News

The Winter Cup began on September 12 with 72 players across 3 grades. There are 8-player A and B Round-Robin grades and 56 platers in a C-Grade Swiss. This is probably close to the maximum number of players the club can hold.

Notices:

• School Holidays start on the 26th of September and many younger players will be away (some that the Chess events in Palmerston North). Please make sure you let us know what days you will miss in advance. Letting us know means you get a half-point bye and also that another player doesn’t miss out on a game waiting for you.
• The final round of the B-grade Interclub was played on on Sunday the 25th of September. The ACC team ( Tim Ha, Scott Treanor, Stephen Peak, Nicole Qin, Wayne McDougall and Aaron Wang) drew with the North Shore (3 wins each). Thank you to these players plus Eric Wu and Pouya Seifi for taking their time out on Sundays to play for the club.
• Unfortunately this year out Interclub teams only managed 4th (out of 4) in the competition. First place was taken by Papatoetoe for the first time ever.
• Some photos from the B Grade Interclub are online: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3.

Results from Round 1

PGN file by Alex Nagorski for round 1

A Grade

Watson vs Goodhue saw opposite side castling and both sides playing pawn-storms. After some aggressive play the dust cleared and Watson was significantly ahead.

Mike Steadman deployed his 1. b4 against Allen Fan obtained equality but lost the exchange. He resigned in a difficult but perhaps not totally lost position.

In an Interesting unbalanced game John Duneas followed a gambit and obtained 3-4 pawns for a bishop against Alphaeus Ang. After much to-and-fro John Won.

B Grade

After a slow start Paul MacDonald crunched up Tim Ha

Don Eade and Hilton Jacobs played a very long (92 move) game with Don eventually winning.

Richard Taylor had some problems against newcomer Tomas Madr but eventually got a little ahead before settling for a draw

Alex Nagorski playing an interesting game where he swapped pieces and slowly worsened Keith Ward’s pawn structure until when all the pieces were gone he had a winning King and pawn endgame

C Grade

Upsets on boards 2 and 3 saw Eric Wu draw with Rishit Patel and Simon Lyall draw with Oscar Qin. Further down the table Tom Fu beat Giles Elias.

The Vega Websites for the Winter Cup Are:

• A Grade
• B Grade
• C Grade

Links to the Schedule for A and B grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

If you are unable to play please contact Simon Lyall either via text (021 575 233) or email to contact @ aucklandchess.nz . Normally you will get a half point bye. Please let us know as early as possible.

The draft draw for C grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

 

Pairings and schedule for the 2016 Winter Cup B Grade

ACC Winter Cup 2016 - B Grade : Round 1  - Sep 12
=====================================================
1 = 1 Macdonald, Paul      -   8 Ha, Huy Minh (Timoth
2 = 2 Eade, Don            -   7 Jacobs, Hilton J    
3 = 3 Taylor, Richard      -   6 Madr, Tomas         
4 = 4 Ward, Keith          -   5 Nagorski, Alex      


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - B Grade : Round 2  - Sep 19
=====================================================
1 = 8 Ha, Huy Minh (Timoth -   5 Nagorski, Alex      
2 = 6 Madr, Tomas          -   4 Ward, Keith         
3 = 7 Jacobs, Hilton J     -   3 Taylor, Richard     
4 = 1 Macdonald, Paul      -   2 Eade, Don           


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - B Grade : Round 3  - Sep 26
=====================================================
1 = 2 Eade, Don            -   8 Ha, Huy Minh (Timoth
2 = 3 Taylor, Richard      -   1 Macdonald, Paul     
3 = 4 Ward, Keith          -   7 Jacobs, Hilton J    
4 = 5 Nagorski, Alex       -   6 Madr, Tomas         


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - B Grade : Round 4  - Oct 3
=====================================================
1 = 8 Ha, Huy Minh (Timoth -   6 Madr, Tomas         
2 = 7 Jacobs, Hilton J     -   5 Nagorski, Alex      
3 = 1 Macdonald, Paul      -   4 Ward, Keith         
4 = 2 Eade, Don            -   3 Taylor, Richard     


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - B Grade : Round 5  - Oct 10
=====================================================
1 = 3 Taylor, Richard      -   8 Ha, Huy Minh (Timoth
2 = 4 Ward, Keith          -   2 Eade, Don           
3 = 5 Nagorski, Alex       -   1 Macdonald, Paul     
4 = 6 Madr, Tomas          -   7 Jacobs, Hilton J    


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - B Grade : Round 6  - Oct 17 
=====================================================
1 = 8 Ha, Huy Minh (Timoth -   7 Jacobs, Hilton J    
2 = 1 Macdonald, Paul      -   6 Madr, Tomas         
3 = 2 Eade, Don            -   5 Nagorski, Alex      
4 = 3 Taylor, Richard      -   4 Ward, Keith         


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - B Grade : Round 7  - Oct 31
=====================================================
1 = 4 Ward, Keith          -   8 Ha, Huy Minh (Timoth
2 = 5 Nagorski, Alex       -   3 Taylor, Richard     
3 = 6 Madr, Tomas          -   2 Eade, Don           
4 = 7 Jacobs, Hilton J     -   1 Macdonald, Paul     

Pairings and schedule for the 2016 Winter Cup A Grade

ACC Winter Cup 2016 - A Grade : Round 1 - Sept 12
=====================================================
1 = 1 Watson, Bruce R      - 8 Goodhue, Nathan 
2 = 2 Steadman, Michael V  - 7 Fan, Allen Chi Zhou 
3 = 3 Gong, Daniel Hanwen  - 6 Huang, Alex 
4 = 4 Ang, Alphaeus Wei Er - 5 Duneas, John 


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - A Grade : Round 2 - Sept 19
=====================================================
1 = 8 Goodhue, Nathan      - 5 Duneas, John 
2 = 6 Huang, Alex          - 4 Ang, Alphaeus Wei Er
3 = 7 Fan, Allen Chi Zhou  - 3 Gong, Daniel Hanwen 
4 = 1 Watson, Bruce R      - 2 Steadman, Michael V 


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - A Grade : Round 3 - Sept 26
=====================================================
1 = 2 Steadman, Michael V  - 8 Goodhue, Nathan 
2 = 3 Gong, Daniel Hanwen  - 1 Watson, Bruce R 
3 = 4 Ang, Alphaeus Wei Er - 7 Fan, Allen Chi Zhou 
4 = 5 Duneas, John         - 6 Huang, Alex 


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - A Grade : Round 4 - Oct 3
=====================================================
1 = 8 Goodhue, Nathan      - 6 Huang, Alex 
2 = 7 Fan, Allen Chi Zhou  - 5 Duneas, John 
3 = 1 Watson, Bruce R      - 4 Ang, Alphaeus Wei Er
4 = 2 Steadman, Michael V  - 3 Gong, Daniel Hanwen 


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - A Grade : Round 5 - Oct 10
=====================================================
1 = 3 Gong, Daniel Hanwen  - 8 Goodhue, Nathan 
2 = 4 Ang, Alphaeus Wei Er - 2 Steadman, Michael V 
3 = 5 Duneas, John         - 1 Watson, Bruce R 
4 = 6 Huang, Alex          - 7 Fan, Allen Chi Zhou 


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - A Grade : Round 6 - Oct 17 
=====================================================
1 = 8 Goodhue, Nathan      - 7 Fan, Allen Chi Zhou 
2 = 1 Watson, Bruce R      - 6 Huang, Alex 
3 = 2 Steadman, Michael V  - 5 Duneas, John 
4 = 3 Gong, Daniel Hanwen  - 4 Ang, Alphaeus Wei Er


ACC Winter Cup 2016 - A Grade : Round 7 - Oct 31
=====================================================
1 = 4 Ang, Alphaeus Wei Er - 8 Goodhue, Nathan 
2 = 5 Duneas, John         - 3 Gong, Daniel Hanwen 
3 = 6 Huang, Alex          - 2 Steadman, Michael V 
4 = 7 Fan, Allen Chi Zhou  - 1 Watson, Bruce R

 

A follow-up to the post from a few days ago. I’ve confirmed the draft A and B Grade fields.

We have also had some extra entries for C grade which now has 53 player. This means we will be tight for boards and people must let me know when they will not be playing.

Vega pages for the Winter Cup (Some using new Vega formatting).

• A Grade.
• B Grade.
• C Grade.

The Winter Cup will be starting on Sept 12th. A reminder to enter soon if you want to play. Below are the draft grades for the tournament. Please contact me (Simon) if you have any feedback.

Currently Vega has everyone listed in C Grade. Once the A and B are confirmed (probably over the weekend) I will move players into those grade.

A Grade – 8 player round robin – 7 rounds rated

1. Bruce Watson
2. Mike Steadman
3. Daniel Gong
4. Alphaeus Ang
5. John Duneas
6. Alex Huang
7. Allen Fan
8. Nathan Goodhue

B Grade – 8 player round robin – 7 rounds – rated

1. Paul MacDonald
2. Don Eade
3. Richard Taylor
4. Keith Ward
5. Alex Nagorski
6. Tomas Midr
7. Tim Ha
8. Hilton Jacobs

C Grade – Rest of club – 7 round rated Swiss

There will be about 48 players in this grade including 5 over 1700 and another 5+ over 1600 so this will be a very tough.

The 2nd night of the Spring rapid was played on Sept 5th with the final 3 rounds being played. Nathan Goodhue and Bruce Wheeler were the joint winners.

• A reminder that several club members are representing New Zealand at the Chess Olympiad. Further information from the official website, or you can follow New Zealand via twitter, facebook or the chesschat website.
• Thank you to Tim Ha for setting up a Facebook Page for the Chess Centre. If you are on Facebook you might want to follow/like us.
• The Winter Cup be starting in on Monday the 12th of September. It will be 7 rounds with 2 round-robin grades of 8 players and swiss grade for everybody else. See the Vega page for the entries so far (Note all entries are in the C-Grade page for now). If you want to play then enter on the sheet at the club, email or txt before the tournament starts.

Winter Cup – Round 4

Going into the 3rd round of the Winter cup there were just 3 players on 3 points out of 3, Hilton Jacobs, Daniel Gong and Allen Fan. The match between Daniel and Hilton on the top saw an upset with Hilton winning giving him the outright lead (Allen lost to Mike Steadman on board 2). Further down the field Alphaeus Ang was lucky to beat newcomer Tomas Mad, Alex Huang drew with Bruce Watson, Temu Maroroa drew with Richard Taylor and Leo Li beat Mike Steiner

Round 5

Hilton’s run was bought to a halt by Nathan Goodhue on the top board. The suspiciously low rated (1400!) Temu Maroroa once again got a upset further down the boards.

Round 6

At the start of the round Nathan Goodhue had the sole led in the tournament with 4.5 points but there were another 6 players right behind him on 4.

On the Top board Nathan drew with Alphaeus Ang and boards 2 and 3 were also draws. However on board 4 Bruce Wheeler beat Richard Taylor to also jump to 5 points and 1st equal.

Upsets further down included Tom Fu beating Andrew Michael with a 712 point rating difference (Tom had 3 upsets last week), Lewis Jordan beating Alex Huang and Ying Wang upsetting Neil Sonnekus.

Results for the Spring Rapid 2016

1st= (5 points)  Nathan Goodhue and Bruce Wheeler
3rd= (4.5 points) Hilton Jacobs, Alphaeus Ang, Bruce watson, Daniel Gong, Alex Nagorski, John Duneas, Keith Ward

Good performances included

• Hilton Jacobs ( 315 above rating)
• Jordon Lewis  ( 336 above rating )
• Temu Maroroa ( 363 above rating)
• Tom Fu ( 726 above rating! )
• Leo Li ( 329 above rating )
• Ying Wang ( 393 above rating )
• Oscar Qin ( 238 above rating )
• Hugh Gao ( 356 above rating )

See the Vega page of the tournament for full details.

• The Winter Cup be starting in on Monday the 12th of September. It will be 7 rounds with 2 round-robin grades of 8 players and swiss grade for everybody else.  See the Vega page for the entries so far (Note all entries are in the C-Grade page for now). If you want to play then enter on the sheet at the club, email or txt before the tournament starts.
• The 2016 Olympiad starts on the 2nd of September. 4 Club members are part of the teams representing New Zealand. In the Open team Ben Hague and Alexei Kulashko are playing while in the Women’s team we have Jasmine Zhang and Kate Song.
• Some photos from Round three of the Rapid are online.

On the 29th of August we played the rounds one, two and three of the Spring Rapid. There were around 60 players (plus a few no-shows) with the whole club playing in a single tournament.

In round one the big upsets were Xinyang Liu drawing with Bruce Wheeler and Tom Fu drawing with Virginia Milne. In both cases there was a 700 point rating difference. Jordan Lewis also had an exciting game against Alphaeus Ang.

Round two also had upsets with Hilton Jacobs beating John Duneas, Rodney Li beating Keith Ward at the top boards.

Round three saw around half the field taking half point byes including Top players Mike Steadman and Alphaeus Ang. On the top board Nathan Goodhue drew with Club Champ Bruce Watson. Further down Bruce Wheeler gave up his 2nd upset draw of the night to 1129 point lower rated Tom Fu.

The current standings are Allen Fan, Daniel Gong and Hilton Jacobs in first place on 3 points. However just behind them are several players on 2.5 points.

I’ll note that Tom Fu got upsets in all three rounds and currently has a performance rating of 1837 when his actual rating is 955.

See the Vega page of the tournament for full details.

 

The 2016 Auckland Chess Centre Club Champs were held across 9 rounds in June, July and August 2016. There were 4 grades. A though C were 10-player round-robin competitions and D grade was a Swiss with around 40 players.

Some photos by Simon Lyall from round 6 of the Club Champs are online.

A Grade

Winner of the A Grade and 2016 Club Champion was Bruce Watson with 7 points (5 Wins, 4 draws, no loses).

2nd was Alexei Kulashko with 6 points and Ben Hague and Gino Thornton came 3rd-equal with 5.5 points.

Vega Website for the Club Champs A Grade.

B Grade

Allen Fan won the B Grade with 8 points ( 7 wins, 2 draws, no loses).

Second Equal were Paul Macdonald and Keith Ward on 6.5 points.

Vega Website for the Club Champs B Grade.

C Grade

Winner was Hilton Jacobs with 7 points ( 7 wins, 2 loses)

Second was Pouya Seifi with 6.5 points

Vega Website for the Club Champs C Grade.

D Grade

First equal in the D Grade were Eric Wu, Wayne McDougall and Stephen Peak each with 7 points.

Temu Maroroa was 4th with 6.5 points.

Vega Website for the Club Champs D Grade.

 

 

• The Spring Rapid will be starting this coming Monday (August 29th). It will be 6 rounds across 2 nights. See the Vega page for the 50+ entries so far. If you want to play then enter on the sheet at the club, email or txt before the tournament starts.
• Similarly the Winter Cup is just 3 weeks away. I’ll be putting up an entry form for that is well

Results from Round 9

Round 9 PGN file from Alex Nagorski

I’ll post the results from Round 9 below and the final results for the tournament in a separate post.

A Grade

• Alexei has already left for the Olympiad so took a draw against Gino. The other 4 games were all won by White.
• Gordon Morrell played a nice opening and quickly got an advantage against Daniel Gong. Daniel tried a piece sacrifice to open up the position but it failed to provide enough
• Mike Steadman’s opening experimentation continued (although his dubious one last week was a typo) this time with 1. d3 d5 2. c3 c5 3. Qc2 . After some more straightforward move he and Alphaeus castled on opposite sides and Mike’s pawn and piece advance decided things.
• Bruce Watson played a very nice game to beat Nathan Goodhue
• John Duneas looked good for most of his game but lost a couple of pawns to end up in a lost endgame against Ben Hague

B Grade

• Paul MacDonald and Don Eade had a fairly even game before Paul’ Attack left his King undefended and enabled Don to get an unexpected mating attack.
• Tim had blundered a piece early against Keith Ward and Keith swapped material until he resigned.
• Simon Lyall blundered a pawn early against Richard Taylor and while Richard was ahead throughout the game he missed the best moves and eventually settled for a draw.
• Jasmine Zhang was ahead for most of her game against Alex Nagorski and after missing some winning chances eventually prevailed.

C Grade

• Andrew Michael missed a tactic from Sergy Kozakevych and lost after losing an exchange and in a poor position.
• A few wasted moves saw Rodney Li come under a sting attack from Mike Steiner and he quickly lost.
• Scott Treanor was having a nice game against Hilton Jacobs but accidentally trapped and lost one of his pieces to allow Hilton to win.

D Grade

• The top boards all went according to rating

The Vega website for the tournament is

• Club Champs A Grade
• Club Champs B Grade
• Club Champs C Grade
• Club Champs D Grade

• The Spring Rapid will be starting on August 29th. It will be 6 rounds across 2 nights. See the Vega page for entries so far. If you want to play then enter on the sheet at the club, email or txt before the tournament starts.
• Over the weekend there was the 1st round of the B Grade Interclub. Unfortunately we didn’t get off to a good start losing 5.5 to 0.5 to Papatoetoe.
• The 2016 Chess Olympiad will beheld in Early September. Club Players representing New Zealand will be Alexei Kulashko and Ben Hague in the Open Team and Jasmine Zhang and Kate Song in the Women’s team.
• We had a visit and demonstration from the designers of the chesslike boardgame Four Kings One War to the club. Tim Ha took the following photo and posted some more on Facebook

 

Results from Round 8

Round 8 PGN file from Alex Nagorski

There is only one round left in all grades (plus a couple of catchup games)

A Grade

• Ben and Alexei played an uncommon Sicilian sideline and after a fairly even game swapped most pieces and drew
• John and Bruce also swapped down to a draw.
• Mike Steadman managed a novelty on move 3(!) of the Sicialian ( 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 g6 3. g3 b4?! ) against Nathan Goodhue. However Nathan ignored the free pawn. The game ended fairly abruptly with an agreed draw.
• Gino and Daniel also agreed on a draw in the middle game.
• The only Win in A grade was a nice game by Alphaeus Ang against Gordon Morrell which saw Gordon on the backfoot thoughout the middle game and losing on time trying to hold two rooks vs a Queen.
• Bruce Watson leads Alexei by half a point going into the last round . Alexei has taken a draw for the last round so a Win or Draw by Bruce against Nathan will see him as the Club Champ.

B Grade

• A blunder saw Allen win Jasmine’s Queen
• Richard Taylor and Alex Nagorski had a very sharp tactical game that Alex won.
• Simon and Keith had a fairly even game until Simon lost a pawn and tried a exchange sacrifice after failing to find the best lines.
• Paul MacDonald provided a pgn with his analysis of his win against Tim Ha
• With one round to go Allen Fan has already won being 1.5 points ahead of Paul MacDonald and Keith Ward. Although there are a couple of unplayed games

C Grade

• Only two games played
• Nicole Qin came out behind after a mid-game piece swap
• After getting a winning advantage Hilton Jacobs couldn’t find how to break though in the endgame and made a series of mistakes that enabled Rodney Li to win.
• The loss leaves Hilton half a point ahead of Pouya Seifi but Pouya will get a 1 point bye in the last round.

D Grade

• Eric Wu and Temu  Maroroa both lost their games so things are open with 3 players on 6 points and two on 5.5 going into the last round.

 

The Vega website for the tournament is

• Club Champs A Grade
• Club Champs B Grade
• Club Champs C Grade
• Club Champs D Grade

Links to the Schedule for A,B and C grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

As of Wednesday Night byes for Round 8 in D Grade:

If you are unable to play please contact Simon Lyall either via text (021 575 233) or email to contact @ aucklandchess.nz . Normally you will get a half point bye. Please let us know as early as possible.

The draft draw for D grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes