CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 150, 21 March 1939, Page 3

CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP

Wellington Club Event THE FINAL SCORES The annual tourney to decide the championship of the Wellington Chess, Club was launched in April last, with 20 entries. At the conclusion of section play, which was resorted to in order to shorten the competition, the number of competitors was reduced from 20 to 8 (the four highest scorers in each section). The issue was in doubt right up to the conclusion of the final round, in which the two leaders, Messrs. Dyer and Gyles, drew -their game at the sixty-fifth move. Mr. Dyer thus won an interesting contest by half a point, and repeated his triumjTh of three years ago. A long absence from New Zealand prevented him from competing in the previous tourney (which was won by Mr. Severne, who now becomes the ex-champion). With only one game to be accounted for (Severne v. Vincent), the final scores are as follows: —

E. .1. Dyer s}, A. W. Gyles 5, F. K. Kelling 4} t W. White .3-1, F. Vincent (one to play) 2i, E. 11. Severne (one to play) 2, J. K. L. Webling 2, and J. L. Hardy 2. Dyer’s only loss was to Vincent. Gyles's reverse in round 6 (wheu he unsuccessfully tried to notch a win in a “drawish” end-game) was his only loss in the season's four, championship competitions (club tourney, all-Welling-ton championship, teams tourney, and Bledisloe Cup matches). He has thus enhanced his well-deserved reputation for consistency. As a result of the play in this club tourney, the first three rungs on the ladder are gained by Messrs. Dyer, Gyles and Kelling, in that order. Championship Roll. From the year 1876, when the present Wellington Chess Club was founded, till 1909, the club’s championship was accounted for by only five players—C. W. Benbow, who was a very prominent figure in New Zealand chess for many years after his arrival from Birmingham in 1875; A. 1. Littlejohn, H. J. Barnes, W. E. Mason, and A. W. O. Davies. Of this distinguished group, Mr. W. E. Mason, six times champion of New Zealand, is the only survivor. ' Mr. Benbow died on March 9,190 S, aged 66; Mr. Littlejohn died on May 25, 1910, aged 49; Mr. R. ,1. Barnes, five times champion of New Zealand, died on January 7. 1929, aged 6S; and Mr. A. W. O. Davies, four times champion of the Dominion, died in Auckland on January 16, 1928, aged 58.

The club did not hold a championship tourney- for nine years, but revived the competition in 1918. Since then the club title has been won five times by A. W. Gyles, three times by K. .1. Barnes, twice each by W. E. Alason. E. A. Hicks, F. K. Kelling, G. P. Anderson, and E. J. Dyer, and once each by A. W. O. Davies, W. Mac Kay, and E. 11. Sevcrne. Mr. AV. Mac Kay, the champion of 1923-24. was an ex-champion of New Zealand. He bad been the club’s president for 15 years, when he died on April 9, 1933. in his seventieth year. Mr. Edwin Agnew Hicks, whose name appears twice on the'championship roll, died on March 25, 1934. in his fiftieth year.