News

The Autumn Cup is the first tournament using the new start time of 7pm. We didn’t quite make that but we were going around 7:10pm.

A couple of last minute entries means that we have a record of  70 Entries with 40 in A Grade and 30 in B Grade. This presents a problem with space, since we only have 32 boards at present. The 3 board shortage is bridged by byes and by starting a couple of games late. Specifically Shawn Hui and Charlotte Wen both arrive a late so they (and their opponents) will take over the first 2 boards that become free.

The Vega website is online for both grade:

• Autumn Cup A Grade
• Autumn Cup B Grade

Results in round one saw the top half playing the bottom half so there were only a few upsets.

In the A Grade

• Scott Treanor beat Simon Lyall (who probably spent a bit too much time not looking at the board)
• Richard Taylor took a draw against Virginia Milne while materially ahead but low on time and not having an easy path forward
• Wayne McDougall got a piece ahead against newcomer Andrei Toporkov and converted it to a win.

B Grade upsets were:

• Toby Zhang drew with Mathew Steadman
• Isaac Yuan beat Temu Maroroa
• Renae Ghadoali beat newcomer Gen Li

Looking forward to Round 2 I have created a draft draw for each grade below. This is very much a draft and any additional byes will cause changes.

As of now the byes for Round 2 are:

• Stephen Peak
• William Li (and also round 3)
• Richard Taylor
• Tom Fu (also for round 3)

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.

The Initial list of players in the Autumn cup is now online

• A Grade
• B Grade

Please check you are listed correctly. The first round is at 7pm on Monday the 2nd on May. Entries close at 6pm on that day.

To enter please email contact @ aucklandchess.nz or text Simon on 021 575 233.

Notes:

1. Players not currently registered with the NZCF are shown as another country code. This will be updated to show their correct country at some point
2. We may shuffle some players between grades to ensure blance at the start of the tournament.

Due to the increased number of juniors in the club (over half are at school), the Centre will begin starting all games at 7:00 pm from the next event beginning May 2nd 2016 – the Autumn Cup.

To ensure this is successful, the draw will be prepared and advertised on the web and at the Centre during the week for the next Monday night round. Any withdrawals must be made to the club or Simon Lyall by 6:00 pm on Monday night. Failure to notify the club of a withdrawal may disqualify the person from entering the club’s next event.

All events will be advertised 2 weeks in advance and players need to have their names entered. The top round robin events will be populated the week prior to the event, no latecomers will be allowed entry.

Any players, who feel disadvantaged and cannot start at 7pm, please contact Mike Steadman for a refund of their club fees.

Simon Lyall
Club Captain

Bruce Wheeler
Club President

The Summer Cup started on February the 15th. We have A,B and C grade of 8-player round-robins with around 30 players in a D-Grade Swiss. All Grades are Nationally rated.

Draw for Round 2

A Grade

Daniel Gong     - Bruce Watson
John Duneas     - Alphaeus Ang
Ben Hague       - Gino Thornton
Alexei Kulashko - Mike Steadman

B Grade

Leo Zhang      - Simon Lyall
Richard Taylor - Vinod Kumar 
William Lee    - Allen Fan
Paul MacDonald - Nathan Goodhue

C Grade

Alex N         - Don Eade
Jasmine Zhang  - James M
Hilton Jacobs  - Joy Qin
Eric Wu        - Keith Ward

Apologies to the new Club members in C-Grade whose full names I don’t have.

On January 25th New Zealand Champion and top ACC player Alexei Kulashko played a Clock Simul against various other club members. A clock simul is where every board is setup with a chess clock and players can move whenever the like (and start the opponents clock), so at times Alexei could have his clock counting down on 20 boards

Time was 90 minutes+30s for Alexei and 45min+30s for his opponents.

Results will be posted at some point but for now here are some photos taken by Simon Lyall

Summer Cup

• A Grade: Bruce Watson
• B1 Grade: Daniel Gong
• B2 Grade: Alphaeus Ang
• C Grade: George Chen, Karl Holdo, Virginia Milne

Autumn Cup

• A Grade: Alexei Kulashko
• B Grade: Aaron Wang

Winter Cup

• A Grade: Ben Hague and Bruce Watson
• B1 Grade: Brett Rider
• B2 Grade: Hilton Jacobs
• C Grade: Stephen Peak and Scott Treanor

Spring Cup

• A Grade: Ben Hague
• B Grade: David Ansell, Xinyang Liu, Ying Wang

Blitz Champs

• A Grade: Ben Hague
• B Grade: Euan McDougall

Rapid Champs

• Ben Hague

Club Champs

• A Grade: Alphaeus Ang and Alexei Kulashko
• B Grade: Simon Lyall and Brett Rider
• C Grade: Caroline Yang

Centre Spirit Award

• Ying Wang

The 2015 Summer Rapid was held on the 23rd and 30th of March and consisted of 6 games of 25min +5sec time control. There were 63 players competing

Top placings were:

1st       Bruce Watson       5.5
2nd-4th   Jasmine Zhang      5.0
          Ben Hague       
          Daniel Gong       
5th       Aaron Wang         4.5
6th-13th  Philip Hair        4.0
          Leo Zhang
          Hans Gao
          Alphaeus Ang
          Wayne McDougall
          Allen Fan
          Eric Wu
          Harry Redwood

The 2015 Summer Cup was player over 7 rounds during February and March. The Club was split into 8 player A, B1 and B2 grades plus 46 players in C Grade. The Top places are below with points out of seven.

A Grade

1st   6.5 Bruce Watson
2nd 6.5 Ben Hague
3rd  5.0 Michael Steadman

B1 Grade

1st    7.0 Alphaeus Ang
2nd  6.0 Allen Fan
3rd= 4.0 Sean Martin-Buss
3rd= 4.0 Jasmine Zhang

B2 Grade

1st     7.0 Daniel Gong
2nd= 4.5 Richard Taylor
2nd= 4.5 Paul MacDonald
2nd= 4.5 Leo Zhang

C Grade

1st= 5.5 David Milne
1st= 5.5 Karl Holdo
1st= 5.5 George Chen
4th= 5.0 Scott Treanor
4th= 5.0 Euan McDougall
4th= 5.0 Akshay Sharma
4th= 5.0 Wayne McDougall

There will be 2 Tournaments over the Waitangi Day Weekend (Friday the 6th – Sunday the 8th of February) at the Auckland Chess Centre.

An Open tournament, a 6-round Swiss system with a Standard time control of all moves in 90 minutes with an increment of 30 seconds per move from move one. 2 Rounds on each day at 9:30am and 2:30pm. Download entry form for more details.

There will also be a Lightning tournament on the Saturday evening. Download the Lightning entry form.

See Vega: Waitangi Weekender; Waitangi Blitz for current entries and results/draw once tournament starts.

The Auckland Chess Centre now has a new domain:

aucklandchess.nz

and a new website

http://www.aucklandchess.nz/