The Howick-Pakuranga Chess Club is organising this weekend’s New Zealand Senior Championship, where a Legend prize is being awarded for the first time
The Howick-Pakuranga Chess Club is running this year’s New Zealand Senior Chess Championship, which finishes on Sunday.
The tournament began on Friday and is being played in the Carbine Room at the Waipuna Hotel and Conference Centre in Mount Wellington, with the sixth and final round starting at 2.30pm on Sunday and prize giving straight afterwards.
It is a six-round Swiss tournament under New Zealand Chess Federation rules, with each player given 90 minutes plus a 30-second increment per move.
Entry was open only to players aged over 49 on 1 January.
Three titles are on the line.
The highest placed New Zealand player becomes the New Zealand Seniors champion, the highest placed player aged over 64 becomes Veterans champion, and a Legend prize is being awarded for the first time to the highest placed player aged over 80.
The Senior and Veteran sections each carry prizes of $250, $150 and $100, while the Legend winner receives $150 in book vouchers.
No player may claim more than one prize, and titles are shared if players tie.
The chief organiser is Paul Spiller, a former president of the New Zealand Chess Federation, as well as long time Howick businessman and local identity.
Games are being broadcast live online through Lichess.
The club has been running national events for decades.
It began in the late 1960s as the Cockle Bay Chess Club, formed by Richard Sutton, a two-time New Zealand champion who represented the country at the Skopje Olympiad and taught chess to dozens of local children from his own house.
It amalgamated with the Pakuranga Chess Club in 1975 and took its present name.
The club now meets downstairs at the Howick Bowling Club on Tuesdays, with juniors from 6.30pm and the senior club from 7.45pm.
It has hosted the national championships in 1990, 1999/2000, 2019 and again in 2025, and says it has one of the largest junior memberships of any chess club in the country.
