Hamilton Chess Club

The  2013 annual report for the Hamilton Chess Club website—–

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Further to the earlier post we now provide a photo of William standing tall for Hamilton Chess at the recent awards ceremony.

The club is now in recess for the Summer, but will resume 7pm February 4th next year. See you then

Club member William Lynn is to be recognized for 36 years of dedicated service to the Hamilton Chess Community. The award will be presented by the Mayor at a council meeting (Council Chambers) this Friday, December 13, at 2.30 p.m.

Hamilton Civic Awards nominations are considered by the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Chairperson of the city’s Civic sub-committee. Nominations are considered on the  basis of the description of the service given and the quality of the supporting references included in the application. Each year the panel grants a maximum of 20 Civic Awards. This year William will be one of 13 recipients. We look forward to many more years of William’s contribution to the Waikato Chess Scene.

We had the final night for the year last night. A six round blitz at 5 + 3. Honours went to Stefan with a score of 5 out of 6, followed by William and Hilton. Member ratings have been updated.

NZCF rating lists have just been published. Members ratings have been amended on the membership page here, as well as the change — plus or minus — from the last rating period.

The club continues to attract junior members with Elijah DeWit joining this week as member number 32. Seventeen members are Juniors. With  one night left in the year we look forward to a strong year in 2014. Welcome Elijah.

Next Tuesday 03/12/13 will be the final night for 2013. We will have 6 rounds of 5 + 3 to finish. Let’s have a good turnout to round out a successful year.

Club membership continues to rise with the addition of Josh as a Junior member. Welcome Josh.

The club has reached a milestone of 30 paid up members with Junior Sam Kim joining up last night. Sam has been taking part in our “play like a former world champion tournament” for the last few weeks and has now made the move to full membership. Welcome Sam.

We had an 8 round blitz last night. Gary had some good wins and advanced significantly on the rating table. The nights crosstable is below, and club ratings have been updated.

Hilton scored a creditable 4th =  with 5.5 out of a possible 9  in the recent South Island Champs held in Nelson, October 9th to 13th. His only losses were to the IMs that came first and second.

The always popular Bay of Plenty Rapid  will be held on Saturday, February 22nd, 2014. The tournament will be run in three groups and is suitable for players of all ability. An entry form can be found here

We will have 8 rounds of blitz next week — the first 4 at time control of 3 minutes plus 2 seconds a move, and then 4 games at 5 minutes plus 3 seconds a move. Visitors and guests are welcome to join in. Games start 7:20 sharp so dont be late.

After 10 rounds the final scores were Michael 7.5, Stefan 7, and Graham 6.5. The full crosstable is below:

Rounds 9 and 10 were from Kasparov vs Kramnik, 2000. London and from Anand vs Kramnik, 2008. Bonn, Germany
Although Garry Kasparov was not recognized as champion by FIDE, the rest of the chess world continued to acknowledged him as the best player. He had continued to dominate the chess tournaments while FIDE’s new system to select their champion, consisting of a single tournament of short knockout matches, offended the sensibilities of both players and fans. However, Kasparov had not played a match in 5 years, and believed that for his title to maintain its credibility, it was time to take on a new challenger. The Braingames organization was created by a group headed by Grandmaster Ray Keene specifically to organize a match for Kasparov. Whereas the champion’s challenger had since 1948 been the winner of a series of tournaments and matches, this time Kasparov’s opponent was simply picked by GM Keene. Read the rest of this entry »

In an effort to boost membership, and in recognition that this month the World Chess Championship will take place, Hamilton Chess Club is pleased to offer a significant discount off our usual membership subscription rate. The offer applies to both adult and junior memberships. To take up the offer you must never have previously been a financial member of the club, and must pay your membership fee before 1 December 2013. For the usual annual fee ($40 adult, $20 junior) you will be credited with 15 months membership, representing a 25% bonus over the usual rate.

By taking up this offer.

• You will have free access to the Hamilton Chess Centre on club nights
• You will receive reduced entry fees for events conducted by the Hamilton Chess Club – a saving to you of at least $5 per tournament!
• You can improve your chess skills.
• You will get a club rating that you can use as an incentive to advance
• Your membership allows the club to provide resources and willing people to run local events – without this, the club would not exist

Come along this Tuesday night and check us out.

Below is a link for livestream of game 1 on the world champs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH_5Ko7QCi8

With two rounds to go in our minitournament the lead is share equally by Michael and Stefan. Dont miss out on the final two rounds. The crosstable is appended below.

Game 8 was drawn from the 1978 World Chess Championship was played between challenger Viktor Korchnoi and champion Anatoly Karpov in Baguio City, Phillipines. The conditions of the match were changed for the first time since 1951: the 24 game format was replaced with an unlimited game format, with the first player to win 6 games being declared champion. The rematch clause for the Champion, which had been discarded since 1963, was brought back into effect. This was not the first match betwen Korchnoi and Karpov. In the 1974 candidates matches, after defeating Lev Polugaevsky and Boris Spassky in preliminary matches, Karpov beat Korchnoi in the 1974 candidates final by the close score of +3 -2 =19. Korchnoi had been one of the USSR’s top grandmasters for over 20 years. He had won the Soviet Championship on four occasions and had had reached the Candidates final twice. When Korchnoi dramatically defected from the USSR in 1976, he set the stage for one of the most bitterly contested matches in WCC history, filled with high political drama, tension, and accusations. The political ramifications of a Soviet defector winning the chess crown hung heavy on the match atmosphere. Numerous accusations were traded by the two camps. Korchnoi continously complained that he was being stared at by a member of Karpov’s team during play, a parapsychologist supposedly with hypnotic powers. Karpov objected to Korchnoi’s wearing of sunglasses which he said deflected light on his eyes. At one point in the match the players stopped shaking hands and all further communication stopped. Draws offers were conveyed through the arbiter. Read the rest of this entry »