Egyptian Grandmaster Samy Shoker has won the Bob Wade Memorial Masters chess tournament with a score of 7.5/9 in Howick.
The competition began last weekend and ended on Friday.
Organiser and vice president of the New Zealand Chess Federation Paul Spiller, of the Howick Pakuranga Chess Club, said Shoker recorded seven wins, one draw (with runner-up Grandmaster Elshan Moradiabadi) and one loss to NZ FIDE master Ben Hague.
GM Moradiabadi had five wins and four draws to finish second on 7 points.
In third place we’re International Master Gary Lane from Australia who won the Asian Seniors 50+ division in Auckland last October and 14-year-old New Zealand Chess star Felix Xie.
For most of the tournament Xie was on course to make his first qualification towards his IM title (7 points was needed ), but a loss in the penultimate round to GM Shoker dashed his hopes.
The tournament was held at the new Howick EHPC [E-Sports High Performance Centre] at the Picton Centre.
