Author: Alex Huang

Saturday Night Junior Chess Reopens Feb 13th

Hi everyone. We are reopening for the Saturday Night Junior Chess on the 13th February this year. Unfortunately, I have lost all of my phone contacts on my holiday trip. We would like to ask our parents to send me a txt with their child’s name, so we can inform everyone about our future junior night events. My contact number is 021-0543891, Alex. Thank you so much.

We also would like to ask whether if our parents are interested in the return of the ACC Junior Rapids (which was run monthly from 2016-2019, on behalf of GM Murray Chandler) in 2021. Quite a few parents were asking about this last year and we also keen to start running it again.

There will be a schedule for this year’s Saturday Junior Nights. A link will be added here (and on the club page) when it’s up and running.

Lastly, we would like to ask your opinion about what future chess events you would like to see us to run, we can make it happen! We highly value your opinion.

Alexander

Saturday Junior Night Chess Final Evening December 5th 2020

Hi everyone,

Tonight on December 5th, we will finish off the year with our Saturday Night Junior Chess for this year. It’s been a very hectic year and I’m glad everything worked out for most of us. Next year we will resume at the start of February.

For those of you who are interested in playing more chess in December can play on Friday Night Casual Chess, which is dedicated to more complete beginners to beginners for adults and kids alike. This is held at the Auckland Chess Centre from 6:30pm to 8:00pm. Wayne McDougall will be running that event for another two weeks this year. Please see the post about Friday Night Casual Chess for more details.

Thank you for all those who came along to our evenings. We had many very interesting and close games during this year. Our evening is still considered quite casual, with a bit more competition from strong kids and a stepping stone towards to the tougher Monday Night Chess.

Happy holidays!

Alexander

Saturday Junior Chess Night

Hi everyone, we are starting the new Saturday Junior Chess Night (runs every Saturdays from 6pm to 7pm and replacing the old Friday Night Chess) at the ACC this evening. It is a casual play event designed for kids from beginners to around 1400 play strength. Any adults or more advanced players are also welcome to come along to play. Registration starts at 5:50pm and play starts at 6:05pm or as soon as everyone is registered to play at the event for the night. The cost is a voluntary gold coin donation. Come and play chess whenever you have time! More details will be added to our website here. Alex

Friday Night Chess Postponed

Hi everyone, the Friday Night junior chess (which originally we planned to start tomorrow for this year) will be postponed until further notice. We expect to reopen in a few weeks time. Sorry for any inconvenience. Will let you know on this website when we do start again this year. Alex

Friday Nights starts again February 9th

Just a quick reminder that our Friday Nights will start again on February 9th.
The schedule has been updated:
https://www.aucklandchess.nz/friday-chess/schedule/
The Friday club nights are designed for players who enjoy playing rapid games. It’s mostly for juniors, though adults are welcome to play too. We have included a number of different variants this year that we will run along with the core events, which are the rapid and the blitz. Starts at 6:30pm and runs through till 8:30pm.

Updated Friday Night Schedule

The Friday Night Schedule has been adjusted to better suit our players who dislike the fast blitz games (like the regular 5+2) and love playing rapid games (like the moderate 15+5). Now one blitz tournament will only run, after every one (or sometimes two) rapid tournaments. Rapid tournaments will generally run for 3-4 nights, whereas most blitz tournaments will only run for one night – instead of previously, where some of them were run for two nights.

Also we have added a number of fun and exciting formats, I encourage you all to check out the new schedule. A few additional formats are currently being planned/tested, and being finely tuned for our Friday Night casual events. Please check out our new schedule here: http://www.aucklandchess.nz/friday-chess/schedule/

You will also see that the time controls change for different events and seasons (i.e. Slightly slower during winter and slightly faster during spring).

This week we will start the Autumn Knockout 20+0 Tournament (Ro.16/Ro.8, expandable to Ro.32 for 32 players). I encourage you all to come along and play some interesting and exciting chess.

Alex

Changes to Friday Night

After discussions with the team, we’ve decided that instead of charging $80/year upfront, it would be fairer to charge non club members, a voluntary $2 per night. This makes it more flexible for the parents and the players. The parents do not need to worry about whether if their child would be interested to play in all of the sessions during the year. It will also be much less of a burden, having to pay it all in one go. This new pricing structure will take effect starting after the July holidays on July 28th.

We’ve also decided that we will also have holidays during school holidays, so that it gives you guys some extra time and the flexibility to use the time for other things other than chess. This does not apply for this current school holiday, and players should turn up on the 28th of April to play at our 9-round Autumn Rapid.

So far the response to our Friday Night events has been positive and the players are really enjoying their time playing chess at our club.

It’s been a struggle to get everything running perfectly but we’re getting there.

Sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Alex