Wellington Chess Club

Our 2025 tournament schedule kicks off this week with the Summer Cup.

The draw for each round will be done 24 hours beforehand, including Round 1, so make sure you entries are in before the deadline.

It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of Arthur Pomeroy on 7 January 2025

Arthur was the Wellington Chess Club's club captain and committee member, an NZCF Councillor, a national selector, an arbiter, strong player and all-round stalwart, and most importantly, a friend. We will all miss him.

Bill Forster writes:

''Arthur has been very ill in recent months. He faced his situation with great courage and good humour. RIP Arthur.

Arthur played his first New Zealand Championship in 1973 and his last in 2017. His best performance was in Dunedin 1975, 6.5/11 alongside Sarapu and Sutton and behind only Garbett, Fairhurst and Cornford.

He was very proud of being in the NZ top 50 for 50 years.

He was a great club man, showing up every week at the Wellington chess club for decades, and answering the call when needed for thankless administration work.

As a chess player Art was a positional player, a man of principle. If he had his chance every white game was a Lopez or an Open Sicilian, every black game a Najdorf or a Kings Indian. He didn't waver from these choices at all over 50 years.

He was an extraordinarily cultured man. A professor of classics at Victoria University, author of a standard text book in his field along with many other publications. He was a gourmet, a connoisseur of sophisticated music, film and literature. He had no other family in New Zealand, but instead he had a very supportive group of similarly cultured friends. I got to know some of these people as they gathered around Art in recent months, and they were in awe of Art's wide-ranging knowledge of esoteric subjects and fields, the weirder the better. When I mentioned to this group that Arthur was an expert in the Najdorf Defence, even as non-chess players they recognised that with its exotic name it sounded like exactly the sort of specialised, sophisticated, wonderful thing Arthur would devote himself to.''

Our most prestigious tournament, the end-of-year blitz, took place last Thursday. Anthony Ker won, which probably passes his 8/8 at the North Island Championship as his most notable result of the year.

Our 2024 Club Champion is Russell Dive!

Other winners were Luke Chang (B Grade), Zachary Thirkell and Yigit Saglam (Swiss). Congratulations to them all!

The Julian Mazur Memorial finished last Thursday. Nic Croad won outright despite being on the other side of the world during the last round - his half-point bye was enough to keep him ahead of everyone else.

Next up (tonight) is our Blitz Championship - all welcome!

Our annual Chess960 tournament finished on the 25th of July. Luke Chang won with 5.5/6.

The Autumn Cup has finally concluded (more than halfway through winter). The winners this year are:

A Grade: Nic Croad
B Grade: Cohen Young
C Grade: Zachary Thirkell
D Grade: Yigit Saglam
Swiss: Ariel Lavender

Our Rapid Champions for 2024 are Ollie Archer and Ryan Winter. Congratulations to them.

Next up is the Autumn Cup, starting this Thursday. Details for this tournament can be found on our Club Website.

Our annual Summer Cup finished last Thursday. The winners this year are Anthony Ker and Ryan Winter, with 7.5/8.

Wellington Chess Club will be hosting the 2024 North Island Championship at Wellington College over Easter weekend.
To enter, go to our club website and navigate to Tournaments->2024->North Island Championship and follow the instructions on the entry form.
See you there!

Starting tomorrow night - the Summer Cup!

Arriving late (which, I am told, is preferable to never), here are the final standings of the 2023 Wellington Chess Club Championship. Congratulations to our winners:

A Grade: Anthony Ker and Layla Timergazi
B Grade: Ed Tanoi
Swiss: Luke Chang