You don’t have to travel anywhere in January to be able to play serious rated chess! For the first time in years, we’re running a series of club events at the start of the calendar year.
Join us in the inaugural ACC Chess Festival 2026 – https://newzealandchess.nz/acc-chess-festival-2026/
Blitz on Jan 2 (9 rounds), Rapid on Jan 2-3 (7 rounds in two days), then Classical on Jan 3-11 (9 rounds, one game a day).
Congratulations to CM Leo Baker (left on the photo) who has become a new club champion at ACC, after a few years of domination by FM Alphaeus Ang. This year Leo is also club champion at North Shore CC, so he’s champ in two biggest clubs in Auckland!
Going into the last round of the 2025 Club Champs, only Leo and Preeyansh (right on the photo) were on 6.5/8. A few people were chasing on 6.0, including Alphaeus (who was beaten by Preeyansh in the previous round), so we could have just one or up to five co-champions. Leo seemed confident and said he’d need about 25 moves to win the game. It took only 21, but both spent a lot of time in hard calculation.
CM Hao Tang and CM Cohen Young shared 2nd= on 7.0/9.
Vega standings: https://www.vegaresults.com/vega/6227
Lichess broadcast: https://lichess.org/broadcast/acc-monday-nights-2025–club-championships/Qt0Cik91
The last event in the ACC Double Weekends series of this year will be held on Sept 6-7 and 13-14. In two consecutive weekends, you can get up to eight FIDE- and NZCF-rated classical games at the normal tournament time control of 90+30. Game times are 9:30 am and 2:30 pm on the days.
You can also be flexible and take any number of byes as long as you let us know in advance (before 9:00 am for the morning round, and before the last game of the morning round for the afternoon game).
Online registration link with all the information: https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-double-weekends-september-2025/
The 2025 Club Championship is a 9-round Swiss event, FIDE- and NZCF-rated. The time control is 90+30. Registration is now open. Please use the TryBooking link from the Club Calendar page.
Vega page: https://www.vegaresult.com/vega/6227
If you have registered, your name will appear here within 24 hours. Please let us know if you have questions.
The August edition of the ACC Double Weekends will run on two consecutive weekends of August 16-17 and August 23-24. Register online here: https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-double-weekends-august-2025/
Unlike Mondays, you can be more flexible here, and take as many byes as you need, as long as you let us know in advance. This is a great chance to get up to eight rated games with a standard 90+30 time control in just two weekends, without taking leave or travelling.
Congratulations to FM Alphaeus Ang, who became the 2025 North Island Champion, with a score of 7.0/8. FM Daqi Mao came in clear second on 6.5/8.
Among regular ACC players, CM Justin Wang scored 5.5/8 and “CM-elect” Leo Baker, who recently crossed 2000 in July rating list, scored 5.0/8, including another win against IM Anthony Ker!
Anne Guo shared 1st= in the U1800 grade, also scoring 5.0/8
More details, including a photoalbum, on https://newzealandchess.nz/north-island-championship-2025/
The 2025 Auckland Interclubs season has just finished. Auckland Chess Centre won the A-grade classical and B-grade classical tournaments. We came second in the blitz event and junior (U14) rapid event. Summit CC was the winner of these two.
Big thanks to all of our players:
A-grade: (two teams, listed in board order)
Alphaeus Ang, Daqi Mao, Cohen Young, and Leo Baker;
Isabelle Ning, Sarah Sun, Sophia Feng, Luna Lu, and Emily Gan.
B-grade: (board order) Timothy Ha, Huw Dann, Alex Pan, and Brogan Powlesland.
Blitz: (alphabetical order) Alphaeus Ang, Benjamin Guo, Bruce Wheeler, Daqi Mao, Isabelle Ning, Jordan Lewis, and Leo Baker.
Junior: (board order) Daqi Mao, Grayson Po’e-Tofaeono, Yanshuo Pei, and Ryan Hwang.
With the Winter Cup already ongoing (still a few spots open), the next big thing at ACC is the July edition of the ACC Double Weekends, when you can get up to 8 classical rated games with a regular time control of 90+30, played on two consecutive weekends. You can also take any number of byes.
All details about ADW (this year we have July, August, and September left) – https://newzealandchess.nz/auckland-double-weekends-july-2025/
Mark your calendars! If you’re in Auckland in January, join ACC and participate in the inaugural ACC Chess Festival 2026! It runs from Jan 2 to Jan 11, three FIDE- and NZCF-rated events, blitz, rapid, and classical. More details to be published on https://newzealandchess.nz/acc-chess-festival-2026/
Please use the TryBooking link on the club calendar to register for the Winter Cup. It’s a 9-round Swiss tournament from June 16 to August 11. If you plan to take more than 3 byes due to exams or travelling, please consider NOT registering to give space to others. An exception is given to those who represent NZL in international events. They need practice at ACC.
If you can’t play on Mondays, you can still play in the ACC Double Weekends series, which will run in July, August, and September this year.
The list of Winter Cup players who have registered is here https://www.vegaresult.com/vega/5844