Author: Timothy Ha

ACC Winter Cup (7 rounds of classical 90+30 chess, FIDE- and NZCF-rated) starts Monday, June 28, 7:00 pm with 8 players registered in A-grade, 48 in B-grade (rating>=1400) and 30 in C-grade. (Note: all pairings in Vega are not final until Monday, 7:00 pm).

Please aim to arrive at 6:40-6:45. Don’t forget to notify the captain before 6:30 pm if you cannot come. If you have school camping or travel plans that overlap with Monday club night, please let us know even earlier! Thanks! This will help us provide a better experience for the remaining players. When the club has more than 80 players, the people on the waitlist will not have a game.

We plan to broadcast A-grade games live at https://aucklandchess.nz/live so tune in on Mondays, 7:00 pm if you can’t visit the club or if the crowd blocks you from seeing a top board game.

2021 Winter Cup A-grade players are:

1. FM Mike Steadman (winner of the Autumn Cup A)
2. CM Alex Huang
3. Nathan Goodhue
4. Daniel-Ioan Runcan
5. Paul Macdonald
6. Clinton Wells
7. CM Alex Nagorski (winner of the Autumn Cup B)
8. Nigel Metge

They will play a 7-round single round-robin tournament.

The FIDE- and NZCF-rated Winter Cup will start on Monday, June 28. Please check your name on the lists below, and let the captain know if there was any mistake. Note that A-grade round-robin players are listed in the B-grade for now, until we get confirmations that eight top players can play the 7 rounds from Jun 28 to Aug 9.

The grade cut-off is 1400 this time, which is defined as follows:

• if FIDE June 1 rating >= 1400, the player plays in B-grade
• if NZCF June 1 rating >= 1400, the player plays in B-grade
• if the player was FIDE unrated, but performance rating (PR) in Autumn Cup >= 1400, the player plays in B-grade (the PR will be checked again on June 21, after the last round of the Autumn Cup), as this rating would most probably become their FIDE July 1 rating (unless some other tournament will affect it)
• the rest plays in C-grade

B-grade: https://www.aucklandchess.nz/vega/2021/wwwACCWinterCupB/playersname.html

C-grade: https://www.aucklandchess.nz/vega/2021/wwwACCWinterCupC/playersname.html

There will also be a waitlist in B and C grades, as our club is overbooked again. We were lucky in the Autumn Cup as the captain didn’t have to send anybody home on the club nights.

Please continue to notify the captain before 6:30 pm on each Monday night so we would know who’s not coming, and those on the waitlist can get a chance to play chess and be happy! Thanks!

If you’re not happy, talk to the captain and you may get a free Chessable course to work with 🙂

The Winter Cup will be run in three grades A (8 top players, round-robin), B and C (Swiss, grade cut-off by somewhere around 1400-1500 in NZCF or FIDE rating, whichever is higher).

The current list of players who registered via the club signup sheet or were directly chased by the captain: https://www.aucklandchess.nz/vega/2021/wwwACCWinterCupB/playersname.html

We have only 80 seats and are already full after just one day of registration being opened. Some players will be on the waitlist, so if some players don’t turn up on the night, people from the waitlist will get paired to play (if the number in their grade is even).

Autumn Cup has a rest day on Monday, June 7 (many of us will play in the Trusts Open tournament — good luck!)

FM Mike Steadman is on a perfect score 5.0/5 and leading in the ACC Autumn Cup A-grade, a round-robin tournament between the top 8 players. He still has to face FMs Alphaeus Ang and Daniel Gong, though 🙂 Vega link

In the B-grade, Euan McDougall was on 4.0/4 before round 5 when he faced Daqi Mao and lost. Daqi has played 4 rounds of the 5 and has won all 4 games, so he’s leading on 4.5/5 (4 wins + 1 bye) with a bunch of people on 4.0. Vega link

Jay Zhao, Michael Ma and Ying Wang are on 4.0/5 and leading in the C-grade. Vega link

The club will be closed during Queen’s birthday weekend, so no casual chess on Friday, Jun 4, no Junior chess night on Saturday, Jun 5, and no regular club night on Monday, Jun 7.

Casual chess is back Friday, Jun 11, then Junior chess on Jun 12, then Monday chess on Jun 14 🙂

Don’t miss the other events on https://newzealandchess.nz/calendar/ though!

Great news for young NZ chess talents:

FM Allen Fan (b. 2004) will represent New Zealand at the FIDE World Cup in Sochi, Russia, July 2021 (tournament details: PDF + calendar)

WCM Isabelle Ning (b. 2009) and Felix Xie (b. 2008) will participate in the FIDE Chessable Academy and get special coaching from the world’s best!

The note on NZCF website reads:

Allen Fan selected for the World Cup

NZCF has selected 17-year-old FM Allen Fan to represent NZ at the World Cup in Sochi, Russia, to be played from July 10th. Allen started playing chess at five and credits his parents for dedicating countless hours of time and effort to his chess ambitions, including travelling with him to international youth competitions. Allen has enjoyed participating in global online competitions but is pleased to be selected for a prestigious over-the-board event as Covid (hopefully) wanes. He is intent on doing everything he can to progress further and eventually become an IM.

Interclub tournaments are held in Auckland by the Auckland Chess Association. Teams of 6 players from each club are playing roughly every second Sunday. This year, six teams are participating — Auckland Chess Centre, Howick-Pakuranga, North Shore, Papatoetoe, Waitakere, and Summit. It’s a round-robin tournament and lasts five rounds.

ACC beat Howick 4.5-1.5 in the first round and beat Papatoetoe 5-1 in the second round. Current standings are (final standings are based on game points)

	ACC	H-P	PT	NS	WT	SU	Pts	#
ACC	X	4.5	5				9.5	1
H-P	1.5	X		3			4.5	4
PT	1		X			1.5	2.5	6
NS		3		X	3.5		6.5	3
WT				2.5	X	2	4.5	4
SU			4.5		4	X	8.5	2

The schedule, details of each match, and the list of players are available on https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J0EeDJ3vWOr_6o8UhJly1fMwKt6PT8KZZ77CzrF1rdc/edit?usp=sharing

The next match will be held on May 16, when Auckland plays North Shore CC, which is currently on 3rd place in the standings.

Round 3, May 16

North Shore – Auckland

Summit – Howick-Pakuranga

Papatoetoe – Waitakere

The FIDE-rated Autumn Cup (7 rounds of 90m+30s classical chess) will run from May 3 to June 21 (with a break for Queen’s Birthday and Trusts Open tournament on June 5-7) and will consist of 3 grades:

A-grade, a round-robin tournament for top 8 players

B-grade, a Swiss tournament for 50 players with a rating >= 1300 FIDE (either classical or rapid)

C-grade, a Swiss tournament for 28 players with a rating < 1300 FIDE

This year our club is experiencing a boom and we are running out of space. The total number of players is 86, but our club has only 80 seats, so we have to introduce a waitlist. B-grade and C-grade will have a waitlist of 3 players each, and on the night, if others drop out due to illness or exams or any other life issues, players from the waitlist will get a spot.

Now to penalties… Please understand that the waitlist is created because every chess player wants to have a game, but this also means everybody else needs to be responsible and notify the captain before 6:30 pm on Monday nights. If a player or his/her parents forget to do that twice, they’ll be withdrawn from the tournament.

The waitlist

• B-grade: David Holland
• C-grade: Ethan Tai, Jerome Tao, James Kippenberger

If you’re unhappy with seeing yourself (or your child) on the waitlist, please come to the captain and require a one-time compensation in form of a Chessable course. There’ll be hard work for you to do instead of playing a Monday night game!

Please find and check your name on our registration list

https://www.aucklandchess.nz/vega/2021/wwwACCAutumnCup_regs/

No new names will be accepted unless you’ve missed out because of a communication error with the captain and you can prove that the captain is wrong. Thanks for your understanding.

There will be a round-robin of 8 players on top of the list, and two Swiss grades, B and C. If some of the top 8 can’t commit to 7 games, they’ll be moved down to the Swiss B-grade.

The top 8 at the moment are: (we’ll use May 1 ratings in the final grouping)

1	Ang, Alphaeus Wei Ern	NZL	FM	2265
2	Gong, Daniel Hanwen	NZL	FM	2242
3	Garbett, Paul A	NZL	IM	2239
4	Fan, Allen Chi Zhou	NZL	FM	2193
5	Steadman, Michael V R	NZL	FM	2157
6	Huang, Alex	NZL	CM	1988
7	Zhang, Jasmine Haomo	NZL	WIM	1954
8	Macdonald, Paul	NZL		1890

Please also note that the number of 85 players on the list means that on every particular night, anybody from the waiting list (we’ll publish the list soon when grades are done) cannot play if all others have turned up.

Euan McDougall and FM Alphaeus Ang shared 1st place in the Autumn Rapid. Both had one draw and five wins.

FM Daniel Gong (4 wins, 2 byes) and CM Alex Huang (5 wins, 1 loss) shared second on 5.0/6. Several players were on 4.5, with different paths to their results: WCM Isabelle Ning, Felix Xie, Joe Wang, Hao Tang, and Winston Weng.

• Isabelle Ning beat Alex Huang and WIM Jasmine Zhang, then later drew Euan McDougall (who was quite lucky to escape to a draw)
• Felix Xie had one upset draw with Philli Park-Tamati and lost to Alphaeus Ang
• Hao Tang drew Alphaeus Ang and beat Paul Macdonald
• Joe Wang beat Paul Macdonald and others, losing only one game to Alex Huang
• Winston Weng was away from chess, skipped rounds 1-3 and came back to win rounds 4-6.

Little debutants in the club, Leo Lian and Franklyn Zhang (brother of Jasmine) started slowly in rounds 1-3 (0.5 and 0) but got themselves two wins in rounds 4-6. They can play chess!

Vega page