Author: Timothy Ha

ACC Double Weekends return for 2026

In 2025, we introduced a double-weekend format where eight games are played over two standard Saturday-Sunday weekends. This is convenient for planning as it requires no annual leave and avoids the complications of long weekends or public holidays. These are run as internal club events, allowing players to take as many half-point byes as needed. The time control is also 90+30, unlike evening games of 60+30.

Please use our calendar to see the dates, or click the following links to register for ACC Double Weekends 2026

Registration started for Summer Cup (Feb 2-Mar 16)

Our first Monday night tournament of 2026 will be the Summer Cup (Feb 2 – Mar 16), seven rounds of 60+30 games.

Registration has started on Jan 8, at 9:00 am.  Please use the link https://www.trybooking.com/nz/events/landing/18343 — and as usual, if you have travel plans or exams that will force you to skip 3 or more rounds, please consider not registering to give space to others.

The full calendar for the year is still being updated at https://aucklandchess.nz/calendar, but we already published the dates for the long weekenders, starting with Auckland Anniversary (Jan 24-26) and Waitangi Weekender (Feb 6-8).  Please follow the calendar link to register for those.

ACC Chess Festival 2026 will be held Jan 2-11

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).

CM Leo Baker is the 2025 ACC Club Champion!

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

ACC Double Weekends September (6-7 and 13-14)

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/

ACC Double Weekends August 16-17, 23-24

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.

FM Alphaeus Ang is the 2025 North Island Champion

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/

2025 Auckland Interclubs results: 1st in A- and B-, 2nd in blitz and Junior

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.