On 29 April 2024, a team of 6 Kāpiti players travelled to Trentham for a friendly interclub match with Upper Hutt. Each team member had 2 games of 25m +5s against an opposing club member, one as white and one as black. In this game, Geoffrey playing black on board 2 against white’s King’s English, prevails in a game played on two sides, with black storming the king side, and white doing the same on the queen side.

Game of the week was definitely a game of two halves. Ross playing the black side of a Caro-Kann (!), played a nice positional game and had the initiative early. This initiative increased on move 21, when Lars was forced to recapture on f3 which severely weakened his kingside. The weak king was harassed by the Black queen who collected some pawns along the way. However, when Ross played 35…f6, in an attempt to activate his rook along the f-file, he opened lines against his own king. This gave Lars active counterplay which culminated in a great finish. Annotations by Gordon Lyall.

2023 Club Champs Round 4 match. Another good clash between young and old. When the dust settles it is a draw.

Another game from Round 4 of the 2023 Club Champs. A closely-fought match clash between old and young.  John secures a pawn advantage but stumbles in the end to a nice tactical move.

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.

A second round game played at the 2023 Kāpiti Open (25m + 5s).

This game was played as part of the Interclub match with Upper Hutt club  on 18 April 2023. 

A Round 2 clash in the 2023 Kāpiti Kingston Memorial.

This was a Round 5 game at the NZ Major Open played in Wellington in January 2023.

Here is a game from Round 6 of the 2022 Kāpiti Chess Club Championship played between Andy Hicks (rated 1621) versus Geoffrey Gunawan (rated 1812). Annotations by Gordon Lyall.

There was a strong field for this year’s Kāpiti Junior Open Championship played on 13 August 2022. This included both the current as well as last year’s NZ junior champions, and an average rating well over 1700. The tournament was won by top seed Ryan Winter from the Wellington Club.

Here is a game from Round 4 between Thomas van der Hoorn (rated 1897) and Leo Malcolm (rated  1797). Annotations by Gordon Lyall.

This was the crucial deciding final round game on Board 1 of the 2022 Kāpiti Rapid played 28 May 2022. Top seed Ben Hague plays third seed Anthony Ker, both former NZ Champions. Whoever wins, or draws, will win the title.

A final Round match between Lars and David in the 2022 Kingston Memorial played on 10 May, at a time control of 55m + 5s.

Round 1 of the 2022 Kingston Memorial played at 55m + 5s. Lars Dobbertin-King holds 2021 Kingston winner and Club Champion to a draw.

The annual Rose and John Kingston Memorial tournament kicked off for 2022 on the 29 March. The level of the players in the tournament this year suggested there would be few easy games and a promise of some good battles. This is the first game from Round 1. A very even game until Black decides to opposite castle queenside leading to a classic kingside versus queenside attacks, where first White is winning – but able to find the finish, with Black storming back with a pawn storm and Knight sacrifice to open Whites kingside and allow his major pieces in for the kill.

While COVID continued to keep NZ Chess Clubs online during September 2021, this was one game played during one of the Kāpiti Chess Club’s online arenas. Black, using his role as the Club website person, to somewhat indulgently show off a rare win against Ross, albeit under a casual 10+5 online format.