North Shore Chess Club

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2024 North Shore Interschools

Once again we are running Primary, Intermediate, and Secondary at Wairau Intermediate - we are very grateful for the continued support from this school!

Primary: Monday 17th June
Flyer: Primary flyer
The winners were:
Gold: Willow Park A
(Patrick Di Jiang, Tilden Wang, Eric Jianchi Liu, & Dillon Sina’au)
Silver: Murrays Bay
(Aleksei Korolev, Maksim Korolev, Patrick Aohua Sun, & Mitchell Wang)
Bronze: Scott Point
(Vidhur Kannan, Mindi Vivanya Gallage, Shreyaan Arora, Teerth Rao, & Jaris Anndria Jacoba)
All three schools qualify for the National Finals, as we had more than 30 teams participating. (This will be held in the Alan Gibbs Centre, Wellington College, Wellington, 28-29 September).
Medals for 6/6 will also be awarded to:
Daric Li of Upper Harbour
Dillon Sina’au of Willow Park A
Martin Zhang of Oteha Valley B
Dedicated web page: North Shore Primary Interschools
Full results on Orion: North Shore Primary Interschools Orion files

Intermediate: Tuesday 18th June
Flyer: Intermediate flyer
The winners were:
Gold: Northcross A
(William Rui Liu, Justin Zhide Wang, Rex Xiaoyu Chen, & Maximilian Fang)
Silver: Pinehurst A
(Ethan Yichen Han, Kai Bo Jin, Isaac Gu, Kevin Zhou, & Junchen Jiang)
Bronze: Albany Junior High B
(Savith Wijayasinghe, Kayal Naya Vignesh Kumar, Finn Morgan-Cao, & Syed Hasan
All three schools qualify for the National Finals, as we had more than 30 teams participating. (This will be held in the Alan Gibbs Centre, Wellington College, Wellington, 28-29 September).
Medals for 6/6 will also be awarded to:
William Rui Liu of Northcross A
Uri Mayer of Belmont A
Justin Zhide Wang of Northcross A
Charlie Bernstein of Wairau Monkeys
Dedicated web page: North Shore Intermediate Interschools
Full results on Orion: North Shore Intermediate Interschools Orion files

Secondary: Friday 21st June
Flyer: Secondary flyer
The winners were:
Gold: Rangitoto A
(FM Felix Xie, Zachary Yu, Wanyao Sarah Sun, & Roul Preeyansh)
Silver: Takapuna Grammar A
(Daniel Wang, Hayden Steele, Samuel Moffitt, & Qixuan Liang)
Bronze: Kristin A
(CM Kendrick Botong Zhang, CM Isabelle Yixuan Ning, Lucas Barnett-Harris, & Frank Deng)
Rangitoto College and Takapuna Grammar both qualify for the National Finals, as we had more than 20 teams participating. (This will be held in the Alan Gibbs Centre, Wellington College, Wellington, 28-29 September).
Medals for 6/6 will also be awarded to:
FM Felix Xie of Rangitoto A
Zachary Yu of Rangitoto A
Dedicated web page: North Shore Secondary Interschools
Full results on Orion: North Shore Secondary Interschools Orion files

Please be aware that these are the only official North Shore Interschools events, providing qualifying places for the officially recognised NZCF National Interschools Finals. Other junior events exist; they are not run under the aegis of the North Shore Chess Club, and you should check carefully what they qualify your players for, if anything.

2024 Rules for Interschool events

These are qualifying events for the 2024 NZCF National Interschool Championships, to be held in September. The winner of each regional event will represent that region in the appropriate division (Primary, Intermediate, or Secondary). If 20 or more teams compete, a second school will qualify; if 30 or more teams, a third school will qualify. Schools may enter as many teams as they like, but can only win one qualifying place. (NOTE this may be modified if there are limits on numbers of people who can be present. There may need to be a maximum number of teams per school).

Masks: it is likely that once again all players and accompanying persons will be required to wear masks in the playing venue. No food or drink in the playing venue; please eat/drink outside. Masks will be available but please bring your own if possible.

Tournament Format: Matches are played on four boards (two with white and two with black pieces), so four players are required for each team. We will allow teams with 3 players but not fewer. Teams may have 5 players (with one resting each round) but the rule about staying in the same order applies. There will be six rounds using the Swiss pairing method (Orion software).

Teams and Board Order: The players in each team should be ranked as closely as possible in order of playing strength, with the strongest player on board one, the second strongest on board two, etc. This order must remain unchanged throughout the day. Please indicate the order on the entry form and confirm with the arbiter on arrival. Furthermore, a school’s A-team should be stronger than its B-team, etc. Primary players must be from Years 1-6, Intermediate from Years 7-8, and Secondary from Years 9-13. No team may have more than 5 players listed. Note that all 5 can play some games - one player drops out, the Reserve plays on board 4 and other team members move up.

Playing Times: Teams need to register their presence before 9:00am on the day of the tournament. A players’ meeting will follow and the first round should commence about 9:15am. There will be a break for lunch and we aim to finish by 2:30pm. Digital chess clocks will be used with each player having 15 minutes base time for the game plus additional time of 5 seconds added per move. This time control is similar to that used in the National Finals.

Illegal Moves: We intend to FIDE-rate the Secondary and the Intermediate, though not the Primary this year. Note that this means a slight modification to the NZCF Interschool rules. Rated games require that we play by the official laws of chess, where the second illegal move loses the game. We believe that a very large percentage of the competitors will already be familiar with this, and that it is unlikely to cause any problems.

Adult Support: Visiting school teams must have an adult (teacher, parent, or guardian) present to supervise ALL PLAYERS. We will provide arbiters and make the pairings - anyone who is interested in learning how to do this is during the event should let us know in advance. However, we are not able to supervise the students, and it is the responsibility of their school (not the venue!) to provide sufficient adult supervision. Teams that arrive without a designated adult will not be allowed to compete. Teams whose supervisor leaves during the event will be removed from the pairings.

Entries: Online registration will be available. Schools will be issued with invoices. All entries will be acknowledged and more detailed information will be circulated as soon as possible after the entry deadline (which has not been set yet). Entries will be listed here, in Orion files.

Prizes: There will be no prize-giving at the event - teams are free to leave as soon as all their games are finished. The first three teams will receive gold, silver, and bronze medals, which will be individually engraved with the students' names and sent to schools after the event, for presentation at Assembly. Some regions have trophies which are awarded annually - if you are in possession of such a trophy, please remember to bring it to the event! North Shore has trophies for Primary and Intermediate (not Secondary).

Queries: Please email Helen Milligan