Otago Chess Club

The Otago Chess Club

7 Maitland Street, Dunedin, New Zealand
New Zealand's oldest incorporated society

The club would like to acknowledge the support of the following organisations...

Otago Chess Club
Otago Chess Club

Bendigo Valley
Bendigo Valley

Lion Foundation
The Lion Foundation

Dunedin City Council
Dunedin City Council

World Champions Wall

Otago Daily Times
Otago Daily Times

Otago Community Trust
Otago Community Trust

CalendarCalendar

Notice: Social play on Tuesdays 1pm to 3pm is currently suspended - watch here for when it is reinstated.

The next event on the 2026 Calendar is the Graham Haase Memorial starting on 15 April, followed by the first leg of the rapid championsip starting on 20 May.

The Otago Winter Rapid Open on 7 June is open for registrations.
The Otago Interschool Teams are on 6 June for Intermediate and Primary schools and 14 June for Secondary schools
The Otago U13 Championship is on 8 August
The Otago Junior (U20) Championship is on 22 August
Email otagochess@gmail.com for more information or to register.

The first leg of the Club Standard Championship ended on 8 April bar one game left to play. There were three grades under the rules (these have been reinterpreted due to NZCF rating deflation: Intermediate trophy is now U1700 and Junior Trophy is now U1400).
The B Grade was won by Oscar Lobb on 4/5, ahead of Tyne Grant 2nd on 3 points, and Hamish Gold and Terry Duffield 3rd= on 2½. Oliver Lee shared first in the C Grade on 4/6 with Brent Southgate after missing the final round. Third was shared by John Armstrong and new member Aidan Dixon on 3½. The A Grade is too close to call a single game to be played as all the players are within 1 point of each other, though Quentin Johnson is assured of at least a share of 1st.
View all crosstables and the A and B Grade draw
View A-Grade results, B-Grade results and C-Grade results.

The Perpetual Handicap for 2026. The early leader in the Standard is Jonno Christie on +37, followed by Oliver Lee on +34, with Brent Southgate on +30. The early leader in the Rapid is Lewis Kim on +32, followed by Romero Suggate on +26, with Jacob Christie on +21. The early leader in the Blitz is Oscar Lobb on +100, followed by Romero Suggate on +19, with Jonno Christie on +14.

The Otago Autumn Rapid Open was held on 1 March and attracted 33 entries including players from France, Christchurch, Tiamru and Oamaru. Top seed Ollie Archer made no contest of the event, winning with 6/6. Second was shared by Romero Suggate, Riley Jellyman and Quentin Johnson on 4½. The U1400 grade was won by Jacob Christie on 4 points, with second shared by Caleb MacDonald, Sean Balbalin and Scott Samuel on 3½. View final scores on Vega - See News.

The Annual General Meeting was held on 11 February. The committee stayed mostly the same except for Alf Loretan standing down as President and being replaced by Iain Lamont. Iain in turn was replaced as Treasurer by Jonno Christie.
2026 Subscriptions were raised $5 from 2025 to cover the increase in NZCF registration fees: Ordinary $140, Unwaged $120 and Junior $75. The Probationary one month sub was left at $20.
Subs are now due and can be paid to the Otago Chess Club (Inc), Westpac A/C 03-0905-0169820-00 - See News.

The Allan Chang Memorial tournament ended on 25 February with 19 players taking part. Returning member Lewis Kim's victory in the first round over top seed Quentin Johnson, with a rating difference of 394, proved to be the buiggest upset of the tournment, so Lewis won the Allan Chang Trophy for 2026. Johnson had the satifaction of being the highest scorer with 4/5 - see Crosstable and rating performances - See News.

The January 2026 NZCF ratings are out - check out the full list on the NZCF Ratings page. Note an adjustment was made since the October list to bring the NZCF ratings closer in line with FIDE ratings, so the numbers may have shifted unexpectedly.

The catalogue of the Club's library of over 600 items is available - see Library

For links to other chess sites including free chess training resources, visit the favourite links page of the club wiki.

The Otago Chess Club meets on Wednesday evenings, 7:00pm at 7 Maitland Street, Dunedin and social play on Tuesdays 1pm to 3pm (Social Chess on Tuesdays is currently suspended) - Email otagochess@gmail.com for more information

The Dunedin Junior Chess Academy has been replaced by Otago Junior Fridays for Otago Chess Club Junior members and finished for term 1 2026 on Friday 27 March, then starts again for term 2 on Friday 1 May
Email otagochess@gmail.com for inquiries

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Otago Chess Club Library CatalogueLibrary

This site was last updated on 10 April 2026