The Game of round 2 in the 2023 KCC Championship was the top board clash between between David and Levi. A high quality game in which David steered into an open tactical battle which played to his strengths, and saw him come out on top.

Big congratulations to two Kāpiti Club members Levi Paxton and Brock Clement, who took out first and second place respectively, at the  at the recent Manawatū School Pupil Chess Championship. This is the second year in a row for Levi, who was also co-Club Champion in 2022 in the senior section of our Club. Brock is a member in our Junior Club. Both attend Horowhenua College in Levin. Well done both!

It was an exciting finale to the Junior T3 Rapid. Going into the last round Roy and Jacob were on 4.5 from 5, followed by Isaiah, Cobus and Devin, all on 4. With Roy and Devin away, the pivotal match up on top board was between Jacob and Isaiah. In a good game, it was Jacob who prevailed and took first prize with an impressive 5.5 points from 6. Cobus also had a strong tournament and came through to claim joint second on 5 points, along with Roy. Devin narrowly edged out Isaiah, Milo and Jingwei to claim the bronze medal with 4.5 points.

In what was the last official junior club night of term 3, there were some NZCF Badge Scheme awards presented. Pawn Badge (Level 1) awarded to Alex and Knight Badges (Level 2) to Cobus, Brock and Isaiah.  The challenging Bishop (Level 3) award was achieved by Jingwei, Devin, Ewan and Jed. Congratulations to all.

The junior Club will be on next Tuesday for a catch-up night, which will be followed by a one week break before T4 starts.

After 6 rounds in the senior club Spring ‘play something different’ tournament, Gordon leads on 6, followed by Ross on 5, and Lars and Levi on 4. Current standings here.

Junior Club

After 4 rounds of the Junior T3 Rapid (10 minutes + 5 second bonus), Isaiah is the only one in the field of 38 with a perfect score of 4 points. He is closely followed by Jacob and Roy who share second place with 3 1/2. Cobus, Devin, Jingwei, Milo and William lead the chasing pack with 3 points. There is still time for someone to mount a challenge as there will be at least another two rounds played before the end of term. 

Senior Club

The final four rounds of the Freebird Tournament were played this week. This tournament comprises 16 rounds of 10 minute per side games, with half the rounds played back in February and the second half played over the last two weeks. For this second leg, Gordon was unstoppable on 8 from 8 – although the lower-rated Guy and David will consider themselves unlucky not to convert better positions against him in their rounds. Ross also performed well to finish second equal, despite usual work and travel commitments keeping him away from scores in a few of the early rounds. When combined with results from the first leg back in February, congrats go to Gordon who retains the Freebird trophy for the third year in a row, with Ross second and Lars third. Final results here.

Last week we were welcomed by the Upper Hutt Club in a return inter-club friendly match in their clubrooms at HIBS in Trentham. Each player played two rounds of 25m+5s games against an opposing club player, one as white, one as black. As with the home match back in April, it was another enjoyable night of friendly competition, and great to have a change of scene and to play to against some new faces. We warmly thank Upper Hutt Club for  hosting us, which included some nice pizza at the mid-match break. For the record, it was a pretty even match, with Kāpiti just taking out the honours  10 points to 8. Results can be found here. 

A record turnout of 80 kids from 18 schools across the Wellington, Kāpiti and Horowhenua regions competed in the fourth running of the Kāpiti Junior Championship on August 12, 2023. With heaps of parents and caregivers looking on, it was fantastic atmosphere as kids competed individually and as part of their school over four divisions, and for best Kapiti-Horowhenua school.

Top seed Ryan Winter made it two for two, taking out the Championship Open division for the second year in a row with an unbeaten 5½ from 6.  Along with Ryan, the Open division featured some top New Zealand juniors, including previous New Zealand junior champion Josh Langford who finished runner-up on 4½ with a single loss to Ryan in Round 2. Sharing third place was runner-up at this year’s NZ Juniors, Cohen Young, along with Kayden Loke, Levi Paxton and Alex Coates. 

In the school grade events, Luke Chang was an impressive winner in the Secondary grade, unbeaten with 5½ points from 6. Toby Shannon took the Silver, and Jacob Bayler the Bronze. In the Intermediate section, Timothy Wang and Samuel Coles both top-scored on 5 from 6, with Timothy narrowly edging out Samual on tie-break to take the Gold. Bronze was shared with Ushnishi Chakraborty, Alistair Brownie and Marcel Milson all on 4 points. In the primary section, Mark Wu and Leo Lawton both top scored on 5 points from 6, with Mark edging out Leo on tie-break for the Gold medal. Zachery He, Niranjana Sethuramlingam and Jingwei Xu all took away Bronze.

The School Trophy, awarded to the top performing Kāpiti or Horowhenua school, was won again by Levin Intermediate 13½ (aggregate score for top 4 players), with  Kāpiti College next on 11½. In third place was Ōpiki School. Congrats to Levin Intermediate winners for the third year running! Congrats also to the top scoring school on the day, which was Onslow College. 

Thanks to all the players and parents for a fantastic day of Chess, and to organiser and director Gordon Lyall, his wife Andrea and with others who helped out, to make the day run smoothly.

Final standings, 2023 Kāpiti Junior Chess Championship: Click on the links to see full results of that grade.

Photos and videos from the day including all the prize-winners can be found here.
Results from previous years can be found here.
Tournament poster

Kapiti Junior Chess Club members, Jingwei, Rueben, Daniel, Benjamin and Milo, competed for their school, Raumati Beach, in the Wellington Region Inter-school competition on 20th July. This is possibly the first time that a Kapiti Primary school has competed in the New Zealand Chess Federation’s national school competition. All five students claimed points with the team notching up two wins against Newlands B and Churton Park. Special mention to Jingwei on board 1. Playing the top players from all the other schools, he scored an impressive 4 from 6, and was just outside receiving the top board prize. Congratulations to all.

With Juniors on school term break, most of the Club action recently has been in the senior section. Congrats to Gordon who took out our annual Fischer-Random tourney, with Lars runner-up.  Final results for this are here. The first two rounds of a new Mid-Winter round robin event began this week. Gordon and Ross both completed the night unbeaten on 2 points, with most of the rest of the pack on 1 point. Current results for this event are here.

Meanwhile, the Club is looking forward to our return interclub away match with Upper Hutt which has now been confirmed for 14 August. This follows on from a very enjoyable inaugural home match when they visited us back in April.

The Junior T2 Blitz Tournament came to an exciting conclusion this week. The stand out performance came from Isaiah who scored a perfect 6 wins from six game. There were also strong performances from Roy & Tal who both scored 5 points from 6, and Jingwei, Brock, Yoav and William each on 4. The final standings:

Congratulations to all who competed.

Further NZCF Certificates and badges were awarded last night to (See photo in back row: Sam, Josh, Brock and in front row: Milo, Ronan & Oscar). Congratulations to all, particularly the Club’s youngest member, Oscar, who achieved Level 1 and received his pawn badge.

In the senior section, the final two rounds of the Winter cup were played. Congratulations to Gordon who takes out the comp this year, finishing on 6½ from 8, with Levi and Ross joint second on 5½. Final results here. Next week we start the first of two nights of Fischer-Random fun.