Hamilton Chess Club

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.

“Chess is the greatest game ever invented, because it only looks like a game.”

Last night was sadly Peter Hulshof’s final visit to the club as he prepares to return to Holland in two weeks. We have enjoyed Peter’s company (and that of his two girls Maimoena and Zamiena as juniors) over the brief time that he has been with us. We wish him all the best for the future.

We will have casual chess for the next two weeks (23/4/2013 & 30/4/2013) because of the school holidays. The Club Champs will resume on 7/5/13 and run for 5 more weeks. If you have been thinking of checking out the club then casual nights are the best place to start. After the club champs are finished we will have a few nights of more rapid fire chess with anyone welcome to join in so coming along then would be a good idea also. (Club Champ nights are member only chess consisting of longer games with the opponents designated in advance, so not a great night to check us out if you are a prospective new member)

Last night produced some close games for round 3. In the end Eddie and Hilton tied and Michael beat Graham. There are now four players tied on 2.5 points. The Crosstable and ratings have been updated. Casual chess for the next 2 weeks.

Club ratings have been updated to include games from Round 1 of the Club Champs, Autumn Rookies, and now round 2 of the Club Champs. As expected some players made good gains from the Rookies.

Dont forget you can follow Hamilton Chess Club on facebook!

A belated welcome to Emi Ng who joined as a member in early March but didnt receive the customary acknowledgement due to an oversite on the part of Ian. Emi has been coming along with brother Daniel for some time now and has a club rating of 924 following participation in all 5 rateable tournaments so far this year. Emi brings the number of fully paid up club members to 25.

The club champs crosstable has been updated. Eddie Christopher and Hilton are in the lead. Dont forget, games start 7:15 next week for round 3. There will then be two weeks of casual chess and round 4 will resume May 8th

We had a great turnout with 33 for the Autumn Rookies. A special thankyou to the competitors who made the effort to come down from Auckland, and those that came from Tauranga. The prize winners were:  First overall – David Chen;  Second equal (despite four tiebreaks) – Erwin Pacua and Daniel Davis. Age division prizes went to Sivaram Manoharan (U16), Benjamin Symon (U14), Nigel Tee (U12), Nikolai Tee (U10), Daniel Plant (U8), and Emma Salazar (U6). Emma is only five and a half but has been playing at the MC Cup Tournaments in Auckland since she was 4. She won the Pawns division of that tournament in February and is now in the Rooks division. She is coached by Paul Macdonald from Chess Power and attends the Auckland Chess Center’s Thursday nights for juniors. There is no doubt she will be a force over the board in a few years time. The crosstable is here, and a few photos are here.  (Thanks to Erwin for providing additional photos). Club members that participated will have their club ratings adjusted shortly. Thanks to all for a most enjoyable tournament.

Thanks to Michael who is now officially the Club Ratings Officer for reworking all the ratings for this year and posting the revised and improved ratings. Club ratings will continue to be updated on a game by game basis for financial members using an ELO type system. Check out where you sit on the club rankings. Ratings sit at the top right of the main page

We have 27 entrants so far and likely a few more on the day, allowing extra prizes. There will now be prizes for: 1^st  ($50), 2^nd ($40), and 3^rd ($30) overall, plus age prizes for U16 U14 U12 U10 and U8. And there might even be a few spot prizes at the end for those that miss out on any of the monetary awards.

Club performance ratings have proved popular. Currently Michael is reworking the ratings so that rather than a simple performance rating after each tournament there will be real ratings more akin to an official ELO system. (Check out Wikipedia if you want to know the difference between a performance rating and an ELO style rating). The bottom line is there is that the ratings will be a more accurate reflection of your performance in club events. The ratings page will be updated shortly …..