Howick’s Paul Spiller, vice president of the New Zealand Chess Federation, is organising a special Girl’s Chess Day at Waipuna Hotel and Conference Centre on Sunday, March 26 as part of a global initiative by the World Chess Federation [FIDE] to promote girls’ chess and to promote chess in general.
They have both the FIDE chair of the Women’s Commission [WOM] Anastasia Sorokina and Women’s Grandmaster Dana Reizniece-Ozola (a former minister of sport in the Latvian parliament) who is deputy chair of the FIDE management board attending the event.
They will then travel to Wellington to meet with the president of the New Zealand Olympic Committee and Dr Julia Novak who is in charge of the NZ Schools’ curriculum. Their visit will finish with a live interview by Kathryn Ryan on Radio NZ at 10am on Tuesday, March 28.
Spiller will be travelling with them to Wellington to join them in these meetings as the NZCF representative.
Meanwhile, Alphaeus Ang won the A grade competition in a Latvian Chess tournament organised by the Howick Pakuranga Chess Club at Te Tuhi on Saturday.
It is an annual NZCF & FIDE-rated one day Swiss format tournament with six rounds.
Ang finished with 5.5 out of 6 points ahead of Leonard McLaren (5) and Daqi Mao (4.5).
The B grade saw four joint winners on 4.5 points. They were Jessie de Guzman, Timothy Ha, Hayden Steele and Henry Vital.
Karl Holdo won the C grade tournament on 5.5 with Oscar Cui second and Duncan McDonald third.
First in the D grade competition was Isaac Lobo (5.5) followed by Vicky Yu and Oscar Gu.
