Author: Simon

The Winter Cup will be starting on Sept 12th. A reminder to enter soon if you want to play. Below are the draft grades for the tournament. Please contact me (Simon) if you have any feedback.

Currently Vega has everyone listed in C Grade. Once the A and B are confirmed (probably over the weekend) I will move players into those grade.

A Grade – 8 player round robin – 7 rounds rated

1. Bruce Watson
2. Mike Steadman
3. Daniel Gong
4. Alphaeus Ang
5. John Duneas
6. Alex Huang
7. Allen Fan
8. Nathan Goodhue

B Grade – 8 player round robin – 7 rounds – rated

1. Paul MacDonald
2. Don Eade
3. Richard Taylor
4. Keith Ward
5. Alex Nagorski
6. Tomas Midr
7. Tim Ha
8. Hilton Jacobs

C Grade – Rest of club – 7 round rated Swiss

There will be about 48 players in this grade including 5 over 1700 and another 5+ over 1600 so this will be a very tough.

The 2nd night of the Spring rapid was played on Sept 5th with the final 3 rounds being played. Nathan Goodhue and Bruce Wheeler were the joint winners.

• A reminder that several club members are representing New Zealand at the Chess Olympiad. Further information from the official website, or you can follow New Zealand via twitter, facebook or the chesschat website.
• Thank you to Tim Ha for setting up a Facebook Page for the Chess Centre. If you are on Facebook you might want to follow/like us.
• The Winter Cup be starting in on Monday the 12th of September. It will be 7 rounds with 2 round-robin grades of 8 players and swiss grade for everybody else. See the Vega page for the entries so far (Note all entries are in the C-Grade page for now). If you want to play then enter on the sheet at the club, email or txt before the tournament starts.

Winter Cup – Round 4

Going into the 3rd round of the Winter cup there were just 3 players on 3 points out of 3, Hilton Jacobs, Daniel Gong and Allen Fan. The match between Daniel and Hilton on the top saw an upset with Hilton winning giving him the outright lead (Allen lost to Mike Steadman on board 2). Further down the field Alphaeus Ang was lucky to beat newcomer Tomas Mad, Alex Huang drew with Bruce Watson, Temu Maroroa drew with Richard Taylor and Leo Li beat Mike Steiner

Round 5

Hilton’s run was bought to a halt by Nathan Goodhue on the top board. The suspiciously low rated (1400!) Temu Maroroa once again got a upset further down the boards.

Round 6

At the start of the round Nathan Goodhue had the sole led in the tournament with 4.5 points but there were another 6 players right behind him on 4.

On the Top board Nathan drew with Alphaeus Ang and boards 2 and 3 were also draws. However on board 4 Bruce Wheeler beat Richard Taylor to also jump to 5 points and 1st equal.

Upsets further down included Tom Fu beating Andrew Michael with a 712 point rating difference (Tom had 3 upsets last week), Lewis Jordan beating Alex Huang and Ying Wang upsetting Neil Sonnekus.

Results for the Spring Rapid 2016

1st= (5 points)  Nathan Goodhue and Bruce Wheeler
3rd= (4.5 points) Hilton Jacobs, Alphaeus Ang, Bruce watson, Daniel Gong, Alex Nagorski, John Duneas, Keith Ward

Good performances included

• Hilton Jacobs ( 315 above rating)
• Jordon Lewis  ( 336 above rating )
• Temu Maroroa ( 363 above rating)
• Tom Fu ( 726 above rating! )
• Leo Li ( 329 above rating )
• Ying Wang ( 393 above rating )
• Oscar Qin ( 238 above rating )
• Hugh Gao ( 356 above rating )

See the Vega page of the tournament for full details.

• The Winter Cup be starting in on Monday the 12th of September. It will be 7 rounds with 2 round-robin grades of 8 players and swiss grade for everybody else.  See the Vega page for the entries so far (Note all entries are in the C-Grade page for now). If you want to play then enter on the sheet at the club, email or txt before the tournament starts.
• The 2016 Olympiad starts on the 2nd of September. 4 Club members are part of the teams representing New Zealand. In the Open team Ben Hague and Alexei Kulashko are playing while in the Women’s team we have Jasmine Zhang and Kate Song.
• Some photos from Round three of the Rapid are online.

On the 29th of August we played the rounds one, two and three of the Spring Rapid. There were around 60 players (plus a few no-shows) with the whole club playing in a single tournament.

In round one the big upsets were Xinyang Liu drawing with Bruce Wheeler and Tom Fu drawing with Virginia Milne. In both cases there was a 700 point rating difference. Jordan Lewis also had an exciting game against Alphaeus Ang.

Round two also had upsets with Hilton Jacobs beating John Duneas, Rodney Li beating Keith Ward at the top boards.

Round three saw around half the field taking half point byes including Top players Mike Steadman and Alphaeus Ang. On the top board Nathan Goodhue drew with Club Champ Bruce Watson. Further down Bruce Wheeler gave up his 2nd upset draw of the night to 1129 point lower rated Tom Fu.

The current standings are Allen Fan, Daniel Gong and Hilton Jacobs in first place on 3 points. However just behind them are several players on 2.5 points.

I’ll note that Tom Fu got upsets in all three rounds and currently has a performance rating of 1837 when his actual rating is 955.

See the Vega page of the tournament for full details.

 

The 2016 Auckland Chess Centre Club Champs were held across 9 rounds in June, July and August 2016. There were 4 grades. A though C were 10-player round-robin competitions and D grade was a Swiss with around 40 players.

Some photos by Simon Lyall from round 6 of the Club Champs are online.

A Grade

Winner of the A Grade and 2016 Club Champion was Bruce Watson with 7 points (5 Wins, 4 draws, no loses).

2nd was Alexei Kulashko with 6 points and Ben Hague and Gino Thornton came 3rd-equal with 5.5 points.

Vega Website for the Club Champs A Grade.

B Grade

Allen Fan won the B Grade with 8 points ( 7 wins, 2 draws, no loses).

Second Equal were Paul Macdonald and Keith Ward on 6.5 points.

Vega Website for the Club Champs B Grade.

C Grade

Winner was Hilton Jacobs with 7 points ( 7 wins, 2 loses)

Second was Pouya Seifi with 6.5 points

Vega Website for the Club Champs C Grade.

D Grade

First equal in the D Grade were Eric Wu, Wayne McDougall and Stephen Peak each with 7 points.

Temu Maroroa was 4th with 6.5 points.

Vega Website for the Club Champs D Grade.

 

 

• The Spring Rapid will be starting this coming Monday (August 29th). It will be 6 rounds across 2 nights. See the Vega page for the 50+ entries so far. If you want to play then enter on the sheet at the club, email or txt before the tournament starts.
• Similarly the Winter Cup is just 3 weeks away. I’ll be putting up an entry form for that is well

Results from Round 9

Round 9 PGN file from Alex Nagorski

I’ll post the results from Round 9 below and the final results for the tournament in a separate post.

A Grade

• Alexei has already left for the Olympiad so took a draw against Gino. The other 4 games were all won by White.
• Gordon Morrell played a nice opening and quickly got an advantage against Daniel Gong. Daniel tried a piece sacrifice to open up the position but it failed to provide enough
• Mike Steadman’s opening experimentation continued (although his dubious one last week was a typo) this time with 1. d3 d5 2. c3 c5 3. Qc2 . After some more straightforward move he and Alphaeus castled on opposite sides and Mike’s pawn and piece advance decided things.
• Bruce Watson played a very nice game to beat Nathan Goodhue
• John Duneas looked good for most of his game but lost a couple of pawns to end up in a lost endgame against Ben Hague

B Grade

• Paul MacDonald and Don Eade had a fairly even game before Paul’ Attack left his King undefended and enabled Don to get an unexpected mating attack.
• Tim had blundered a piece early against Keith Ward and Keith swapped material until he resigned.
• Simon Lyall blundered a pawn early against Richard Taylor and while Richard was ahead throughout the game he missed the best moves and eventually settled for a draw.
• Jasmine Zhang was ahead for most of her game against Alex Nagorski and after missing some winning chances eventually prevailed.

C Grade

• Andrew Michael missed a tactic from Sergy Kozakevych and lost after losing an exchange and in a poor position.
• A few wasted moves saw Rodney Li come under a sting attack from Mike Steiner and he quickly lost.
• Scott Treanor was having a nice game against Hilton Jacobs but accidentally trapped and lost one of his pieces to allow Hilton to win.

D Grade

• The top boards all went according to rating

The Vega website for the tournament is

• Club Champs A Grade
• Club Champs B Grade
• Club Champs C Grade
• Club Champs D Grade

• The Spring Rapid will be starting on August 29th. It will be 6 rounds across 2 nights. See the Vega page for entries so far. If you want to play then enter on the sheet at the club, email or txt before the tournament starts.
• Over the weekend there was the 1st round of the B Grade Interclub. Unfortunately we didn’t get off to a good start losing 5.5 to 0.5 to Papatoetoe.
• The 2016 Chess Olympiad will beheld in Early September. Club Players representing New Zealand will be Alexei Kulashko and Ben Hague in the Open Team and Jasmine Zhang and Kate Song in the Women’s team.
• We had a visit and demonstration from the designers of the chesslike boardgame Four Kings One War to the club. Tim Ha took the following photo and posted some more on Facebook

 

Results from Round 8

Round 8 PGN file from Alex Nagorski

There is only one round left in all grades (plus a couple of catchup games)

A Grade

• Ben and Alexei played an uncommon Sicilian sideline and after a fairly even game swapped most pieces and drew
• John and Bruce also swapped down to a draw.
• Mike Steadman managed a novelty on move 3(!) of the Sicialian ( 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 g6 3. g3 b4?! ) against Nathan Goodhue. However Nathan ignored the free pawn. The game ended fairly abruptly with an agreed draw.
• Gino and Daniel also agreed on a draw in the middle game.
• The only Win in A grade was a nice game by Alphaeus Ang against Gordon Morrell which saw Gordon on the backfoot thoughout the middle game and losing on time trying to hold two rooks vs a Queen.
• Bruce Watson leads Alexei by half a point going into the last round . Alexei has taken a draw for the last round so a Win or Draw by Bruce against Nathan will see him as the Club Champ.

B Grade

• A blunder saw Allen win Jasmine’s Queen
• Richard Taylor and Alex Nagorski had a very sharp tactical game that Alex won.
• Simon and Keith had a fairly even game until Simon lost a pawn and tried a exchange sacrifice after failing to find the best lines.
• Paul MacDonald provided a pgn with his analysis of his win against Tim Ha
• With one round to go Allen Fan has already won being 1.5 points ahead of Paul MacDonald and Keith Ward. Although there are a couple of unplayed games

C Grade

• Only two games played
• Nicole Qin came out behind after a mid-game piece swap
• After getting a winning advantage Hilton Jacobs couldn’t find how to break though in the endgame and made a series of mistakes that enabled Rodney Li to win.
• The loss leaves Hilton half a point ahead of Pouya Seifi but Pouya will get a 1 point bye in the last round.

D Grade

• Eric Wu and Temu  Maroroa both lost their games so things are open with 3 players on 6 points and two on 5.5 going into the last round.

 

The Vega website for the tournament is

• Club Champs A Grade
• Club Champs B Grade
• Club Champs C Grade
• Club Champs D Grade

Links to the Schedule for A,B and C grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

As of Wednesday Night byes for Round 8 in D Grade:

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 D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

• We have just two more rounds to go and some of the grades are looking like they are close to be being decided.
• In A Grade Alexei Kulasko is now One point ahead of Bruce Watson, however Bruce has two games in hand
• In B Grade Allen Fan is one point ahead of Keith Ward but Allen still has a game in hand (although so does Keith)
• C Grade pretty much has all games Played and Hilton Jacobs has a lead of 1.5 points
• In D Grade Eric Wu is only half a point in the lead but has played and beaten most of those immediate behind him.

Results from Round 7

Round & PGN file from Alex Nagorski

A Grade

• Alexei never seemed to give Daniel Gong a chance
• Gino and Alphaeus swapped into a draw
• Gordon Morrell sacrificed a piece for an attack, when it ran out of steam Nathan took a draw although the computer strongly preferred Nathans position.
• After a good start John Duneas’s position collapsed against Mike Steadman
• Bruce Watson and Ben Hague had a very exciting game that eventually ended in a draw.

B Grade

• Don Eade and Tim Ha had a long game but Tim entered the endgame a pawn up and eventually broke though
• Simon Lyall had a bad start against Paul MacDonald and just when things were equalizing fatally opened the position.
• Keith and Alex had very interesting middle game. After some swaps they ended up with an opposite coloured Bishops and pawn endgame which greatly favoured Keith
• Richard Taylor made a couple of Tactical errors against Allen Fan

C Grade

• Mike Steiner dropped two pawns and then a piece against Andrew Michael
• Hilton Jacobs ended up with a lovely combination of pawns and pieces that harassed Sergiy Kozakevych until they destroyed his position.
• Rodney Li and Chris Joel had a exciting game with some dubious tactics. Chris won
• Nice win by Scott Treanor over Pouya Seifi

The Vega website for the tournament is

• Club Champs A Grade
• Club Champs B Grade
• Club Champs C Grade
• Club Champs D Grade

Links to the Schedule for A,B and C grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

As of Wednesday Night byes for Round 8 in D Grade:

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 D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

Review of the Round 6 games from the Club Champs.

Round 6 PNG file by Alex Nagorski

A Grade

Kulashko v Watson: White was ahead for much of the game after giving up both bishops for a pawn (or two) and was close to winning a even endgame before a slip up saw Watson secure a win.

Duneas vs Morrell – White kept a slight led throughout the game and in the endgame black eventually made a fatal mistake.

Ang v Gong : Alphaeus had a commanding position but missed the winning line and the position quickly turned around with Daniel winning material and then the game.

B Grade

Eade vs Zhang: Jasmine nicely outplayed Don

Rider v Taylor: The game began with the From Gambit ( 1f4 e5 2. fxe5 d6 ) and continued with some sharp play by both players. Brett eventually missed a trick and lost a piece.

Fan v Ward: Allen picked up some pressure in the middlegame and Keith was unable to find the best defense.

Nagorski v MacDonald: After finding a nice tactic Alex missed the correct defense of the counter-tactic and ended up a piece down

C Grade

Seifi v Li: A couple of bad moves by Rodney and it was all over.

Joel v Kozakevych: An Abrupt draw just when things were getting interesting

Jacobs v Steiner: A nicely played Central pawn push paid off for Hilton.

 

• I took some photos during round 6 and they are now online
• A reminder that there is a Junior Tournament this weekend. Entry for and links are on the 2016 Junior Rapid page.
• The author of Vega has fixed the half-point-unrated-bye bug and we can now have these
• Jingbo Wei has withdrawn from C Grade.
• I’ll probably put up a signup sheet for the Spring Rapid in the next week or two.

The Waikato Open

Several Club players went down to the Waikato Open in Hamilton over the 29th-31st of July. Out of our players Alphaeus Ang came in 1st place with Ben Hague 2nd equal. Aaron Wang and Ying Wang won grade prizes.

Results from round 6

Note: I’ve not received the PGNs for games yet so I’ll do a brief review of this rounds and expand this later

A Grade

Alexei Kulashko’s run of good results was brought to and end with a loss to Bruce Watson. He is now just half a point ahead of Bruce Watson and Daniel Gong but both of them have 2 games in hand.

B Grade

Allen Fan is still 1 point ahead of the field with a game in hand. However there are around 6 games not played so actual placing further down the field is hard to determine.

C Grade

This grade has no undisplayed games but is still close with Hilton Jacobs half a point ahead of Sergiy Kozakeych and Pouya Seifi.

D Grade

A loss by Temu Maroroa to Wayne McDougall has left Wayne and Eric Wu in 1st place.

The Vega website for the tournament is

• Club Champs A Grade
• Club Champs B Grade
• Club Champs C Grade
• Club Champs D Grade

Links to the Schedule for A,B and C grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

As of Wednesday Night byes for Round 7 in D Grade:

• Caroline Yan – Zero points
• Kate Song – Zero point
• Sarah Yan – Zero points
• Olivia Dong – Zero points
• Andrie Toporkov – Zero Points
• Kimberley Yuan – Zero points
• Jason Haung – Zero points

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 D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

Things were back to normal this week after disruption from School Holidays.

• The new rating NZ list has come out, please have a look on the list to check you are listed correctly (I see at least one female player listed as male). I’ve updated Vega for the Club Champs with people’s new ratings
• To clarify the policy on byes for round robin tournaments: If you call you will normally get a half point bye. If you don’t call and don’t turn up then you will get zero points plus I’ll put you down for zero points the following week unless I hear from you.
• Apologies for the late start, it looks like I have to make sure I’m there early.
• Reminder to A,B and C grade people to sort out unplayed games. Unfortunately due to a Vega bug I can not give out a Half point each for unplayed games.
• Links to the Schedule for A,B and C grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

Results from Round 5

PGN file from Alex Nagorski

A Grade

After being behind for most of the game Alphaeus got into a winning endgame but played some incorrect moves (I believe in time trouble) and drew against Alexei. Gong beat Goodhue and Watson settled for a draw against Steadman.

B Grade

Lyall won after Eade made a mis-step in a sharp position. A close match between Tim Ha and Alex Nagorski was won by Tim after he ended up ahead in the endgame. Paul MacDonold had a slight lead for most of his game but Allen Fan managed to hold the draw. The Taylor vs Zhang game bounced around, Richard made a hopefully sacrifice then missed a good continuation. Jasmine eventually got into a winning position but allowed Richard to get a perpetual.

C Grade

Andrew Michael Blundered a piece to Hilton Jacobs (although Hilton already had a Strong looking attack).  Chris Joel missed an En-prix pawn in the middle of his position and Mike Steiner took it and won soon after. Sergiy Kozakevych ended up ahead out of the opening and under pressure Pouya Seifi lost a piece  on move 17. Nicole Qin beat Scott Treanor

D Grade

Temu Maroroa beat Aaron Wang to keep his outright lead. Major upsets were Eric Liang beating Mathew Steadman and Barry Jacob beating Jason Huang.

The Vega website for the tournament is

• Club Champs A Grade
• Club Champs B Grade
• Club Champs C Grade
• Club Champs D Grade

Links to the Schedule for A,B and C grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

As of Sunday Night byes for Round 5 in D Grade:

• Caroline Yan  – Zero points
• Kate Song – Half point
• Sarah Yan – Zero points
• Olivia Dong – Zero points
• Andrie Toporkov – Zero Points
• Kimberley Yuan – Zero points

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 D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes