Author: Timothy Ha

We are back to Level 1 and can play chess in our club on Monday, March 15! Congratulations!

The Summer Cup was initially planned to run in 7 rounds, but we lost four weeks due to Covid lockdown levels, and three remaining weeks won’t be enough to compete and determine a winner in the Swiss format. Therefore, our club will divide the 80 registered players into 10 groups, each will compete in a 3-round, 8-player Swiss.

If you can’t come on any of these days, March 15, 22 or 29, please let us know and you’ll get a half-point bye. That also means somebody might be left without a game from their group, but that’s currently the reality of what we have.

Hopefully, life will get back to normal for the FIDE-rated rapid tournament and the Autumn Cup after this. Thanks for your understanding!

Auckland will still be on Level 2 next Monday, so we’ll meet online for another tournament. This time it’ll be a Swiss tournament with the rapid 10m+5s time control. Since March 8 is International Women’s Day, there’ll also be a small celebration. At the end of the tournament, a random player (but not the top 3 finishers) will get a prize in form of a ForwardChess e-book or a Chessable course, either written by Judit Polgar or about her games and chess career.

Please register in the NZCF team on Lichess to play, and here’s the tournament link – https://lichess.org/swiss/MBwaXphe

The tournament starts at 7:30 pm on March 8, 2021. Please register and come at about 7:15-20 pm, as it’s Swiss and, unlike Lichess arenas, you’ll forfeit several games if you’re late.

GM Gawain Jones from the UK is giving a simul to ACC players on March 25 (Auckland will hopefully be on Covid level 1 by then). There are 25 seats only, so please notify Timothy Ha and we’ll put your name on the registration list below. Thanks.

If you want to prepare against Gawain, check his games in the Trusts Open 2010 in Auckland, where he won 6 out of 6, or his win of Tata Steel Challengers 2017 in Wijk aan Zee (and participation in the Tata Steel Masters 2018), or his games on chessgames.com

The current list of players (max 25) participating in the Simul – tentative start time 6:30 pm on Mar 25. Ratings are provided to help GM Gawain 🙂

1. Po’e-Tofaeono, Hunter (1490)
2. Po’e-Tofaeono, Grayson (1212)
3. Zhu, David (1346)
4. Lewis, Jordan (1623)
5. Zhang, Kenny (1809)
6. Ning, Isabelle (1808)
7. Xie, Felix (2082)
8. Yu, Weiyang (1150)
9. Thurner, Anya (1553)
10. Mao, Daqi (1729)
11. Park-Tamati, Philli (1639)
12. Holdo, Karl (1613)
13. Treanor, Scott (1362)
14. Willoughby-Ansell, Xxavier (1367)
15. Deng, Abraham (1531)
16. Sonnekus, Neil (1536)
17. Wang, Justin (1605)
18. Vasudeva, Ayaan (1235)
19. Somaraju, Sai Vivan Karthikeya (1377)
20. Lakshmi, Narasimhan Ravi (1458)
21. Zara, Baraa (1470)
22. Taha, Shereif (1183)
23. McClory, John (1204)
24. Patdu, Ariel (1422)
25. Yu, Zachary

ALL seats taken.

We’re on lockdown again, so no chess club meeting on Monday, Friday or Saturday next week. But there will be chess online.

We’re inviting all NZ players to play in a match between Auckland, Wellington and other places on Monday, March 1, 7:30 pm. Please join the team you want, Auckland, Wellington or NZCF, https://lichess.org/tournament/RpyKGCiU

If your city/region wants to be represented with your own team and you have at least 5 players, please let us know and we’ll edit the match details.

With Auckland on COVID Level 1, we’ll resume our Monday club nights and start the Summer Cup on March 1 (we hope level 1 will stay). The tournament will be shortened to only 5 rounds, after we lost Feb 15 and 22 to lockdowns.

Please double-check your name in the list of players, https://www.aucklandchess.nz/vega/2021/wwwACCSummerCup/playersname.html

If you want to withdraw from the tournament, please let us know as soon as possible. If you will miss just the first round, please let us know before Monday 6:45pm so we can give you a half-point bye. Thanks!

Auckland will switch to Level 1 today, Feb 22, at midnight, so we can resume chess only next week, on March 1 (fingers crossed that nothing else happens). The Summer Cup will be reduced to 5 rounds because of this.

Let’s meet at 7:30 pm on Lichess, https://lichess.org/tournament/QR1cpl8f for two hours of 3+2 blitz arena when you can join and leave any time.

Our club will reopen on Monday, Feb 22, if (and only if) the country goes down to Level 1 on Sunday night. Please follow the Government’s announcements, and if we’re not on Level 1 yet on Monday, please don’t come.

If the club won’t reopen on Monday, we’ll do online blitz again. Please join the NZCF team on Lichess for that. Thanks!

Our club is closed tomorrow due to the mini-lockdown for Auckland at Level 3 and the rest of NZ at Level 2.

Let’s play online chess on Monday, Feb 15, 07:30 PM on Lichess, https://lichess.org/tournament/bnZ6hjBz — you need to join the NZCF team on Lichess to play, please provide the real name in Lichess profile or the join request. Thanks!

The start of the Summer Cup will be delayed. Please follow updates on AucklandChess.nz or https://facebook.com/AKLChess

The list of the currently signed up players for the Summer Cup (7 rounds, from Feb 15 to Mar 29) is https://www.aucklandchess.nz/vega/2021/wwwACCSummerCup/playersname.html

Our club is lacking places to accommodate all players who want to play, so if you CANNOT play, please let us know so we can withdraw your name and let other people in. Thanks a lot!

We have received 80 registrations for the Summer Cup. Registration is now closed. The tournament starts on Monday, Feb 15.

The list of players: https://www.aucklandchess.nz/vega/2021/wwwACCSummerCup/playersname.html

Other tournaments this year are listed in the Calendar, including long weekender tournaments that are also held at the ACC venue.