6th February 2018 - Please be advised that Peter Morten, father of Paul Morten, passed away on Thursday 1st February. The funeral will be held tomorrow Wednesday 7th February at 11 a.m. at Morrisons Funeral Parlour, Line Road, Glen Innes. Peter was a Past President of Howick-Pakuranga Chess Club.

31st July 2017 - Some of you have already heard that Kees van den Bosch passed away a few days ago. He had been a long time member of Howick-Pakuranga Chess Club and had served on the Committee in a number of executive positions over the years, most recently as Secretary. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. Club President Martin Dreyer.

Tony's interest in chess began at the age of 10 thanks to his mother's youngest brother, but it was not until the age of 16 that he was encouraged to play for the school team. The Manchester league was pretty strong in 1955 and he played in the Easter Congress at Salford. He was drawn to play a Vic Nelson who was completely blind and smoked a Meerschaum pipe with great gusto. At critical points of the game he would exhale profusely over the board. His mentor was Clifford G Hilton and he arranged for Tony to play for the Lancashire B team against Yorkshire at Knotty Ash, a suburb of Liverpool. This was the highlight of his chess activity in the UK.

He immigrated to New Zealand in July 1972, and soon became involved with the chess scene and learned of the existence of the Cockle Bay Chess Club. It was founded in 1969 with its two members Richard and Kenzie Sutton, based in Sandspit Road, Howick. This soon morphed into the Howick Chess Club, and in 1973 became the Howick-Pakuranga Chess Club. He has very fond memories of many games with Richard, and Les Esterman, and later in the decade with Dr Bill Fairhurst. He played for Auckland in two Bledisloe Cup games in 1975 and 1978, against Otago and Wellington respectively, when the moves were relayed by a Morse Code operator at each end, and a “line for the day” costing $150, set up by the New Zealand Post Office.

The HPCC committee in the late 1970s consisted of secretary Clive Griffiths, Denis Heath, father of our current Patron Justice Paul Heath, Dave Rawnsley (brother of Gary Rawnsley who as Managing Director of the Papatoetoe Glass Company sponsored our Open tournament for $100 worth of prizes), Richard Sutton, Bob Parrot and Tony. Other secretaries down the years have been Steve Delowe, Claude Stelco, Steve Devlin, and more recently Kees van den Bosch in the 1990s.

Tony was elected President of the club in 1980 and served for 7 years before handing the reins to Paul Spiller. Other Presidents since then have been Ken Williams, Peter Morten, Tony Booth again, and since 2012 Martin Dreyer.

The Latvian Tournament has been played at the Te Tuhi Centre, Reeves Road, Pakuranga in March every year since 1977. In that year it was won by Lev Aptekar. It got its title from Janis Borovskis, a Latvian by birth and a member of both the Remuera Chess Club and the HPCC. He generously provided the initial capital, from which the interest helps to fund the event. Janis came out to New Zealand on the same ship as Ortvin Sarapu, who was originally from Estonia. Originally the Latvian was a two day tournament, and the Latvian Gambit prize was awarded to the player who with the Black pieces achieved a win by playing the Latvian Gambit. The greater the difference in New Zealand ratings determined the Latvian Gambit winner, and this encouraged weaker players to “experiment” with the Gambit. Tony recalls using the Gambit against Ortvin, who after he had demolished Tony said, “Mr Booth, never play the Latvian Gambit against an Estonian”.

Tony resumed the role of President in 2009 for a three year period, with Martin Dreyer taking over in 2012. Tony also held the role of Treasurer until Ludi Zhang agreed to take on the position in 2014. The task of organising the juniors for the 6.30 p.m. - 7.30 p.m. session has also been under his wing, but with the help of parents to whom we are very grateful. Some of you will recall Luke Li . He was No.1 when our computer was commissioned in 2008. We are now at 396 and this indicates how many juniors have passed through our hands. It is the backbone of the future for this club and we are pleased to report that Amol Telang, one of our parents, is taking over this role as Director of Play for Juniors from now. We are also pleased that WFM Jasmine Zhang has also offered to train the juniors at 6.30 p.m and this is much appreciated. Thanks also to FM Leonard McLaren who has faithfully been our coach for ten years, and last year introduced the badge scheme to our members.

Tony has very much enjoyed his association with the club for 44 years, and is stepping down as Secretary, and we welcome FA Ying Wang to the position as the Secretary-elect. Tony intends to take a break from all chess for at least six months, possibly returning for the Oceania Zonal Seniors scheduled for October 2017.

See "Games 2017" for a brilliant game

25/10/2014 A Booth vs CM C Chirinos Cabrera 1-0

Cleren Chirinos Cabrera became an IM by scoring 7/10 in the PANAMERICAN SENIOR CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP Over 65 on 28/08/2015.

Richard graduated from the University of Auckland in 1963, then worked as a law lecturer before heading to Harvard as a Fulbright Scholar and Knox Memorial Fellow, obtaining an LLM in 1968. He returned to Auckland as a Senior Lecturer then Associate Professor, before moving south to take up a Professorship here at Otago in 1980, a position he held until 2004. Richard spent two periods as Dean of the Faculty of Law (1981-1984 and 1998-1999), as well as taking leave without pay to serve as a Law Commissioner from 1992-1997. Richard was particularly proud of the work he did with Mäori to incorporate their customs and values into the law of passing on property within families.

Professor Mark Henaghan fondly recalled starting his own academic career almost 30 years ago as an assistant lecturer with Sutton, then the newly appointed Dean. “Richard was the Law Faculty's secret weapon to send out into the university bureaucracy and brilliantly throw a spanner into their works,' said Henaghan. “A couple of flow diagrams later and [the bureaucracy] left us alone to prey on more defenceless beings.”

Outside of the law, Richard was a Master of Chess – New Zealand Champion in 1963, 1971 and 1972, New Zealand representative at the Chess Olympics in Yugoslavia in 1972, national master 1963 and 1968. As recently as 2005 Richard was the South Island Champion. He was a life member of the Otago Chess Club and a Selector for the New Zealand Chess Olympiad teams. Richard regularly crushed our two resident Canadians, Jim Allan and Richard Mahoney, simultaneously over Chess at lunch. Allan and Mahoney took 15 minutes each to decide their moves. Richard, 10 seconds. As Allan and Mahoney said: “After only two or three moves, it felt as though you had no options left on the entire board as though this powerful intellect was bearing down on you from every direction.” Afterwards, Richard would patiently point out the possible moves that could have been made. Jim Allan, who is now in Australia, says “it was that gracious nature and willingness to help that came through in everything he did around the law school.”

Richard describes his research as follows: “My research is a questioning, always assuming that there is something much deeper lying behind the pattern of law I am studying”. As a Law Commissioner for five years, Richard was responsible for projects which have led to considerable improvements in the Wills Act, the law of damages, the law of evidence, the law of contract, property law and fraudulent conveyancing. Richard wrote two books, one on Creditors Remedies and the other on Actionable Non-Disclosure and numerous legal articles. The one on testamentary claims by adult children written with Nicola Peart challenges the Law Commission, Court of Appeal and the High court. Since 1996, Richard has worked on the Te Matahauariki Project with colleagues at the University of Waikato to develop Mäori legal structures that would be recognised by New Zealand Law. Richard has served with distinction on the Auckland, Wellington and Otago District Law Societies.

Clive Wilson, an active and founding member of our Club since 1976 passed away on Friday 21st November 2008 at the South Auckland Hospice after fighting a brave battle with cancer. Clive loved the game of chess and was very sad when he became too sick to play. His name is on a number of chess trophies. He is survived by his wife Patricia Wilson, children Andrew Wilson, Ian Wilson, and Anne Wilkins, and grandchildren.

Clive and Patricia married in 1961. In the mid 1970s they and their young children immigrated from England, in answer to New Zealand's need for qualified teachers. Clive was a science teacher with not one, but three degrees, and taught at various schools in Auckland. He is remembered as a teacher that made the subject come alive. He was also a teacher to his children and grandchildren, investing his time in their futures. He was a family man. He set up a chess club in every school he taught at. He was an avid collector of rocks, and a regular visitor of Crystal Mountain in Swanson. He was a good swimmer. And he had a great sense of humour. When Anne asked her 4 year old what was the thing he most liked about Granddad, he said "I liked him when he was alive!" He will be sorely missed by all.

See "Games2008" for a brilliant game 01/01/1990 C Wilson vs A Dunn 1-0

In 2019, Paul Spiller has been appointed a Member of New Zealand Order of Merit for his service to Chess.

Click here to read more about this news.

Paul Spiller is owner of

Spiller's Hammer Hardware in Howick

and supplier of batteries for our chess clocks!

Paul Spiller, stalwart of the Howick-Pakuranga Chess Club, was elected as the President of the New Zealand Chess Federation at the Annual General Meeting on 19th January 2008. Jim Benson, another longstanding Club member, was elected the Patron. This is a double-first for our Club.

Paul says he hopes to continue developing New Zealand chess juniors and to gain more government recognition for the game, which is associated with the New Zealand Olympic Committee but receives no government funding.

He will also help organise around 25 chess events to be held in New Zealand each year, including international competitions.

When US player Bobby Fischer hit the world scene in the early 1970s, the number of chess players worldwide doubled, and 10 year old Paul was one of the newcomers. He has been a member of the Club since at least 1980, with his name being engraved as winner 22 times on numerous cups and trophies, a Club record. He also served as the President for 12 years.

He has played competitions in South America, Malta, China, Malaysia, Palau and Australia. He played in the 3rd IGB Dato' Arthur Tan Malaysia Open Chess Championship in August 2006 coming 69th= from 85 players, scoring 4/11 in a very strong field with 22 Masters, in the 4th IGB Dato' Arthur Tan Malaysia Open Chess Championship in August 2007 coming 60th= from 87 players, scoring 4.5/11 in a very strong field with 30 Masters, and in the 5th IGB Dato' Arthur Tan Malaysia Open Chess Championship in August 2008 coming 69th= from 112 players, scoring 5.5/11 in a very strong field with 38 Masters.

He also played in the Ambassador Marino Cup in August-September 2007 in the Palau Islands, which is northwest of Papua New Guinea, achieving 3rd place with 6/9.

He played in the Sydney International Open in March 2008, coming 62nd= from 106 players, scoring 4/9 in a very strong field with 30 Masters. His first round game was against a Grandmaster, with New Zealand's only Grandmaster Murray Chandler coming 13th= on 6, and International Master Puchen Wang coming 19th= on 5.5.

He has organised countless events in New Zealand. He was the Chief Organiser for the Queenstown Chess Classic in 2006, and is again in 2009. He is the only New Zealander to be recognised as an International Chess Organiser by the World Chess Federation.

He says the popularity of chess among young people faces some serious competition from computer gaming and its lucrative prize money, but he feels positive about the future of chess in New Zealand. “It looks very promising. We have a number of talented young players,” says Paul, heralding the talents of 18 year old Puchen Wang who is now aiming to become New Zealand's second Grandmaster.

With around 30 clubs active across the country, Paul says chess has a lot to recommend it. “It takes a lot of skills: discipline, strategy and planning skills you can apply to other areas. But it's also an international language – you can travel anywhere in the world and meet people.”