Auckland Chess Centre

Latvian Rapid 25 + 5 organised by Howick Pakuranga Chess Club

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 | News

A Grade

A very pleasing result for the club as all the prizes were won by Chess Centre members. Mike Steadman and Bruce Watson were co-winners with 5 points (from 6) followed by Ewen Green (4.5pts) making a comeback after a few years of fulltime coaching. And rounding up the grade prizes was our very own former member Daniel Han making one of his frequent visits to Auckland tournaments. Sharing the grade prizes with him (and also on 3.5pts) were other Centre members Richard Taylor (who is never far away from the prizemoney) and Edward Tanoi who managed to reverse a form slump from his last Rapid tournament in February.

Steadman and Watson were deserving winners after consistent top performances although Steadman had more than an element of luck when after Watson declined his draw offer Steadman surprisingly managed to win a tight and exciting endgame. Mike also benefitted from a curious incident in the penultimate round against Green when partway through the game Mike noticed that his clock was running while he was waiting for Ewen’s next move. Ewen assumed he had accidentally pressed Mike’s clock and therefore ‘wasted’ 3 or 4 minutes of Mikes time. Invaluable in a rapid game. After numerous apologies and some efforts to correct the issue, play resumed. However, subsequent play saw Mike’s position gradually worsen and he gratefully accepted Ewen’s draw offer, who was perhaps feeling guilty and somewhat responsible. In fact, the real culprit turned out to be Tanoi who in the next board (and focussed intently on avoiding a loss to Wayne Power) had made a move and accidentally pressed the wrong clock! Edward realised afterwards that something was amiss when soon after the incident, Wayne made a move and went to press the clock but Edward’s time was already ticking! Fortunately, it all ended well. Nobody lost in that round and even Edward (after winning the exchange and then blundering 3 pawns and then a piece) managed to reverse his fortunes by swindling a stalemate from an unfortunate and bemused Power.

The Latvian tournament is a very popular with juniors and the A Grade had a turnout of 20 players with good representation from the strong North Shore club, and the Chess Centre with young Leo Zhu making his debut. There was also the usual good support from outside of Auckland with Caleb Wright making the trip up from Tauranga and Hilton Bennett and Daniel Han from Hamilton. Other familiar faces included Bob Smith, John McDonald and local club members Benjamin Lim and NZCF President Paul Spiller.

All in all, a generally well run tournament held literally in good spirits with frequent singing filtering through from the church service in the next room.

The next tournament will be our very own inaugrual Auckland Chess Centre Weekender starting on Friday night 27th March to Sunday 29th March. All Centre club members who register before Friday gets a chocolate fish from Mike Steadman! So turn out and support the club’s own tournament and support New Zealand chess!