News

There is no Auckland Interclub tournament this year, but there’s still the Auckland Teams Arena (ATA), a series of two-day (one normal weekend) tournaments at ACC that you can join. ATA August will also be the only classical OTB weekender besides the NZ Seniors Champs this month.

ACC would like to invite other Auckland clubs to build teams and bring them for these fun team events. The entry fee is only 20 NZD for six FIDE- and NZCF-rated games. Even though we don’t offer prize money, there are more lasting things on offer like T-shirts for individual winners and teams, and a lot of team spirit. For the August event, we will also have outdoor lunch with pizza and drinks (weather permitting).

Note: teams can be of any size, as long as they won’t be more than half of the tournament list. The tournaments are run as individual Swiss events, but team members won’t be paired against each other. The team score is the sum of the top 4 scorers.

Register online here (team captains can register several players at once) https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-teams-arena-august-2022/

Just a heads up, we’ll be starting our weekly junior club night on Saturdays at 5pm-6pm (new schedule), with registration at 5pm, and games to start by 5:05pm.

Please check out the details at: https://www.aucklandchess.nz/saturday-night-junior-chess/

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/