Author: Timothy Ha

ACC Rapid, one-day event on 28/6

Auckland Chess Centre Rapid 28th June 2026 is a single day 6 round rapid chess tournament that is open to all players. Games are played using the normal New Zealand rapid time control of 25 minutes plus 5 seconds increment per move.

While the tournament is unrated, it features a prize fund to reward players for their effort. This makes the event ideal for players who wish to play more games under such a time control to prepare for higher level rapid tournaments or the New Zealand Interschools National Finals.

Register online at https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-rapid-28june-2026/

ACC Rapid, one-day event on 14/6

Auckland Chess Centre Rapid 14th June 2026 is a single day 6 round rapid chess tournament that is open to all players. Games are played using the normal New Zealand rapid time control of 25 minutes plus 5 seconds increment per move.

While the tournament is unrated, it features a prize fund to reward players for their effort. This makes the event ideal for players who wish to play more games under such a time control to prepare for higher level rapid tournaments or the New Zealand Interschools National Finals.

Register online at https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-rapid-14june-2026/

Autumn Rapid (25/5, 8/6) and Auckland King’s Birthday (30/5-1/6)

FM Alphaeus Ang won the ACC Autumn Cup on 7.0/7 with five players on 5.0/7 sharing second equal – Sai Somaraju, Jack McConnell, Eden Xu, Hunter Po’e-Tofaeono, and Grayson Po’e-Tofaeono.

Our next Monday night series is the Autumn Rapid on May 25 and June 8 — don’t forget to register via the club calendar page.

On King’s Birthday weekend we’ll also run an open tournament with prize money – register online here https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-kings-birthday-weekender-2026/

ACC Double Weekends return for 2026

In 2025, we introduced a double-weekend format where eight games are played over two standard Saturday-Sunday weekends. This is convenient for planning as it requires no annual leave and avoids the complications of long weekends or public holidays. These are run as internal club events, allowing players to take as many half-point byes as needed. The time control is also 90+30, unlike evening games of 60+30.

Please use our calendar to see the dates, or click the following links to register for ACC Double Weekends 2026

Registration started for Summer Cup (Feb 2-Mar 16)

Our first Monday night tournament of 2026 will be the Summer Cup (Feb 2 – Mar 16), seven rounds of 60+30 games.

Registration has started on Jan 8, at 9:00 am.  Please use the link https://www.trybooking.com/nz/events/landing/18343 — and as usual, if you have travel plans or exams that will force you to skip 3 or more rounds, please consider not registering to give space to others.

The full calendar for the year is still being updated at https://aucklandchess.nz/calendar, but we already published the dates for the long weekenders, starting with Auckland Anniversary (Jan 24-26) and Waitangi Weekender (Feb 6-8).  Please follow the calendar link to register for those.

ACC Chess Festival 2026 will be held Jan 2-11

You don’t have to travel anywhere in January to be able to play serious rated chess! For the first time in years, we’re running a series of club events at the start of the calendar year.

Join us in the inaugural ACC Chess Festival 2026 – https://newzealandchess.nz/acc-chess-festival-2026/

Blitz on Jan 2 (9 rounds), Rapid on Jan 2-3 (7 rounds in two days), then Classical on Jan 3-11 (9 rounds, one game a day).

CM Leo Baker is the 2025 ACC Club Champion!

Congratulations to CM Leo Baker (left on the photo) who has become a new club champion at ACC, after a few years of domination by FM Alphaeus Ang. This year Leo is also club champion at North Shore CC, so he’s champ in two biggest clubs in Auckland!

Going into the last round of the 2025 Club Champs, only Leo and Preeyansh (right on the photo) were on 6.5/8. A few people were chasing on 6.0, including Alphaeus (who was beaten by Preeyansh in the previous round), so we could have just one or up to five co-champions. Leo seemed confident and said he’d need about 25 moves to win the game. It took only 21, but both spent a lot of time in hard calculation.

CM Hao Tang and CM Cohen Young shared 2nd= on 7.0/9.

Vega standings: https://www.vegaresults.com/vega/6227
Lichess broadcast: https://lichess.org/broadcast/acc-monday-nights-2025–club-championships/Qt0Cik91

ACC Double Weekends September (6-7 and 13-14)

The last event in the ACC Double Weekends series of this year will be held on Sept 6-7 and 13-14. In two consecutive weekends, you can get up to eight FIDE- and NZCF-rated classical games at the normal tournament time control of 90+30. Game times are 9:30 am and 2:30 pm on the days.

You can also be flexible and take any number of byes as long as you let us know in advance (before 9:00 am for the morning round, and before the last game of the morning round for the afternoon game).

Online registration link with all the information: https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-double-weekends-september-2025/