Author: Timothy Ha

Happy New Year 2025! We reopen the club with a Waitangi Blitz on Monday Feb 3, then the Waitangi Weekender will be run from Feb 6 to Feb 9, on Thursday Feb 6, then Saturday and Sunday Feb 8-9. The Summer Cup starts on Feb 10 and will run for 7 rounds.

The Waitangi Weekender is an open tournament, please register for it on New Zealand Chess News.

The Waitangi Blitz and Summer Cup are Monday club events. Please register at https://www.trybooking.com/nz/events/landing/14420 (bookmark this page for the year, too).  

The blitz event is FIDE-rated, with 9 rounds of 3+2 blitz. The Summer Cup is FIDE- and NZCF-rated, with 7 rounds of classical chess over 7 weeks starting from Feb 10.  The time control is 60+30, we’re trialling out this format to see if parents and schoolchildren will have a better time, going home earlier by at least 30 minutes.

We recommend not registering if you know in advance that exams or travel plans will make you skip more than 1/3 of the rounds, to give space for somebody else.  Summer Cup has 7 rounds, so that’s skipping 3 rounds.  Taking byes due to sickness or emergencies is OK.  The policy is about prior knowledge of plans.  This policy also doesn’t apply to those who represent NZL in international events.  They need practice, and ACC is one of the best places to find it 🙂

If you hold any of these titles – FM/IM/GM, or WFM/WIM/WGM, and want to play, you can play for free without registration via the link above.  Only write us an email so we can reserve a spot for you before all spots run out.  This applies to all club events (except the opens – AklAnniv, Waitangi, ANZAC, Merv).

The full calendar of club events on Mondays and other days, like ABR, ADW (btw, what is ADW, why not ACW?) and other events to be added there soon — https://aucklandchess.nz/calendar

Congratulations to FM Alphaeus Ang who finished the 2024 Australasian Masters with a 7 out of 9 score, making his second IM norm! This result was achieved in a fighting game against the tournament leader IM James Morris. It was no simple last-round draw, see https://lichess.org/broadcast/2024-australasian-masters/round-9/aKA7Lccm/MQo0wKb8

More tournament info on https://chessnews.asia/2024-australasian-masters/

CM Isabelle Ning won the 2024 Merv Morrison Memorial with a score of 5.5/6 ahead of a big group of strong players. FM Alphaeus Ang finished second on 5.0/6. CM Kendrick Zhang, CM Alex Huang, Daqi Mao, Matthew Ashton (Hawkes Bay) and Swiss player Hassan Roger Sadeghi all shared 3rd place on 4.5/6.

The Merv Morrison Cup for U1800 players was shared between Daniel Winsley, Brogan Powlesland, Timothy Ha, Martin Zhou and Ryan Hwang. Only some were available for photos, and Daniel certainly had the best pictures with the trophy!

New Zealand Chess News has many photos from the event — please use the links https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=NZChessNews&set=a.977618974397094 and https://newzealandchess.nz/merv-morrison-memorial-2024/ for all information about the event.

The 2024 Club Champs is almost over, with rounds 8 and 9 today and next week. The registration for the Spring Cup (7 rounds, NZCF-rated only, Oct 21 – Dec 9) has started.

Please check your registration at https://www.vegaresult.com/vega/2903 — we emailed club players the TryBooking registration address.

Two ACC Chess Weekends (ACW) are being held soon at the Auckland Chess Centre:

August ACW, 24-25 of August
September ACW, 7-8 of September

The events are run on normal two-day weekends. Games are FIDE- and NZCF-rated, time control is 60+30 (classical), so you can play up to 3 games a day (you can also take many byes).

Register online via TryBooking here https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-chess-weekend-august-2024/

FM Alphaeus Ang won the Winter Cup by winning all his games (8 out of 8 plus one bye). CM Alex Nagorski came second, and WCM Nadia Braganza came third. https://www.vegaresult.com/vega/index.php?id=2901

The Club Champs (Aug 18 – Oct 14), a 9-round event, starts next week. Vega listing – https://www.vegaresult.com/vega/index.php?id=2902 and there might be some spots left for you to register on TryBooking, https://www.trybooking.com/nz/events/landing/11272

Our next ACC Chess Weekend (ACW) event will be held on the 24th and 25th of August, with six rated classical games over a normal weekend, a great training opportunity as usual. Please register online https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-chess-weekend-august-2024/

Please check your name in the 2024 ACC Club Champs Vega

https://www.vegaresult.com/vega/index.php?id=2902

FM Alphaeus Ang won the July ACC Chess Weekend, played as part of the FIDE100 Guinness World Records attempt on International Chess Day of 20 July (check the link for Vega crosstables, Lichess games and photo album).

The next event will be held on 24-25 August, register online at https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-chess-weekend-august-2024/

The July edition of ACC Blitz and Rapid will be held on July 13 and 14. 9 games of 3+2 blitz followed by 9 games of rapid 25+5. All FIDE- and NZCF-rated (NZCF only for rapid).

You can register online at https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-blitz-rapid-july-2024/ now.

The next blitz and rapid event happens next weekend, June 15 & 16. Register online here https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-blitz-rapid-june-2024/

Don’t forget about the classical events, too:

Peter Stuart Memorial, 28-30 June (Matariki holiday)

ACC Chess Weekend, 20-21 July (It’s the international day of chess, we will have special programmes)