128th NZ Chess Congress, Palmerston North, 2-12 Jan 2021

[CivicChessMan]

Congratulations to Nic Croad, NZ Champion!

With his win over David Cilia Vincenti in the final round, Nic Croad wins his second NZ Championship. He wins the tournament outright with 7.5 points. Croad's first title was in 2015 when he shared the honour with nine other players. Croad was unbeaten with 6 wins and 3 draws. In second place is Ben Hague on 6.5 points. He was also unbeaten with 4 wins and 5 draws. Hague and Felix Xie drew as did Anthony Ker and Bob Smith. This resulted in a three way tie for third with Xie, Ker and Leonard McLaren on 6 points.

[CivicChessMan]

... the bid advised that it would be the top 10 players registered with FIDE as NZL, not New Zealand players (to quote the Supplementary Regulations, “New Zealand chess player" means one who holds New Zealand citizenship or who is normally resident in New Zealand and has been resident in New Zealand for at least one year prior to the commencement of the event in which the player intends to play), in the championship.

{This discussion probably belongs on a separate thread.}

There can be a number of different reasons why a New Zealand chess player is registered to another Federation. That should NOT be a factor in determining a player's eligibility to play in the New Zealand Championship. Of the current top 50 players, there are five players who are registered to other federations.

[CivicChessMan]

The Wellington Club Championship finished a few weeks before the NZ Championship. In that tournament, Nic Croad had lost to Anthony Ker, Russell Dive and David Cilia Vincenti to finish on 6.5/10, a massive three points behind winner Ker. Quite sure Croad is delighted to have turned that around with wins against Ker and Vincenti and a draw with Dive.

[Adamski]

Huge congratulations to Nic. What a great turn-around from that earlier tournament!

[CivicChessMan]

Just 4 rounds played on day 1 of the NZ Rapid Championship with a further 5 scheduled for tomorrow. Fifty players are competing to become the 29th NZ Rapid Champion.

The headline grabbing news is of Felix Xie. In round 3, he knocked off the 2020 champion Anthony Ker then followed that up with a win over new NZ Champion Nic Croad in round 4. Xie has a perfect 4 out of 4. Also with the same score is Russell Dive so it will be Dive vs Xie in round 5. Ben Hague and Bob Smith drew their game in round 4 to be on 3.5 points. Ten players have 3 points including Ker, Croad and 2019 champion Ralph Hart. On board 2, Hague plays Croad and on 3, it is Hart versus Smith.

[Craig_Hall]

Round 5 saw Dive and Xie draw after Xie blunded a piece and Dive blundered it back shortly after. Results are being updated after each round via Vega on the NZCF website at www.newzealandchess.co.nz .

[CivicChessMan]

Round 5: Russell Dive, Felix Xie, Ben Hague 4.5; Ralph Hart, Anthony Ker, Chris Burns, Kayden Loke, Euan McDougall 4; Bob Smith, Simon Lyall 3.5; Nic Croad ++ 3.

Round 6: Xie vs Hague, McDougall vs Dive, Ker vs Loke, Burns vs Hart and Smith vs Lyall.

[CivicChessMan]

Round 6. Comfortable win to Russell Dive and he leads "in the clubhouse" with 5.5 points.

[CivicChessMan]

Ben Hague blunders his queen to gift the win to Feiix Xie and a share of the lead on 5.5 points. Ralph Hart overcomes Chris Burns to move to 5 points. Kayden Loke produced the game of his life to hold Anthony Ker to a draw although he made it difficult for himself trying to push for a win.

[CivicChessMan]

The two leaders, Felix Xie and Russell Dive (5.5) play Ralph Hart (5) and Bob Smith (4.5) respectively. There are three more players on 4.5, Ben Hague and Anthony Ker who play each other and Kayden Loke who meets Nic Croad (4).

Results: Hart 1/2 Xie , Dive 1-0 Smith, Hague 1/2 Ker, Loke 1/2 Croad (after 109 moves!)

Dive takes the outright lead on 6.5 with 2 rounds to play. Xie is half a point back on 6 with a further half point back to Hart on 5.5. There are six players on 5 points, all of whom are still in with a slight chance of winning the tournament. but needing a deal of good fortune.

[CivicChessMan]

Ben Hague (5) needs to win against Russell Dive (6.5) to stay in contention. Felix Xie (6) plays Kayden Loke (5), Anthony Ker (5) versus Ralph Hart (5.5) and Josh Langford (5) vs Dylan Piwari (5).

Ben Hague won against previous leader Russell Dive to move to 6 points, still half a point behind Dive. The new leader is Felix Xie on 7 points with a win over Kayden Loke. Also on 6 points is Dylan Piwari and Ralph Hart. Hart drew with Ker, eliminating defending champion Ker from retaining his title.

[CivicChessMan]

Final round pairings are: Dylan Piwari (6) vs Felix Xie (7), Russell Dive (6.5) vs Thomas van der Hoorn (5.5), Ralph Hart (6) vs Ben Hague (6) and Nic Croad (5.5) vs Anthony Ker (5.5). A draw is enough for Xie to become NZ Rapid Champion but that will give Dive a chance at winning his 9th title.

Once again, Dive is in the clubhouse, leading the tournament with 7.5 points after van der Hoorn blundered early on. Felix Xie is now the only other NZ Champion contender.

Felix Xie is the NZ Rapid Champion. He finishes on 8 points, half a point ahead of Russell Dive. Ralph Hart beats Ben Hague to finish third on 7 points.

Congratulations to Felix Xie. He is the youngest NZ Rapid Champion at just 12 years old. Puchen Wang won the title when he was 16.

[Craig_Hall]

Dive wins first, other games still going.

[Capablanca-Fan]

Huge congratulations to Nic. What a great turn-around from that earlier tournament!

Yes, it was well deserved. He won several long games with superior positional judgment and grit.