Club Tournaments

Club tournaments are played on Wednesday nights. The doors open from 7pm, pairings/draw is done at 7:15pm and games start at 7:30pm.

Players must be at the clubrooms or message the club's Facebook page by 7:15pm to be included in the draw.

Players may request half-point byes in rapid and standard tournaments by messaging the club's Facebook page by 7:15pm (or when entering for a first round bye) - maximum 2 per tournament, not available in a tournament's last 2 rounds.

Players must be financial full, life, junior or trial members to play on Wednesday nights.

Looking for weekend and/or junior tournaments? Click here! 

Laws of Chess

Wednesday night tournaments follow the FIDE Laws of Chess (FIDE is the World Chess Federation) except that cellphones are only required to be on silent rather than turned off (but still can't be used while playing a tournament game except with permission and under supervision from the arbiter in urgent cases). The default time is 30 minutes where applicable. Standard and rapid tournaments are 'touch-move' (The Laws of Chess cover this in Article 4) while lightnings and Grim Reapers are 'clock move' (players can change moves until they push the clock). For standard tournaments, players must write the moves down (we provide scoresheets and pens)  - the Laws of Chess have an explanation in Appendix C or this is a good guide from Chessable.

Time controls

We use chess clocks for all our Wednesday night tournaments.

• Standard (long play): 1 hour 15 minutes plus a 30 second increment from move 1.

• Rapid: 25 minutes + 10 second increment from move 1.

• Lightning: 5 minutes.

• Grim Reapers: 3 minutes plus a 2 second increment from move 1.

NZCF Ratings

All long play and some rapid events are rated by NZCF (New Zealand Chess Federation) - note that NZCF rules require players who play in more than 1 rated event per year to be members of a club.

Long play and rapid tournaments are run as six round Swiss tournaments except for our Club Championships. Please note that the Arie Nijman Trophy is for the Club Rapid Championship.

Club Championships for the H.R. Abbott Trophy

The Club Championships are run over seven rounds for the A Grade and eight rounds for the B & C Grades, with the 7th week being a catch-up week for the A Grade. The previous year's A & B Grade winners and the top six players by NZCF standard rating make up the A grade, or the top seven or eight players by rating if the previous year's A and/or B Grade winner does not enter, and the other players make up the B grade.

The A grade is a Round Robin and the B grade is a Swiss with the C grade being the highest-placed player with a rating under 1600 (or another rating if the committee decides). If numbers allow, the B grade will also be a Round Robin and there will be a C grade Swiss. Entries to the round robin grades close the Wednesday prior to the first round. 

Club Lightning Championships for the W.J. Watson Trophy

There are 5 lightning tournaments scheduled for 2025. Points are assigned according to the final standings of each tournament as follows: 1st - 10 points; 2nd - 6 points; 3rd - 4 points; 4th - 2 points (shared placings will share the points equally). The top 4 scores over the year for each player are used to make a player's total - the lowest score is noted in brackets next to that player's total (if no score is noted, that player has not been assigned points in 4 events). The club member with the most points at the end of the year will have their name engraved on the W.J. Watson Trophy and honours board.