NZ Champs Photos

The NZ Championships in Wellington have come to an end. Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to everyone who took part.
All results can be found here, at the Wellington Chess Club Official Championship Website

I loved in particular seeing the spirit with which the contest was fought, and friendships being forged across the chessboard.

These lovely pictures were taken by Matt Veldhuizen

Layla Timergazi and Alanna Chew Lee

William Li and Hans Gao

Thanks are due in particular to:

- Bruce Pollard for his expert and seamless direction of the tournaments
- Bill Forster who did an absolutely amazing job of publishing results and games, not to mention tackling the slightly temperamental live web broadcasting equipment. He was invariably first in and last out of the venue, which maybe dented his chances of taking the title
- Alan Aldridge and Ross Jackson for organising the venue, which, I thought, was pretty much ideal for the needs of the competition
- Ross Jackson and Brian Nijman for coordinating the whole organisational effort
- Andrew Brockway for handling the financial aspects

Bruce Pollard doing what he does so well

There were some great results from juniors throughout the competitions, and in particular I was impressed with Max Chew Lee (of course!), winner of the Major Open, also the friendly and unflappable Rains brothers Timothy and Edward, Jack James from the Palmerston North club, Daniel Gong, our own Layla Timergazi, and the diminutive Aaron Wang. All the very best to these and the other juniors in their future chess careers!

Aaron Wang struggles to record his result

Josh Wight, up and coming Wellington player

Here are a couple of links to photo collections from the competition (thanks Simon Lyall and Guy Burns)

Simon Lyall's collection

Guy Burns' collection