Hamilton Chess Club

If you have been thinking about coming along for a look then June 11 at 7pm is your best bet. Next week (June 4) is the last night for the really serious chess of the club champs. After that we will revert back to something a little less formal with a series of quick fire games. Games will kick off shortly after 7, so dont be late if you want to take part in the mini tournament. New members are always welcome.

As an added incentive to sharpen up club members now receive a ranking based on their club rating. In groups of three starting from the highest ranked player each member will be successively designated king, queen, rook, bishop, and knight, with the remaining members designated as pawns. Your club ranking will appear next to your rating here. Check out how you rate, and try and make your way up the hierarchy each week!

A rather sedate night tonight with no upsets, fireworks, or sparks. Michael now in an unassailable lead given that Hilton is not going to be present next week. Still some life in the battle for the minor placings so dont miss the final round next week. Ian lost again, but at least this time his game made it in to double figures. Player ratings, summary statistics, and individual member crosstables have all been updated to reflect tonight’s games, and the updated crosstable has been posted under events. One round to go …….

Club ratings are now based on 459 games since the start of the year. As more members play in excess of thirty games the K factor will drop and ratings will stablize out, making it more difficult to improve (and destroy) ones rating. Note also that players generally wont lose or gain rating points when there is a wide gap between ratings and the game goes as expected (ie the stronger player wins). This can be seen when you examine the rating changes that occurred after last nights games, with Daniel gaining the most points from his win against the higher rated Stefan:

Round six saw Michael overtake Christopher on the top spot of the crosstable following a close game between the two of them on board one. Christopher moves down to number three sharing 4 points with Daniel, with Hilton in second on 4.5 and Michael on 5. With two rounds to go there is still real competition in the Gold-Silver-Bronze. Two draws also this evening with Gary and Richard splitting the point, as did Sivoram and Craig. Game of the night was Daniel-Stefan, which came down to queen and pawn to queen. Once Stefan ran out of checks Daniel took the honours and gained significant ratings points in the process. Ian managed the wooden spoon of the tournament (year?) award losing in spectacular style to Hilton in nine moves. Next week his goal is that the game might make it in to double figures. Player ratings, summary statistics, and individual member crosstables have all been updated to reflect tonight’s games, and the updated crosstable has been posted under events. Two rounds to go …….

Michael has kindly provided some analysis of his game with Hilton last night.  The permanent link can be found in the library under the menu above. Text can be copied to a pgn file for replay. (Further contributions to the library always welcome). Michael won in 46 moves but given that both players were under time pressure things may have turned out differently if Hilton had spotted the way to win Michaels queen on move 42. In the diagrammed position Michael has just played Rc1 in response to Hilton’s Rf1 check. Hilton responded Rf2, but could have won the queen with an alternative move. Can you spot the better continuation, without asking your German friend?

The 2013 North Island Rapid Chess Championship, a  Myer Tan Nz Grand Prix Class 2 Event, will be held at St. Paul’s Collegiate School, Hukanui Road, Hamilton Sunday 23^rd June, 2013. The format is a FIDE and NZCF rapid rated 6 round Swiss tournament, with each player having 25 minutes plus 5 seconds added from move one. Minimum total prize fund will be $700 (1st: $200,  2nd:$150,  3rd:$100;  plus grade prizes – cash & chess books – to the value of $250.

Players meeting:     9am sharp, entries close. Round 1 9:30 am – 10:30 am; Round 2 11:00 am – 12 noon; Round 3 12:45 pm – 1:45 pm; Round 4 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm; Round 5 3:15 pm – 4:15 pm; Round 6 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm. Prize-giving will follow as soon as possible after the completion of the last round. All players must be NZCF registered.

Entry Fees: $40 if received by Friday 21^st June.  Late entry fee $7.50 (if entry received after 21^st June)

NZCF player registration fee $20, if not already registered for 2013. The registration page is here. A tournament flyer is here. This will be great chess in a great venue. We hope to see you there

Round five once again provided some red hot games. Michael and Hilton went into a Kings Indian Defence in the first showdown of the club heavyweights. Hilton swapped a queen for minor pieces but in the end Michael came through to take the game 1-0. Daniel managed to create passed pawns on both sides of the board against Graham for a well deserved win. Damian and Sivoram’s game was very close and could have gone either way down to the last move, but Damian came through in the end. Damian Michael and Daniel were the biggest winners of rating points on the night picking up 21, 18, and 11 respectively. Player ratings, summary statistics, and individual member crosstables have all been updated to reflect tonight’s games, and the updated crosstable has been posted under events. Three rounds to go.

Dont forget you can follow Hamilton Chess Club on facebook!

Changes to member ratings now reflect the number of games previously played. If a player has played 30 or fewer games the number of rating points at stake for that individual  in that particular game (referred to as the K-factor in the ELO system) will be 32. In theory, after a sufficient number of games have been played, ratings should become more stable and to reflect this the rating points at stake (ie the K-factor) will be reduced to 16 after an individual has played more than 30 games. A full explanation is here. Ratings have been reworked for all rated tournaments since 1/1/13 to reflect the modification. Members can now also review their own individual crosstable against other club members for all rated games here. The permanent link to this page is “Individual Member Crosstables” under Club Ratings, top right.

We are now half way in the club champs. The field is still wide open with no clear leader emerging as yet. This is the crosstable after round 4. Player ratings and statistics have been updated. See you next week for round 5

In future members are able to view their statistics for total number of rated games, win rate, and result (W, D, L) by colour by following the link on the club rating page. Currently the player with the greatest number of rated games is Christopher (with 45), and the player with the best win rate is Hilton (0.87). Overall a total of 439 games have been rated since the start of the year (this includes games by non members in, for instance, The Autumn Rookies). Ratings have now been fully automated so I have reworked these, and modified Stefan’s starting rating to 1500 to more accurately reflect his playing ability.

As well as standard ratings, FIDE also have Rapid and Blitz rating lists. The North Island Rapid to be held at St Pauls’ Collegiate, Hamilton,  on the 23rd of June,  is to be the first FIDE rated rapid in New Zealand!!  As this is a New Zealand first FIDE is allowing the tournament to be rated without cost. We anticipate that this will bring in lots more players, so are looking forward to a very succesful event. Online registration will commence shortly.

The link below is a 26 minute interview with Magnus Carlsen. If things go according to Magnus’ plan I suspect the club will have an influx of new members towards the end of the year. Heres  hoping …..

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12895

Round 4 of the club champs will commence next Tuesday night, 7 May. See you there.