L-R: Howick Chess club patron Paul Heath QC, Timur Gareyev, Brandon Clarke, and NZ Chess Federation patron Jim Benson.
Report by Paul Spiller
The 2019 NZ Open Championships finished in a tie between English FM ( now IM elect) Brandon Clarke and US Open Champion GM Timur Gareyev with Brandon taking the trophy of NZ Open Champion because of a slightly better tiebreak.
In the last round Brandon drew with IM Alex Wohl and GM Gareyev defeated FM Bob Smith to both finish undefeated on 7/9.
This completed a successful month of tournaments for Brandon who also won the Australasian Masters in Melbourne in December and the George Trundle Masters in Auckland in early January so completing all the requirements for his IM title.
In third place were GM’s Vasily Papin, Darryl Johansen, IM’s Alex Wohl, Leonid Sandler, Russell Dive, Anthony Ker and FM Dusan Stojic.
Dive & Ker were crowned co- New Zealand Champions as the highest placed kiwis. This was Ker’s 14th NZ title and Dive’s 6th !
The record for NZ Championship titles is held by IM Ortvin Sarapu who won the title on no fewer than 20 occasions, probably a world record for national chess championships.
Finally, a big thanks to the Kasparov Chess Foundation Asia Pacific for their generous sponsorship of the NZ Open Championship 2019!
Full details at: http://www.newzealandchess.co.nz/results.html