Upper Hutt Rapid Photos

Palmerston North Chess Club is Moving

On Wednesday the 29th the Palmy chess club is moving to a much nicer venue at the Hearing house 435 Church street. Two rooms will be available one for analysis and drinks the other for serious games. The club will be open by 7:30pm sharp.

The following club night is on a Tuesday July the 5th, and from then on every Wednesday.

The first tournamnet of the new venue is the Rapid Championship played at a time control of 25 +5 at two rounds per night with a total of 6 rounds.

Two club tournaments have recently been completed the 60/60 which Mathew King won with a perfect score and the 10/10 which Justin Davis won with a perfect score.

Upper Hutt Rapid

No Name Loc Total 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 FM Scott Wastney 2253 6 19:W 13:W 4:W 2:W 5:W 3:W
2 Brian Nijman 1997 5 8:W 6:W 3:W 1:L 15:W 5:W
3 Justin Davis 1973 4 7:W 18:W 2:L 16:W 6:W 1:L
4 Ben Thomas 1986 4 10:W 9:W 1:L 5:L 14:W 8:W
5 Alan Ansell 2087 4 11:W 15:W 16:W 4:W 1:L 2:L
6 Mathew King 1901 4 12:W 2:L 7:W 17:W 3:L 11:W
7 Jack James 1496 3.5 3:L 21:W 6:L 11:W 9:D 15:W
8 Lawrence Farrington 1744 3.5 2:L 12:W 18:W 15:D 13:W 4:L
9 David Paul 1768 3.5 20:W 4:L 17:L 12:W 7:D 16:W
10 David Capper 1572 3.5 4:L 20:W 15:L 18:W 16:D 17:W
11 Bruce Kay 1594 3 5:L 14:W 13:W 7:L 17:W 6:L
12 Nicholas Moore 1223 3 6:L 8:L 19:W 9:L 20:W :W
13 Ross Jackson 1929 3 14:W 1:L 11:L 20:W 8:L 21:W
14 Robert List 1455 3 13:L 11:L 21:W 19:W 4:L 18:W
15 Alistair McGowan 1798 2.5 21:W 5:L 10:W 8:D 2:L 7:L
16 Stewart Holdaway 1763 2.5 17:W 19:W 5:L 3:L 10:D 9:L
17 Brian Luo 967 2 16:L :W 9:W 6:L 11:L 10:L
18 Layla Timergazi 947 2 :W 3:L 8:L 10:L 21:W 14:L
19 Andrew Brockway 1749 2 1:L 16:L 12:L 14:L :W 20:W
20 Dylan Frater unr 1 9:L 10:L :W 13:L 12:L 19:L
21 William Qihao Zhang 1217 1 15:L 7:L 14:L :W 18:L 13:L

Waitakere and ICC Tournaments

National Master Leonard McLaren won the Waitakere Licensing Trust Open with a score of 5/6, Palmerston North was represented by Justin Davis who finished on 2.5/6. Crosstable taken from here, full results here. The Waitakere is clearly one of the bigger and better tournaments on the New Zealand chess calendar. Unfortunately the games from these tournaments are not easily available which is rather sad.

I was unable to take part in the Auckland tournament and had to console myself with the Internet Chess Club Open. Top prize of $600 was won by World Number 8 Hikaru Nakamura. The attractive part of the tournament were the grading prizes including u2200, u2000, u1800 and u1600 each 1st place was worth $200 2nd $100 and 3rd was a years free membership to ICC. I finished out of the prizes but had some interesting games along the way.

The ICC open consisted of 4 qualifiers of 11 rounds, in the game below I am white.

The time control is 3 0 so moving quickly is quite important so when I played 20.Qg5 threatening mate I thought maybe I have a chance until my opponent bashed out 20...Nb3# oops. Luckily I was able to redeem myself on the very last game of the tournament

I am white in the position below

My opponent rated 300 points higher than me hammered down the move 10...b5 allowing a 11.Nf6# and probably one of my quickest wins in blitz.