Hamilton Chess Club

Hugo leads on 6 points, followed by Richard on 5, followed by four players on four points. Two games next week to complete the tournament. The crosstable so far is located here. Games kick off 730pm so dont be late.

The club welcomes Jasmine Podmore and Abdi Ali as its newest financial members.

The Autumn Cup kicked off last night with a staggering 28 participants, by far the best turn out for a club night yet, and boding well for the health of the club in 2015. After the first three rounds Hugo, Hilton, and Richard are in the lead with 3 points each. We will have three more rounds next week at time control 15+0, and then there will be two rounds of 25+0 on the final night. After that it will be straight in to the club champs. The crosstable for the Autumn cup so far is located here and the draw for round four assuming everyone turns up is located here. Please if you know you are not going to be there on the night let me know beforehand. Next week clocks will be starting at 7:30 sharp, so dont be late.

The tenth BOP rapid is on 28/2/15. This is NZ’s first and longest running Fischer time control rapid. A copy of the entry form can be found here.

Interested in how the website fared in 2014? check out the post below–

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

We are back to our usual clubnight schedule this coming Tuesday 03 Feb, 7pm. A proposed calendar for the year has been posted here and member comments are invited. We will start proceedings with a couple of nights of informal blitz (guests welcome) before the Autumn Cup then gets underway, followed by the club Champs commencing in March. Note that this year we will be operating only during the Hamilton Boys High School term time. See you next week !

If you missed it here is a great post on CHESSBASE about the recent New Zealand open. Scroll down for a picture of Hilton carrying out a post mortem. Hilton Graham and Fuatai took part in one or other of  the various events (rapid, open, blitz). Congratulations to Graham for his very respectable 18th place in the blitz !! Results can be viewed on the New Zealand chess website

The first club night of the year for 2015 will be 3rd February. If members have suggestions for next years calendar let me know.

Congratulations to William who managed to take second place in the under 1800 division of the recent 29th Papatoetoe Rapid Open against a strong field.

The club is now in recess for the Summer. Have a safe and happy Christmas. We will resume again on Tuesday February 3^rd. There will be blitz on the first night back and guests will be welcome. See you in 2015.

We had 18 for the R-cubed (Rapid Round Robin) last night. The top three divsions ran as single round robins, while the fourth was a 3 game Swiss. Players were grouped based on club ratings. Honours went to Hilton in division A, William in division B, Matt in division C, and Jeff in division D. The division winners went into a prize draw for a box of chocolates, with Jeff drawing the winning ballot. Cross tables are below, and club ratings have been updated.

The latest NZCF ratings lists have been posted. Members ratings are reproduced below.

Following on from the popularity of the graded round robin earlier this year we will have a graded round robin next week. Groups of four players based on club rating will play 3 games against each other at time control 15 + 0. Dont be late or you will miss out.

Eighteen players turned out for momentum blitz last night. We had four rounds at time control 3 + 2, and four rounds at 5 + 3. It was arduous stuff but everyone stuck through to the end, with Stefan taking line honours on 7 points, drawing with Graham and Richard who tied for second on 6.5. Murray managed five points, which is pretty good considering he missed the first game. Ratings have been updated as usual.

An interesting and entertaining video of a game from a much younger Nigel Short v Gary Kasparov can be found  here

If you have been thinking about coming along for a look then next week 25/11/14 at 7pm is a good place to start. We will be playing blitz games at short time control.  New members are always welcome. Come along and join in the fun.

As you can see from the graphs at left both Matt and Joel are on the up and up reaching personal best club ratings of 1543 and 1518 respectively on Tuesday night. Over the last 15 games Matt’s rating has improved by 21 but Joels has gone up by 39 so if Joel sticks at it for the next 6 months I suspect he will be able to close the gap. Watch this space.

We had 18 on Tuesday for momentum blitz. A great result for Graham with a perfect score (and increased club rating points). Also a notable achievment for Joel Crombie who came a credible 3^rd equal and is now snapping at the heels of the adults. More momentum blitz next week. Club ratings and graphs have been updated.

We will be playing blitz. The more the merrier, so come along for a look if you are a non-member thinking about joing the club. Games kick off 7:30; be there by 7:15 to be in the draw.

Richard chalks up another tournament win well ahead of his nearest rival. Stefan did well to come second – particularily as he missed three games. Six players managed to tie for third plae. Rating statistics and graphs have been updateted. We will have blitz for the next couple of weeks, 7 games a night (3 rounds of 3 + 2 then 4 rounds of 5 + 3). Games kick off at 7:30. Guests welcome. Don’t be late.