B Grade
After a slow start Paul MacDonald crunched up Tim Ha
Don Eade and Hilton Jacobs played a very long (92 move) game with Don eventually winning.
Richard Taylor had some problems against newcomer Tomas Madr but eventually got a little ahead before settling for a draw
Alex Nagorski playing an interesting game where he swapped pieces and slowly worsened Keith Ward’s pawn structure until when all the pieces were gone he had a winning King and pawn endgame
C Grade
Upsets on boards 2 and 3 saw Eric Wu draw with Rishit Patel and Simon Lyall draw with Oscar Qin. Further down the table Tom Fu beat Giles Elias.
The Vega Websites for the Winter Cup Are:
Links to the Schedule for A and B grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.
If you are unable to play please contact Simon Lyall either via text (021 575 233) or email to contact @ aucklandchess.nz . Normally you will get a half point bye. Please let us know as early as possible.
The draft draw for C grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes
