Hamilton Chess Club

St Pauls provided a very comfortable venue for the Annual Rapid Tournament run there by the club. Proceeds from the tournamet have been donated to the New Zealand Chess Olympiad Fund. There were 36 entries and as usual a respectable contingent of Aucklanders made the effort to come down for the day. First overall was Ben Hauge FM, dropping a half point to Peter Hulshof, a new recruit to the Hamilton club who previously played chess at a high level in Holland. Peter is a welcome addition to the club and to New Zealand chess having taken on the captaincy of the women’s team to the forthcoming olympiad in Istanbul.  Second prize overall went to Hans Gao and Noel Pinic on 5 points each, while Peter Hulshof took out third place on 4.5.

In the under 1800 division first place was a three way split between Graham Nolan, William Crombie and Alphaeus

Ang, all on 4 points. There was a five way split of the prize money in the under 1300 group between Daniel Gong, Joy Qin, Yuno Oh, Benjamin Simon and Christopher Simon. Daniel and Joy got to share the book prizes based on tie break score. Nicholas Huang and Craig Scott took out first and second place in the under 1000 division.  The Crosstable is here, and these are some photos