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There are several Chess and other events coming up.

18 January – Locksport Auckland first meeting

Interested in learning lock picking for fun? LockSport Auckland is starting up and their first meeting is the evening of January 18th. See their Meetup group for details.

23 January – ACC Junior Rapid

During the day on Monday January 23rd the 1st ACC Junior Rapid for 2016 will take place. See the New Zealand Chess Calendar for details.

23 January – Simultaneous Display at the Chess Centre

At 7pm we plan for one or two of the top ACC players to take on all comers at the Chess Centre in a Simultaneous Display. We are currently planning on 2016 Club Champion Bruce Watson plus another top ACC player Mike Steadman.

The field limit is around 30. There is usually enough room for those interested in playing but email to guarantee your place. People signed up so far:

• Neil Sonnakis
• David Ansell

27 – 30 January – Auckland Anniversary Weekender

Over the Long Weekend there will be a 7 round tournament at the Auckland Chess Centre. See the New Zealand Chess Calendar for details.

13 February – First club competition night

The first normal Club night will be February the 13th. That night will be round one of the Summer cup.

4-5 March – Auckland Backgammon Tournament

Two days of backgammon at the at Onehunga RSA. See their Eventfinda page for more details and how to enter.

 

 

• 2017 Calendar is now online
• New Zealand Champs
• Some results from last year

Happy New Year everybody. I hope you all had a good break.

2017 Calendar

The 2017 Calendar is now online, See the calendar page for details. This year we will start with a Simil on January 23rd followed by a two weeks break and then the Summer Cup will start on February 13th. More Details posted soon.

There is also a Junior Rapid on January 23rd and an Auckland Anniversary Weekender on January 27th-30th. See the NZCF Calendar page for details.

Congress Results

Several players from the Club played at the New Zealand Chess Congress on Wellington. Results for them included:

NZ Champs: 3rd= Danial Gong
NZ Junior: 1st Allen Fan
NZ Junior: 2nd= Oliver Picken
NZ Rapid Champs: 1st= Hans Gao
NZ Blitz: 2nd= Ewen Green

For fuller results see the NZ Chess results page.

Results from last night of 2017

The last night of 2017 was AGM, Pizza, Prizegiving and a Chess960 tournament.

The Chess 960 was held over 6 Blitz rounds (with varied time controls). Winner was Alexi Kulashko with Ben Hague and Daniel gong 2nd and 3rd.

After a check it appears the joint 2016 Club Rapid champions are John Duneas, Alphaeus Ang, Alex Nagorski. They all scored 5.0 in the Summer Rapid and 4.5 in the Spring Rapid.

Finally the ACC Centre Spirit Prize was awarded to Alex Nagorski.

Some photos from the final night of 2017 are online.

The 6th and  final round of the Spring Cup was played on December 12th. Results below

• December 19 will be the last Club night for 2016. We will have the AGM, Prize-giving, Pizza and a Chess960 tournament.

Round 6 PGN by Alex Nagorski

Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:

• A Grade
• B Grade

A Grade

Bruce Watson vs Alexei Kulashko – Bruce dominated the game from start to finish, starting out better in the opening and gradually increasing his advantage until Alexei resigned.

Daniel Going vs Gordon Morrell – Some interest at the start but after most pieces were traded the players agreed on a draw in a even (going on dead) position after 22 moves.

Ben Hague vs John Duneas – John grabbed an exposed pawn but missed that it was guarded by a mate threat and lost a Knight for it. John managed to pick up a couple of extra pawns but Ben got them back as pieces were exchanged and his extra piece dominated. Win for Ben.

Kieth Ward vs Allen Fan – A fairly even game with some chances for both players. However Keith made a slipup and his position rapidly deteriorated.

Jasmine Zhang vs Virginia Milne – After missing a (hard to see) way of trapping Jasmine’s Queen, Virginia lost a piece and resigned after things got worse.

Leo Zhang vs Alex Huang – An interesting game went one-sided after Alex drove a pawn though the middle of Leo’s position.

Nathan Goodhue vs Tim Ha – After a long and fairly even game Tim missed a mate-in-one threat.

Paul MacDonald vs Alex Nagorski – Paul blundered a piece for a pawn on move 8 but by move 28 had got back 2 more pawns for his piece. He eventually had 5 pawns and a rook to Alex’s rook, Knight and single pawn. Alex then lost his rook and resigned.

Simon Lyall vs Tony Wang – Simon got a very good position and pawn lead in the opening but failed to followup. After a swap Tony had a very threatening passed pawn and a series of inaccurate moves by Simon gave Tony a winning endgame.

Eric Wu vs Sergiy Kozakevych – An exchange sacrifice by Eric yelding nothing and Sergiy was able to explot his material advantage to win.

Andrew Michael vs Don Eade – Andrew missed some early tactics which allowed Don to win a piece

The final result was that Bruce Watson and Ben Hague’s wins took them both to first equal on 5.0 points ahead of Alex Kulashko, Gordon Morrell and Daniel Gong on 4.5

B Grade

For obscure reason this round saw 7 Black Wins (the top 3 and bottom 4 boards), 3 white wins and 2 draws.

Leader Euan Macdougall won on the top board to come in first. Second equal were James Liu and Xinyang Liu.

Round 5 of the Spring Cup had a large number of decisive results. There was just one draw in A grade (on board 14) and the top 8 boards of B Grade had Wins.

Both grades now have one player in the lead on 4.5 points and 4 players on 4 points. In A Grade Alexi Kulashko is winning while in B Grade Euan McDougall is ahead.

Next week (the 12th) is the last round of the Spring Cup. On the  19th we will be having Pizza, Prize-giving and a Chess 960 Rapid/Blitz tournament.

Round 5 PGN by Alex Nagorski.

A Grade

Alexei Kulashko v John Duneas – The opening was a line with very high winning percentage for white. John managed to come back a bit in the middle game but a swap left each player with a same colour bishop and some pawns and Alexei’s pawns were much better.

Alex Huang v Ben Hague – Ben was a little ahead throughout the game and Alex was on the defensive. In the endgame Ben was a pawn up and 3 pawns vs 1 when enabled him to put on the pressure until he eventually queened.

Allen Fan v Bruce Watson – Allen made a mistake and lost a rook and was unable to recover.

Virginia Milne v Daniel Gong – Daniel was well ahead from early in the game although he missed the best continuations a couple of times so it last 58 moves before Virginia resigned.

Gorden Morrell vs Jasmine Zhang – Another long game. Gordon was a little ahead in the endgame but short on time. He managed to find good moves however and keep the pressure on until Jasmine’s position crumbled.

Alphaeus Ang v Simon Lyall – Simon got a piece trapped early in the game and did not recover.

Oliver Picken v Leo Zhang –  Oliver played 1. e4 c5 2. a3!? and proceeded to kick the unprepared Leo around.

Apart from Oliver beating Leo the other main upset was Tony Wang beating Don Eade.

Going into the last round Alexei Kulashko is on 4.5 while half a point back in second equal are Ben Hague, Gordon Morrell, Bruce Watson and Daniel Gong.

B Grade

The shortest game:

Very few upsets in the round apart from Renae Ghadiali beating Ryan Dukeson.

The Grade is now led by Euan McDougall on 4.5 points with Jame Liu, Xinyang Liu, Leo Li and Jason Huang just behind on 4.0

Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:

• A Grade
• B Grade

Draft draws for round 6 is below. Subject to late byes as usual.

Both A and B Grade and still pretty close with many players within half a point of the lead.

PGN for Round 4 by Alex Nagorski

A Grade

Ben Hague vs Alexei Kulashko – After an advantage out of the opening Ben sacrificed a bishop for 3 pawns but the computer was not impressed. Some sharp tactics swapped everything down to RNppp for Ben and RBB for Alexei. A miss-step by Alexei left him no option but to give up his bishops for Ben’s 3 pawns and the game was draw.

Bruce Watson and Gordon Morrell took a fairly quick draw

John Duneas vs Alphaeus Ang – Pretty even until Alphaeus sacrificed a piece for two pawns in the endgame. Alphaeus ended up with 4 pawns vs John’s 2 pawns and a bishop, but Alphaeus pawns were badly placed. John rounded them up and got a Queen himself

Jasmine Zhang vs Alex Huang – After getting a big advantage Alex missed a couple of winning moves to leave Jasmine a little ahead after some swaps. But Alex had enough to draw.

Daniel Gong vs Tomas Madr – Tomas was looking good for a while but after a couple of of mistakes his position fell apart.

Allen fan vs Tim Ha – Tim seems to have resigned fairly early in this game, possibly he over estimated Allen’s attack or the scoresheet is incomplete.

Keith Ward vs Virginia Milne – Virginia continued her good run after spotting a tactic and picking up an exchange and some pawns.

Nathan Goodhue vs Oliver Picken – Oliver turned a single pawn advantage into a two pawn advantage and a won endgame.

Simon Lyall vs Alex Nagorski – Alex had a winning attack but missed the best continuation which left Simon with a material advantage. Simon eventually converted that to a win

Leo Zhang vs Richard Taylor – After going into the endgame a little ahead Leo picked up a 3 pawns.

Paul MacDonald vs Sergiy Kozakevych – Any interesting game which eventually was drawn after good play from both sides.

Major upsets this round were Oliver Picken beatign Nathan Goodhue, Lewis Jordan beating Scott Treanor and Virginia Milne’s win against Keith Ward.

Standings are Alexei and John Duneas in 1st place on 3.5 points with 8 players just behind on 3.0.

B Grade

A few upsets at the top had Ying Wang beating Gaurav Pahuja and Wayne MacDougall blundering into a early loss to Leo Li.

Isaac Yuan also upset Neil Sonnekus and Samuel Sajch beat Tody Zhang

Standings are Louie Wei, Euan MacDougall and Ying Wang in first place on 3.5 while 6 others are just behind on 3.0

Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:

• A Grade
• B Grade

Draft draws for round 5 is below. Subject to late byes as usual.

A few upsets and draws in round 3 of the Spring Cup have left both grades with just a single leader on 3 points.

Round 3 PGN of the Spring Cup by Alex Nagorski.

A Grade

Gorden Morrell and Ben Hague agreed on a fairly early draw.

Alexei Kulashko had a good win over Allen Fan. He was ahead out of the opening and kept putting on pressure until Allen made mistakes.

Alex Huang and Bruce Watson probed at each other a little before swapping to an opposite colour bishop endgame and agreeing to the draw.

Leo Zhang pushed a pawn a little to far against Alphaeus Ang and his attempts to keep it rapidly made things worse.

John Duneas beat Simon Lyall after Simon played some passive moves and John was able to use the time to mount an overwhelming attack.

Don Eade and Jasmine Zhang had a sharp middle game with Jasmine ahead most of the time. After everything was swapped Jasmine had a a winning King and Pawn endgame.

A very long game between Tim Ha and Paul MacDonald was eventually won by Tim.

Virgina Milne managed an upset against Richard Taylor

Sergiy Kozakevych made a fatal slip against Tomas Madr

Major upsets this round were Tim Ha beating Paul Macdonald, Virginia Milne beating Richard Taylor and the draws by Alex Huang and Gordon Morrell.

Alexei Kulashko is now in first place by himself on 3 points while 7 players are just behind him on 2.5

B Grade

The main upsets this round were Winstone Weng beating Toby Zhang and James Liu beating Wayne MacDonald.

A couple of other draws at the top of the grade has left Jame Liu in first place on 3 points with 4 players close behind on 2.5

Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:

• A Grade
• B Grade

Draft draws for round 4 is below. Subject to late byes as usual.

The Auckland Chess Centre Winter Cup was played during September and October across 7 rounds. A & B grade were 8 player round-Robin competitions while C Grade was a Swiss with around 50 players.

A Grade

The winner was of the A Grade was Bruce Watson with 5 points (4 wins, 2 draws, 1 lose).

Second place was Allen Fan with 4.5 ( 4 wins, 1 draw, 2 unplayed games)

Third equal were John Duneas and Mike Steadman on 4.0 points.

Vega Page for A Grade

B Grade

Winner of the Winter Cup B Grade was Don Eade with 5.5 points  (3 wins, 1 default win, 3 draws, 1 lose)

Second place was Alex Nagorski on 5.0 points. Alex won his first 5 games but lost the last two to just be overtaken by Don.

Third equal on 4.5 points was Richard Taylor and Paul MacDonald.

Vega Website for the Winter Cup B Grade

C Grade

First equal in the C Grade was Clinton Wells and Everett Bishop on 6 points. Both players drew against each other and had one other draw.

Third place was Oliver Picken on 5.5. Oliver lives out of town so he had 3 half-point byes but won his other 4 games.

Vega Website for the Winter Cup C Grade

 

Much like there first round of the Spring Cup there were very few upsets in the round 2. However games started being more hard-fought as ratings got closer.

PGN for Round 2 of the Spring Cup by Alex Nagorski.

A Grade

In Ben Hague vs Nathan Goodhue, Ben got a good position out of the opening and slowly improved it.

Paul Macdonald vs Alxei Kulashko was a long game. While Alexei had a small advantage throughout Paul fought on for 68 moves before resigning in a lost endgame position.

Don Eade made some early mistakes against Bruce Watson and resigned quickly

Gordon Morrell pushed Richard Taylor into a cramped position and trapped one of Richard’s pieces. Richard resigned soon after.

Allen Fan and Pouya Seifi had a logn game. Allen was ahead for most of it but Pouya was equal ahead many times and even missed a mate in 3!

Allen won a few moves later however with a temporary rook sacrifice to gain a passed pawn

Jasmine Zhang vs Alphaeus Ang. A fairly even game swapped down to an unbalanced endgame with Alphaeus a pawn up but Jasmine having more mobile pieces. Eventually everything was swapped to a draw.

Upsets were Jasmine’s draw above and Andrew Michael drawing against Alex Nagorski. Simon Lyall also got a point due to a default by Mike Steadman.

After 2 round 6 players are now on 2 points and another 5 on 1.5

B Grade

There we’re several upsets. Tom Fu beat Temu Maroroa and James Liu beat Neil Sonnekus. The unrated players Kenny Zhang and Felix Xei also had wins.

After two rounds 5 players are on 2 points and another 5 on 1.5

Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:

• A Grade
• B Grade
  

Draft Draws for round 3 are below. Subject to late byes as usual.

The first round of the Spring Cup was on the 30th of November. There were very few upsets.

Photos from round one are on Simon Lyall’s flickr page

A Grade

No pgns this week but photos of scoresheets are online here.  The only upset was Bruce Wheeler losing to Pouya Seifi is a mixed game with errors by both sides.

Daniel Gong, Mike Steadman and Leo Shang all took byes however so they will need to catchup.

B Grade

Again quite a few byes and few few upsets. Winston Weng beat Hugh Gao and Brian Zhao managed to draw with Ryan Dukeson.

Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:

• A Grade
• B Grade
  

Draft Draws for round 2 are below. Subject to late byes as usual.

This week was the 7th and last round of the Winter Cup. There were several upsets, see below.

• There are some unplayed games in A and B grade, please let me know if the listed results for the are incorrect.
• The Spring Cup will be starting next week. Entries so far are on Vega for A Grade and B Grade. Please let me know before Monday if you are not listed and wish to still enter or with to withdraw or change grade.
• I’m hoping to do posts with the Winter Cup results, and a report on the Merv Morrison in the near future.

Winter Cup round 7 PGN by Alex Nagorski

A Grade

Nathan Goodhue had a nice position against Alphaeus Ang but a couple of small errors allowed Alphaeus to counter-attack with his queen and catch Nathan in a mate

Daniel Gong vs John Duneas had some interesting play but swapped down to an opposite color bishop draw.

Mike Steadman had a pawn and an attack against Alex Huang but missed the best lines and enabled Alex to make a very strong counter-attack. Alex took perpetual check, however the computer finds a forced mate for Alex (in 14 for the longest line) in the final position. (Note: names corrected from earlier version).

Bruce Watson was having a nice game against Allen Fan before he miscalculated a sequence and ended up a piece down.

B Grade

Just two games played tonight.

Alex Nagorski was going well against Richard Taylor before he miscalculated and lost a piece.

Hilton Jacobs blundered into a mate-in-one early in has game against Paul MacDonald.

C Grade

Clinton Wells quickly beat Mathew Steadman to get a share of first place.

Temu Maroroa and Andrew Michael had an exciting game with Temu almost in checkmate at one end of the board he checkmated Andrew at the other.

The Vega Websites for the Winter Cup Are:

• A Grade
• B Grade
• C Grade