Author: Simon

Another reminder to let us know if you are going to miss a round. It means we can give you half a point instead of zero. Also if you don’t tell us then we schedule you to play somebody and then they don’t get a game or start late when we shuffle them around.

On a more positive note I have updated the correct country for most players. This means we are down to just two from “Jamaica”.

Results from this week

A Grade

• The clash of the unbeaten players on board 1 saw Bruce Watson beat Mike Steadman to go into the lead by himself. Bruce is now half a point ahead of Ben Hague on 3.5 and 6 players on 3.
• John Duneas continued his good run by drawing with Alexei Kulashko
• Keith Ward came very close to beating Alphaeus Ang but miscalculated and allowed Alphaeus to squeeze a draw.
• Andrew Michael nicely played an endgame to upset Eric Wu while Rodney Li got the biggest upset beating 300-points better Hilton Jacobs

B Grade

• The top board clash saw Neil Sonnekus upset Mike Steiner.
• Euan McDugall’s win saw him join Neil as the last 2 unbeaten players.

The Vega website for the tournament is

• Autumn Cup A Grade
• Autumn Cup B Grade

Round 5

As of Sunday the following byes have yet been received for round 5:

• Ying Wang
• Aaron Wang
• Daniel Gong

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 both grades is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

Once again a reminder to text or call if you can’t play. It means we can schedule you for a half point bye rather than you getting zero points and somebody having to wait around but not get a game.

Results from this week

A Grade

• Once again there was a draw on board one of A-Grade. John Duneas managed to to covert a R+P vs B+P endgame against Ben Hague into a winning  K+P vs K position but forgot his endgame theory at the critical moment and let Ben get away with a draw.
• Further down the field Paul Macdonad was (I’m told) lucky to get a draw against Caroline Yan.
• Over White had a good day in the A grade with 10 wins, 1 default win, 3 draws and 4 losses.
• There are now only two players in A Grade with perfect scores (Mike Steadman and Bruce Watson) but there are another 4 rated 2200+ just behind them on 2.5.

B Grade

• There are now 3 players in B Grade on 3 points plus 1 more on 2.5
• Upset this week included Xinyang Liu beating Gaurav Pahuja , Ying Wang drawing against Pavlo Chudinov and Selena Hu beating Hugh Gao

The Vega website for the tournament is

• Autumn Cup A Grade
• Autumn Cup B Grade

Round 3

As of Wednesday the byes for round 4 are:

• Saasha Ghadiali
• Renae Ghadiali
• Rashit Patel

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 both grades is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

A crash on the Southern Motorway delayed a few people from getting in on Monday but most games started on time.

Please txt if you are going to be late in and we can sort something out. We had one player turn up late after their game had been defaulted and another didn’t turn up at all.

Apologies for the delay updating the website. We had some problems with Vega. Thank you to Keong Ang for his hard work chasing the bugs (and re-entering the draw/results) and to both Keong and Ewan for organising on Monday.

Results from this week

• Alexei Kulashko on board one was held to a draw by Nathan Goodhue. The game was the last to finish and went to just over 80 moves. At the end Alexei had to play a perpetual check to prevent Nathan from getting a second Queen.
• Newcomer Alex Negorski beat Alphaeus Ang
• Scott Treanor continued his run of upsets from last week and got a draw against Daniel Gong
• The B Grade saw several upsets including from Daniel Qiu, Leo Li and Isaac Yuan plus 3 draws.

The Vega website for the tournament is

• Autumn Cup A Grade
• Autumn Cup B Grade

Round 3

As of Wednesday the byes for round 3 are:

• Rodney Li
• William Li
• David Ansell
• Tom Fu

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.

A reminder to players to bring a pen when they come in on Monday, we don’t have many spares to lend out. Also please make sure you pay you sub if it is still pending. I believe we are down to the last few.

The draft draw for both grades is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

The Autumn Cup is the first tournament using the new start time of 7pm. We didn’t quite make that but we were going around 7:10pm.

A couple of last minute entries means that we have a record of  70 Entries with 40 in A Grade and 30 in B Grade. This presents a problem with space, since we only have 32 boards at present. The 3 board shortage is bridged by byes and by starting a couple of games late. Specifically Shawn Hui and Charlotte Wen both arrive a late so they (and their opponents) will take over the first 2 boards that become free.

The Vega website is online for both grade:

• Autumn Cup A Grade
• Autumn Cup B Grade

Results in round one saw the top half playing the bottom half so there were only a few upsets.

In the A Grade

• Scott Treanor beat Simon Lyall (who probably spent a bit too much time not looking at the board)
• Richard Taylor took a draw against Virginia Milne while materially ahead but low on time and not having an easy path forward
• Wayne McDougall got a piece ahead against newcomer Andrei Toporkov and converted it to a win.

B Grade upsets were:

• Toby Zhang drew with Mathew Steadman
• Isaac Yuan beat Temu Maroroa
• Renae Ghadoali beat newcomer Gen Li

Looking forward to Round 2 I have created a draft draw for each grade below. This is very much a draft and any additional byes will cause changes.

As of now the byes for Round 2 are:

• Stephen Peak
• William Li (and also round 3)
• Richard Taylor
• Tom Fu (also for round 3)

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.

The Initial list of players in the Autumn cup is now online

• A Grade
• B Grade

Please check you are listed correctly. The first round is at 7pm on Monday the 2nd on May. Entries close at 6pm on that day.

To enter please email contact @ aucklandchess.nz or text Simon on 021 575 233.

Notes:

1. Players not currently registered with the NZCF are shown as another country code. This will be updated to show their correct country at some point
2. We may shuffle some players between grades to ensure blance at the start of the tournament.

Due to the increased number of juniors in the club (over half are at school), the Centre will begin starting all games at 7:00 pm from the next event beginning May 2nd 2016 – the Autumn Cup.

To ensure this is successful, the draw will be prepared and advertised on the web and at the Centre during the week for the next Monday night round. Any withdrawals must be made to the club or Simon Lyall by 6:00 pm on Monday night. Failure to notify the club of a withdrawal may disqualify the person from entering the club’s next event.

All events will be advertised 2 weeks in advance and players need to have their names entered. The top round robin events will be populated the week prior to the event, no latecomers will be allowed entry.

Any players, who feel disadvantaged and cannot start at 7pm, please contact Mike Steadman for a refund of their club fees.

Simon Lyall
Club Captain

Bruce Wheeler
Club President

The Summer Cup started on February the 15th. We have A,B and C grade of 8-player round-robins with around 30 players in a D-Grade Swiss. All Grades are Nationally rated.

Draw for Round 2

A Grade

Daniel Gong     - Bruce Watson
John Duneas     - Alphaeus Ang
Ben Hague       - Gino Thornton
Alexei Kulashko - Mike Steadman

B Grade

Leo Zhang      - Simon Lyall
Richard Taylor - Vinod Kumar 
William Lee    - Allen Fan
Paul MacDonald - Nathan Goodhue

C Grade

Alex N         - Don Eade
Jasmine Zhang  - James M
Hilton Jacobs  - Joy Qin
Eric Wu        - Keith Ward

Apologies to the new Club members in C-Grade whose full names I don’t have.

On January 25th New Zealand Champion and top ACC player Alexei Kulashko played a Clock Simul against various other club members. A clock simul is where every board is setup with a chess clock and players can move whenever the like (and start the opponents clock), so at times Alexei could have his clock counting down on 20 boards

Time was 90 minutes+30s for Alexei and 45min+30s for his opponents.

Results will be posted at some point but for now here are some photos taken by Simon Lyall

Summer Cup

• A Grade: Bruce Watson
• B1 Grade: Daniel Gong
• B2 Grade: Alphaeus Ang
• C Grade: George Chen, Karl Holdo, Virginia Milne

Autumn Cup

• A Grade: Alexei Kulashko
• B Grade: Aaron Wang

Winter Cup

• A Grade: Ben Hague and Bruce Watson
• B1 Grade: Brett Rider
• B2 Grade: Hilton Jacobs
• C Grade: Stephen Peak and Scott Treanor

Spring Cup

• A Grade: Ben Hague
• B Grade: David Ansell, Xinyang Liu, Ying Wang

Blitz Champs

• A Grade: Ben Hague
• B Grade: Euan McDougall

Rapid Champs

• Ben Hague

Club Champs

• A Grade: Alphaeus Ang and Alexei Kulashko
• B Grade: Simon Lyall and Brett Rider
• C Grade: Caroline Yang

Centre Spirit Award

• Ying Wang

The 2015 Summer Rapid was held on the 23rd and 30th of March and consisted of 6 games of 25min +5sec time control. There were 63 players competing

Top placings were:

1st       Bruce Watson       5.5
2nd-4th   Jasmine Zhang      5.0
          Ben Hague       
          Daniel Gong       
5th       Aaron Wang         4.5
6th-13th  Philip Hair        4.0
          Leo Zhang
          Hans Gao
          Alphaeus Ang
          Wayne McDougall
          Allen Fan
          Eric Wu
          Harry Redwood