News – Page 43 – Auckland Chess Centre

Club Champs – Round 9

The Spring Rapid will be starting this coming Monday (August 29th). It will be 6 rounds across 2 nights. See the Vega page for the 50+ entries so far. If you want to play then enter on the sheet at the club, email or txt before the tournament starts.
Similarly the Winter Cup is just 3 weeks away. I’ll be putting up an entry form for that is well

Results from Round 9

Round 9 PGN file from Alex Nagorski

I’ll post the results from Round 9 below and the final results for the tournament in a separate post.

A Grade

Alexei has already left for the Olympiad so took a draw against Gino. The other 4 games were all won by White.
Gordon Morrell played a nice opening and quickly got an advantage against Daniel Gong. Daniel tried a piece sacrifice to open up the position but it failed to provide enough
Mike Steadman’s opening experimentation continued (although his dubious one last week was a typo) this time with 1. d3 d5 2. c3 c5 3. Qc2 . After some more straightforward move he and Alphaeus castled on opposite sides and Mike’s pawn and piece advance decided things.
Bruce Watson played a very nice game to beat Nathan Goodhue
John Duneas looked good for most of his game but lost a couple of pawns to end up in a lost endgame against Ben Hague

B Grade

Paul MacDonald and Don Eade had a fairly even game before Paul’ Attack left his King undefended and enabled Don to get an unexpected mating attack.
Tim had blundered a piece early against Keith Ward and Keith swapped material until he resigned.
Simon Lyall blundered a pawn early against Richard Taylor and while Richard was ahead throughout the game he missed the best moves and eventually settled for a draw.
Jasmine Zhang was ahead for most of her game against Alex Nagorski and after missing some winning chances eventually prevailed.

C Grade

Andrew Michael missed a tactic from Sergy Kozakevych and lost after losing an exchange and in a poor position.
A few wasted moves saw Rodney Li come under a sting attack from Mike Steiner and he quickly lost.
Scott Treanor was having a nice game against Hilton Jacobs but accidentally trapped and lost one of his pieces to allow Hilton to win.

D Grade

The top boards all went according to rating

The Vega website for the tournament is

Club Champs – Round 8

The Spring Rapid will be starting on August 29th. It will be 6 rounds across 2 nights. See the Vega page for entries so far. If you want to play then enter on the sheet at the club, email or txt before the tournament starts.
Over the weekend there was the 1st round of the B Grade Interclub. Unfortunately we didn’t get off to a good start losing 5.5 to 0.5 to Papatoetoe.
The 2016 Chess Olympiad will beheld in Early September. Club Players representing New Zealand will be Alexei Kulashko and Ben Hague in the Open Team and Jasmine Zhang and Kate Song in the Women’s team.
We had a visit and demonstration from the designers of the chesslike boardgame Four Kings One War to the club. Tim Ha took the following photo and posted some more on Facebook

Results from Round 8

Round 8 PGN file from Alex Nagorski

There is only one round left in all grades (plus a couple of catchup games)

A Grade

Ben and Alexei played an uncommon Sicilian sideline and after a fairly even game swapped most pieces and drew
John and Bruce also swapped down to a draw.
Mike Steadman managed a novelty on move 3(!) of the Sicialian ( 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 g6 3. g3 b4?! ) against Nathan Goodhue. However Nathan ignored the free pawn. The game ended fairly abruptly with an agreed draw.
Gino and Daniel also agreed on a draw in the middle game.
The only Win in A grade was a nice game by Alphaeus Ang against Gordon Morrell which saw Gordon on the backfoot thoughout the middle game and losing on time trying to hold two rooks vs a Queen.
Bruce Watson leads Alexei by half a point going into the last round . Alexei has taken a draw for the last round so a Win or Draw by Bruce against Nathan will see him as the Club Champ.

B Grade

A blunder saw Allen win Jasmine’s Queen
Richard Taylor and Alex Nagorski had a very sharp tactical game that Alex won.
Simon and Keith had a fairly even game until Simon lost a pawn and tried a exchange sacrifice after failing to find the best lines.
Paul MacDonald provided a pgn with his analysis of his win against Tim Ha
With one round to go Allen Fan has already won being 1.5 points ahead of Paul MacDonald and Keith Ward. Although there are a couple of unplayed games

C Grade

Only two games played
Nicole Qin came out behind after a mid-game piece swap
After getting a winning advantage Hilton Jacobs couldn’t find how to break though in the endgame and made a series of mistakes that enabled Rodney Li to win.
The loss leaves Hilton half a point ahead of Pouya Seifi but Pouya will get a 1 point bye in the last round.

D Grade

Eric Wu and Temu Maroroa both lost their games so things are open with 3 players on 6 points and two on 5.5 going into the last round.

The Vega website for the tournament is

Links to the Schedule for A,B and C grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

As of Wednesday Night byes for Round 8 in D Grade:

If you are unable to play please contact Simon Lyall either via text (021 575 233) or email to contact @ aucklandchess.nz . Normally you will get a half point bye. Please let us know as early as possible.

The draft draw for D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

Club Champs – Round 7

We have just two more rounds to go and some of the grades are looking like they are close to be being decided.
In A Grade Alexei Kulasko is now One point ahead of Bruce Watson, however Bruce has two games in hand
In B Grade Allen Fan is one point ahead of Keith Ward but Allen still has a game in hand (although so does Keith)
C Grade pretty much has all games Played and Hilton Jacobs has a lead of 1.5 points
In D Grade Eric Wu is only half a point in the lead but has played and beaten most of those immediate behind him.

Results from Round 7

Round & PGN file from Alex Nagorski

A Grade

Alexei never seemed to give Daniel Gong a chance
Gino and Alphaeus swapped into a draw
Gordon Morrell sacrificed a piece for an attack, when it ran out of steam Nathan took a draw although the computer strongly preferred Nathans position.
After a good start John Duneas’s position collapsed against Mike Steadman
Bruce Watson and Ben Hague had a very exciting game that eventually ended in a draw.

B Grade

Don Eade and Tim Ha had a long game but Tim entered the endgame a pawn up and eventually broke though
Simon Lyall had a bad start against Paul MacDonald and just when things were equalizing fatally opened the position.
Keith and Alex had very interesting middle game. After some swaps they ended up with an opposite coloured Bishops and pawn endgame which greatly favoured Keith
Richard Taylor made a couple of Tactical errors against Allen Fan

C Grade

Mike Steiner dropped two pawns and then a piece against Andrew Michael
Hilton Jacobs ended up with a lovely combination of pawns and pieces that harassed Sergiy Kozakevych until they destroyed his position.
Rodney Li and Chris Joel had a exciting game with some dubious tactics. Chris won
Nice win by Scott Treanor over Pouya Seifi

The Vega website for the tournament is

Links to the Schedule for A,B and C grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

As of Wednesday Night byes for Round 8 in D Grade:

The draft draw for D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

Club Champs – Round 6 Games

Review of the Round 6 games from the Club Champs.

Round 6 PNG file by Alex Nagorski

A Grade

Kulashko v Watson: White was ahead for much of the game after giving up both bishops for a pawn (or two) and was close to winning a even endgame before a slip up saw Watson secure a win.

Duneas vs Morrell – White kept a slight led throughout the game and in the endgame black eventually made a fatal mistake.

Ang v Gong : Alphaeus had a commanding position but missed the winning line and the position quickly turned around with Daniel winning material and then the game.

B Grade

Eade vs Zhang: Jasmine nicely outplayed Don

Rider v Taylor: The game began with the From Gambit ( 1f4 e5 2. fxe5 d6 ) and continued with some sharp play by both players. Brett eventually missed a trick and lost a piece.

Fan v Ward: Allen picked up some pressure in the middlegame and Keith was unable to find the best defense.

Nagorski v MacDonald: After finding a nice tactic Alex missed the correct defense of the counter-tactic and ended up a piece down

C Grade

Seifi v Li: A couple of bad moves by Rodney and it was all over.

Joel v Kozakevych: An Abrupt draw just when things were getting interesting

Jacobs v Steiner: A nicely played Central pawn push paid off for Hilton.

Club Champs – Round 6

I took some photos during round 6 and they are now online
A reminder that there is a Junior Tournament this weekend. Entry for and links are on the 2016 Junior Rapid page.
The author of Vega has fixed the half-point-unrated-bye bug and we can now have these
Jingbo Wei has withdrawn from C Grade.
I’ll probably put up a signup sheet for the Spring Rapid in the next week or two.

The Waikato Open

Several Club players went down to the Waikato Open in Hamilton over the 29th-31st of July. Out of our players Alphaeus Ang came in 1st place with Ben Hague 2nd equal. Aaron Wang and Ying Wang won grade prizes.

Results from round 6

Note: I’ve not received the PGNs for games yet so I’ll do a brief review of this rounds and expand this later

A Grade

Alexei Kulashko’s run of good results was brought to and end with a loss to Bruce Watson. He is now just half a point ahead of Bruce Watson and Daniel Gong but both of them have 2 games in hand.

B Grade

Allen Fan is still 1 point ahead of the field with a game in hand. However there are around 6 games not played so actual placing further down the field is hard to determine.

C Grade

This grade has no undisplayed games but is still close with Hilton Jacobs half a point ahead of Sergiy Kozakeych and Pouya Seifi.

D Grade

A loss by Temu Maroroa to Wayne McDougall has left Wayne and Eric Wu in 1st place.

The Vega website for the tournament is

Links to the Schedule for A,B and C grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

As of Wednesday Night byes for Round 7 in D Grade:

Caroline Yan – Zero points
Kate Song – Zero point
Sarah Yan – Zero points
Olivia Dong – Zero points
Andrie Toporkov – Zero Points
Kimberley Yuan – Zero points
Jason Haung – Zero points

The draft draw for D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

Club Champs – Round 5

Things were back to normal this week after disruption from School Holidays.

The new rating NZ list has come out, please have a look on the list to check you are listed correctly (I see at least one female player listed as male). I’ve updated Vega for the Club Champs with people’s new ratings
To clarify the policy on byes for round robin tournaments: If you call you will normally get a half point bye. If you don’t call and don’t turn up then you will get zero points plus I’ll put you down for zero points the following week unless I hear from you.
Apologies for the late start, it looks like I have to make sure I’m there early.
Reminder to A,B and C grade people to sort out unplayed games. Unfortunately due to a Vega bug I can not give out a Half point each for unplayed games.
Links to the Schedule for A,B and C grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

Results from Round 5

PGN file from Alex Nagorski

A Grade

After being behind for most of the game Alphaeus got into a winning endgame but played some incorrect moves (I believe in time trouble) and drew against Alexei. Gong beat Goodhue and Watson settled for a draw against Steadman.

B Grade

Lyall won after Eade made a mis-step in a sharp position. A close match between Tim Ha and Alex Nagorski was won by Tim after he ended up ahead in the endgame. Paul MacDonold had a slight lead for most of his game but Allen Fan managed to hold the draw. The Taylor vs Zhang game bounced around, Richard made a hopefully sacrifice then missed a good continuation. Jasmine eventually got into a winning position but allowed Richard to get a perpetual.

C Grade

Andrew Michael Blundered a piece to Hilton Jacobs (although Hilton already had a Strong looking attack). Chris Joel missed an En-prix pawn in the middle of his position and Mike Steiner took it and won soon after. Sergiy Kozakevych ended up ahead out of the opening and under pressure Pouya Seifi lost a piece on move 17. Nicole Qin beat Scott Treanor

D Grade

Temu Maroroa beat Aaron Wang to keep his outright lead. Major upsets were Eric Liang beating Mathew Steadman and Barry Jacob beating Jason Huang.

The Vega website for the tournament is

Links to the Schedule for A,B and C grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

As of Sunday Night byes for Round 5 in D Grade:

Caroline Yan – Zero points
Kate Song – Half point
Sarah Yan – Zero points
Olivia Dong – Zero points
Andrie Toporkov – Zero Points
Kimberley Yuan – Zero points

The draft draw for D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

Club Champs – Rounds 3 and 4

Due to the George Trundle Masters tournament round 3 was a little disrupted. Many players in A,B and C grade postponed their games. We also had school holidays so several players in D grade missed nights.

Please note that if you don’t turn up for one round without calling ahead you get zero points for that round and I’ll assume you won’t be turning up for the next round unless I hear from you.

For Players in A-C grade please discuss with Simon Lyall if you want to catchup missed games or otherwise score them.

Results from rounds 3 and 4

Alex Nagorski has produced pgns for these rounds:

A Grade

In round 3 only 2 games were played with Alexei Kulashko beating Nathan Goodhue and Alphaeus Ang beating John Duneas in a more even match.
Alexei is in 1st place on 3.5 although other players have games not played.

B Grade

Brett Rider’s unusual opening against Tim Ha in round 3 was interesting
A “distracted” Brett Rider lost to Paul MacDonald in round 4.
Allen Fan is in the lead on 3 points with a game in hand.

C Grade

Nicole Qin was lucky to escape in round 3 after Sergiy missed a mate and in the later stages of the game was a little ahead before the game was drawn.
Seifi Pouya is ahead on 3.5 points with 3 other players on 3 points.

D Grade

Top place Eric Wu had draws in round 3 and 4 to leave Temu in 1st place.
Further down the field the large number of byes makes things a little confusing.

The Vega website for the tournament is

As of Thursday Night byes for Round 5 in D Grade:

Caroline Yan
Kate Song
Sarah Yan
Olivia Dong
Eric Liang
Winston Weng
Kumar Puneet

The draft draw for D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

Club Champs – Round 2

Next week will be round 3 of the club champs and many players will not be playing due to the George Trundle tournament or other events. Please make sure you let Simon know if you are not playing. Especially if you are in the D Grade.

This week was fairly nice from a organiser’s perspective in that there were no unexpected no-shows. Please keep it up.

Results from this week

The PGN of Round 2 games is available, thanks again to Alex Nagorski.

A Grade

Gordon Morrell had some good chances against Alexei Kulashko but was unable to find the killer move.
Similar Ben Hague steamrolled over Alphaeus Ang, checking him 19 moves in a row as he took 9 pieces and then checkmated.
While John Duneas had some chances his game against Nathan Goodhue was drawn
After getting into a nice position Mike Steadman blundered a piece and resigned to Gino Thornton

B Grade

Jasmine Zhang vs Tim Ha sew-sawed either way before Jasmine made the last mistake
Simon Lyall vs Brett Rider saw Simon turn an even endgame into a loss.
Don Eade’s all-out attack allowed Keith Ward to take 2 pieces when his Queen counter-attacked.
Allen Fan slowly overpowered Alex Negorsky

C Grade

No upsets

D Grade

After several byes and draws towards the top of the grade there are now 3 people on 2 points but another 12 on 1.5 points.
Major upsets were Kelvin Xiao drawing with Neil Sonnekus, Mathew Steadman drawing with Stephen peak and Renae Ghadiali beating Tom Fu

The Vega website for the tournament is

Round 2

As of Thursday Night byes for Round 3 in D Grade:

Kate Song
Gaurav Pahuja
Olivia Dong
Winston Weng

The draft draw for D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

Club Champs – Round 1

The Club champs started this week. The champs is 3 round robin grades of 10 players with a Swiss D Grade.

Results from this week

The PGN of the first round is available, thanks again to Alex Nagorski.

A Grade

Upsets were Danial Gong beating Michael Steadman and bottom ranked Nathen Goodhue drawing with 2nd ranked Ben Hague

B Grade

Brett Rider didn’t turn up allowing Alex Nagorski to get a win by default
The only upset was a draw by Kieth Ward over Paul Macdonald, the game had both players with huge threats (and winning positions according to the computer) before swaps left the position dead drawn.
Don Eade was looking good against Allen Fan though but a sudden passed pawn forced him to give up a piece.

C Grade

One game was postponed tonight due to both players begin unable to make it.
No upsets in this grade. However Scott Treanor continued his good run of recent results by beating Mike Steiner when Mike trapped is own queen on move 16 and resigned.

D Grade

Some late platers saw some hasty pairings on the bottom boards
The big upset was newcomer Puneet Kumar beating Aaron wang after Aaron blundered
The other main upset was Winston Weng beating Hugh Gao

The Vega website for the tournament is

Round 2

As of Sunday Night byes for Round 2 in D Grade:

Eric Liang
Erica Hu
Selena Hu
David Xu
Olivia Dong
Isaac Yuan
Winston Weng
Louie Wei is on a zero point bye unless he makes himself known before the draw.

The draft draw for D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

Club Champs Schedule – C Grade

This is the schedule C Grade in the 2016 Club Champs. At the Top I’ll list players whom I know are missing rounds so that people have a chance the schedule matches on different dates. Please let me know any others.

Chris missed Round 1 (Jingbo)
Jingbo missed Round 1 (Chris)
Sergiy missing Round 8 (Mike)

ACC Club Champs 2016 - C Grade : Round 1
=====================================================
1 = 1 Seifi, Pouya         - 10 Michael, Andrew 
2 = 2 Joel, Chris          - 9 Wei, Jingbo 
3 = 3 Jacobs, Hilton J     - 8 Qin, Nicole Shu Yu 
4 = 4 Steiner, Michael     - 7 Treanor, Scott 
5 = 5 Kozakevych, Sergiy   - 6 Li, Rodney Xiang Rei


ACC Club Champs 2016 - C Grade : Round 2
=====================================================
1 =10 Michael, Andrew      - 6 Li, Rodney Xiang Rei
2 = 7 Treanor, Scott       - 5 Kozakevych, Sergiy 
3 = 8 Qin, Nicole Shu Yu   - 4 Steiner, Michael 
4 = 9 Wei, Jingbo          - 3 Jacobs, Hilton J 
5 = 1 Seifi, Pouya         - 2 Joel, Chris 


ACC Club Champs 2016 - C Grade : Round 3
=====================================================
1 = 2 Joel, Chris          - 10 Michael, Andrew 
2 = 3 Jacobs, Hilton J     - 1 Seifi, Pouya 
3 = 4 Steiner, Michael     - 9 Wei, Jingbo 
4 = 5 Kozakevych, Sergiy   - 8 Qin, Nicole Shu Yu 
5 = 6 Li, Rodney Xiang Rei - 7 Treanor, Scott 


ACC Club Champs 2016 - C Grade : Round 4
=====================================================
1 =10 Michael, Andrew      - 7 Treanor, Scott 
2 = 8 Qin, Nicole Shu Yu   - 6 Li, Rodney Xiang Rei
3 = 9 Wei, Jingbo          - 5 Kozakevych, Sergiy 
4 = 1 Seifi, Pouya         - 4 Steiner, Michael 
5 = 2 Joel, Chris          - 3 Jacobs, Hilton J 


ACC Club Champs 2016 - C Grade : Round 5
=====================================================
1 = 3 Jacobs, Hilton J     - 10 Michael, Andrew 
2 = 4 Steiner, Michael     - 2 Joel, Chris 
3 = 5 Kozakevych, Sergiy   - 1 Seifi, Pouya 
4 = 6 Li, Rodney Xiang Rei - 9 Wei, Jingbo 
5 = 7 Treanor, Scott       - 8 Qin, Nicole Shu Yu 


ACC Club Champs 2016 - C Grade : Round 6
=====================================================
1 =10 Michael, Andrew      - 8 Qin, Nicole Shu Yu 
2 = 9 Wei, Jingbo          - 7 Treanor, Scott 
3 = 1 Seifi, Pouya         - 6 Li, Rodney Xiang Rei
4 = 2 Joel, Chris          - 5 Kozakevych, Sergiy 
5 = 3 Jacobs, Hilton J     - 4 Steiner, Michael 


ACC Club Champs 2016 - C Grade : Round 7
=====================================================
1 = 4 Steiner, Michael     - 10 Michael, Andrew 
2 = 5 Kozakevych, Sergiy   - 3 Jacobs, Hilton J 
3 = 6 Li, Rodney Xiang Rei - 2 Joel, Chris 
4 = 7 Treanor, Scott       - 1 Seifi, Pouya 
5 = 8 Qin, Nicole Shu Yu   - 9 Wei, Jingbo 


ACC Club Champs 2016 - C Grade : Round 8
=====================================================
1 =10 Michael, Andrew      - 9 Wei, Jingbo 
2 = 1 Seifi, Pouya         - 8 Qin, Nicole Shu Yu 
3 = 2 Joel, Chris          - 7 Treanor, Scott 
4 = 3 Jacobs, Hilton J     - 6 Li, Rodney Xiang Rei
5 = 4 Steiner, Michael     - 5 Kozakevych, Sergiy 


ACC Club Champs 2016 - C Grade : Round 9
=====================================================
1 = 5 Kozakevych, Sergiy   - 10 Michael, Andrew 
2 = 6 Li, Rodney Xiang Rei - 4 Steiner, Michael 
3 = 7 Treanor, Scott       - 3 Jacobs, Hilton J 
4 = 8 Qin, Nicole Shu Yu   - 2 Joel, Chris 
5 = 9 Wei, Jingbo          - 1 Seifi, Pouya