Author: Timothy Ha

The July edition of the Auckland Teams Arena will happen this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, July 23-24. Please register online at https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-teams-arena-july-2022/

Don’t worry if you haven’t formed a team with anybody yet. We’ll find a team for you.

This weekender is different from others:

• runs on two days only, Saturday and Sunday, so easier to plan
• costs only 20 dollars (we only cover the NZCF and FIDE rating fees and small ACC venue costs)
• you can team up with somebody else and have added motivation for shared results

And you can still win the events individually, just like William Liu did in June, even though his team came last 🙂

More info about the Auckland Teams Arena is on the dedicated page – https://www.aucklandchess.nz/auckland-teams-arena/

Our Monday nights are continuing as usual.

Moreover, we’re running North Island Classical Champs from Friday 15/7 to Sunday 17/7, then Auckland Teams Arena on Sat-Sun, 23-24/7.

Come for more chess!

If you’re travelling during the holidays, please let the Captain know in advance. If you’re sick or cannot come for any reason, please text before 6:30 pm on the night. Thanks!

Please clear your calendar for the biggest classical chess tournament of the month – the 2022 North Island Championship – nine rounds of classical chess over three days July 15-17, just before the Rapid Champs on July 18-19.

The venue for the classical champs is Auckland Chess Centre, while the rapid portion will be run by Auckland Central Chess Club in CBD.

More details and online booking on https://newzealandchess.nz/north-island-championship-2022/

July FIDE ratings are published. All players in the Winter Cup A-grade now have FIDE ratings, and games of rounds 1-5 will go for the August rating list. Rounds 6 and 7 will be affecting the September ratings. The B-grade has newly rated players, too, and their rounds affect future ratings similarly to the A-grade.

Congrats to FM Alphaeus Ang who peaked at 2307, playing in a much lower-rated field this year. New FIDE rules give him 0.0 points for many of his wins in our club. Only one game per tournament is calculated with a 400 rating difference, and others with the actual value.

Auckland Teams Arena July 2022 is the only OTB classical chess event on the July chess calendar in all of New Zealand. You can register here https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-teams-arena-july-2022/

The June event was run successfully on June 18-19 (see Vega) with three teams participating. Current team standings are:

The Knightmares (Po’e-Tofaeono Hunter, Grayson and Tyleah + Fergus Lee) – 15.5 pts
Mi Caissa, su Caissa (Timothy Ha, Mantra Bhatt, Daksh Bhatt) – 11 pts
The Morphians (William Liu, Luna Lu, Jacob Barry, Branden Li, Lisa Shi) – 10.5 pts

The individual winner of the June event was William Liu with 5.5 pts.

We expect to have several new teams joining for the July event. And you can always join an existing team. Some offer nice T-shirts 🙂 Four top scorers of the winning team in each event will also get T-shirts from the organisers.

Winter Cup (7 rounds, FIDE- and NZCF-rated, two grades A and B) starts on Monday, June 27.

If you played in the Autumn Cup, your name will be carried over (unless you tell Club Captain that you are withdrawing).

Some players are coming back to the club starting from the Winter Cup and their names are reflected here, too:

https://www.aucklandchess.nz/vega/2022/wwwACCWinterCupA/index.html

https://www.aucklandchess.nz/vega/2022/wwwACCWinterCupB/index.html

If you didn’t play in the Autumn Cup and are not on this list, please contact Club Captain to join the Winter Cup. Please send your details to timothyha at Gmail.

Join our first Auckland Teams Arena event this weekend, Sat-Sun 18-19/6 (six shorter classical games of 60+30) — don’t worry if you don’t have a team yet, we’ll find you one on the day

https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-teams-arena-june-2022/

A description of the Auckland Teams Arena is available on https://www.aucklandchess.nz/auckland-teams-arena/

A reminder for club members, old and new: if you’re sick, please let the Club Captain know and do not come to the club on Monday and Saturday nights. If you want to skip a Monday night for any reason, just let the Club Captain know before 6:30 pm on the night, and you’ll be given a “bye” in the current tournament.

Our club requires mask-wearing and recommends frequent hand sanitisation. More details on https://www.aucklandchess.nz/covid-19-policies-for-acc-reopening/

Are you building a team for the Auckland Teams Arena? Have you ever heard about it? If not, please head here first – https://www.aucklandchess.nz/auckland-teams-arena/

One team already prepared their T-shirts and is offering them while inviting players. There were rumours about a girls’ team being formed, too. And some 2000+ players wanted to team up just to crush everybody else (and not play each other during the tournaments).

Everybody better team up soon, as it’s important for teams to be present in as many events as possible, to get a better total score at the end of the season. Players don’t have to play all events and can even change teams, but teams need to be organised soon before the first event on June 18-19.

More about the arena: https://www.aucklandchess.nz/auckland-teams-arena/

The page for teams to promote themselves: https://www.aucklandchess.nz/auckland…/2022-ata-teams/

CM Felix Xie won the blitz portion of the May Weekender (May 21-22, 2022) on 8.5/9 and finished the rapid portion with a perfect 9/9 score.

Blitz Vega and Rapid Vega / Event webpage / Photos by NZChessNews

The list of prizewinners (players with a higher score may be listed under a grade category if that won more prizemoney for them)

Open
	1st	26.5/27	CM Felix Xie
	2nd	24/27	FM Alphaeus Wei Ern Ang
	3rd	17.5/27	CM Alex Nagorski
Under 1800
	1st	19/27	Daniel Wang
	2nd	18/27	Daqi Mao
	3rd	16.5/27	WCM Isabelle Yixuan Ning
Under 1600 and Above 1400
	1st	17.5/27	Justin Zhide Wang
Under 1400 and Above 1300
	1st	13.5/27	Duncan McDonald
Under 1300
	1st	15/27	Mantra Bhatt

Detailed standing

Composite Standings			Blitz Rounds	Rapid Rounds	Total Rounds
			9	9	18
Open		CompositeRating	BlitzScore	RapidScore	CompositeScore
1	Xie, Felix	1951	8.5	9	26.5
2	Ang, Alphaeus Wei Ern	2172	8	8	24
3	Wang, Daniel	1614	6	6.5	19
4	Mao, Daqi	1633	6	6	18
5	Nagorski, Alex	1785	5.5	6	17.5
6	Wang, Justin Zhide	1483	5.5	6	17.5
7	Ning, Isabelle Yixuan	1688	6.5	5	16.5
8	Thornton, Giovanni A	2068	6	5	16
9	Wheeler, Bruce	2106	5.5	5	15.5
10	Ha, Huy Minh (Timothy)	1623	4.5	5.5	15.5
11	Gan, Emily	1413	5	5	15
12	Bhatt, Mantra	1243	5	5	15
13	Vital, Henry	1950	4.5	5	14.5
14	Mistry, Prashant	1874	4.5	5	14.5
15	Liu, William Rui	1448	4.5	5	14.5
16	Zara, Baraa	1522	5.5	4.5	14.5
17	Wells, Clinton A.	1767	4	5	14
18	McDonald, Duncan	1306	4.5	4.5	13.5
19	Zhang, Kendrick Botong	1573	3.5	4.5	12.5
20	Po`e-Tofaeono, Hunter	1448	4.5	4	12.5
21	Coates, Alex	1366	4	4	12
22	Somaraju, Sai Vivan	1343	4	4	12
23	Po`e-Tofaeono, Grayson	1381	5	3.5	12
24	Thurner, Anya	1348	4	4	12
25	Zhu, Yeqing	1294	4	4	12
26	Mei, Zihan	1070	4	4	12
27	Lobanov, Nikita	1022	3.5	3.5	10.5
28	Zhang, Tim Lifan	1213	3	3.5	10
29	Nimmakayala, Srirama	1125	3	3.5	10
30	Xu, Luna	1316	2.5	3.5	9.5
31	Bhatt, Daksh	1342	2	3.5	9
32	Lu, Xiahan (Luna)	0	3	3	9
33	Lau, Brillion Yan Jun	1285	3	2.5	8
34	Zara, Anas	1277	2	3	8
35	Smith, Scott R	1276	3.5	1	5.5
Under1800		Rating	BlitzScore	RapidScore	CompositeScore
1	Wang, Daniel	1614	6	6.5	19
2	Mao, Daqi	1633	6	6	18
3	Nagorski, Alex	1785	5.5	6	17.5
4	Wang, Justin Zhide	1483	5.5	6	17.5
5	Ning, Isabelle Yixuan	1688	6.5	5	16.5
6	Ha, Huy Minh (Timothy)	1623	4.5	5.5	15.5
7	Gan, Emily	1413	5	5	15
8	Bhatt, Mantra	1243	5	5	15
9	Liu, William Rui	1448	4.5	5	14.5
10	Zara, Baraa	1522	5.5	4.5	14.5
11	Wells, Clinton A.	1767	4	5	14
12	McDonald, Duncan	1306	4.5	4.5	13.5
13	Zhang, Kendrick Botong	1573	3.5	4.5	12.5
14	Po`e-Tofaeono, Hunter	1448	4.5	4	12.5
15	Coates, Alex	1366	4	4	12
16	Somaraju, Sai Vivan	1343	4	4	12
17	Po`e-Tofaeono, Grayson	1381	5	3.5	12
18	Thurner, Anya	1348	4	4	12
19	Zhu, Yeqing	1294	4	4	12
20	Mei, Zihan	1070	4	4	12
21	Lobanov, Nikita	1022	3.5	3.5	10.5
22	Zhang, Tim Lifan	1213	3	3.5	10
23	Nimmakayala, Srirama	1125	3	3.5	10
24	Xu, Luna	1316	2.5	3.5	9.5
25	Bhatt, Daksh	1342	2	3.5	9
26	Lu, Xiahan (Luna)	0	3	3	9
27	Lau, Brillion Yan Jun	1285	3	2.5	8
28	Zara, Anas	1277	2	3	8
29	Smith, Scott R	1276	3.5	1	5.5
Under1600 & Over1400		Rating	BlitzScore	RapidScore	CompositeScore
1	Wang, Justin Zhide	1483	5.5	6	17.5
2	Gan, Emily	1413	5	5	15
3	Liu, William Rui	1448	4.5	5	14.5
4	Zara, Baraa	1522	5.5	4.5	14.5
5	Zhang, Kendrick Botong	1573	3.5	4.5	12.5
6	Po`e-Tofaeono, Hunter	1448	4.5	4	12.5
Under1400 & Over1300		Rating	BlitzScore	RapidScore	CompositeScore
1	McDonald, Duncan	1306	4.5	4.5	13.5
2	Coates, Alex	1366	4	4	12
3	Somaraju, Sai Vivan	1343	4	4	12
4	Po`e-Tofaeono, Grayson	1381	5	3.5	12
5	Thurner, Anya	1348	4	4	12
6	Xu, Luna	1316	2.5	3.5	9.5
7	Bhatt, Daksh	1342	2	3.5	9
Under1300		Rating	BlitzScore	RapidScore	CompositeScore
1	Bhatt, Mantra	1243	5	5	15
2	Zhu, Yeqing	1294	4	4	12
3	Mei, Zihan	1070	4	4	12
4	Lobanov, Nikita	1022	3.5	3.5	10.5
5	Zhang, Tim Lifan	1213	3	3.5	10
6	Nimmakayala, Srirama	1125	3	3.5	10
7	Lu, Xiahan (Luna)	0	3	3	9
8	Lau, Brillion Yan Jun	1285	3	2.5	8