NZ Championship

After Round 5 there are three players leading the 109th NZ Chess Championship. They are International Master Anthony Ker of Wellington, Mark Vander Hoorn of Wellington, and National Master Bruce Anderson of Canterbury. They each have four and a half points out of six.

Ker and Anderson were paired to meet one another in round six. The game was even after 18 moves and a draw was decided then.

Round 6 saw a number of draws take place with very few decisive games. Of the decisive games, Mark Van der Hoorn managed to defeat Hilton Bennett and thus regain a share of the lead. Bennett remains on 3 points.

McLaren and Sutherland also won, the rest of the games were drawn.

NZ Major Open

At the top of the table in the NZ Major Open, Michael Turner was paired to play against Nick Cummings of Canterbury. Turner, who has been in good form in this tournament had his first loss as Cummings now has taken the lead.

As a result, the second seed, Barry Martin-Buss of Waitemata has managed to catch up on Turner, both have five points out of six.

In round 6 Arie Nijman defeated fellow Cantabrian Peter Fraemohs to continue to lead the Grade 1 section and 4th= overall.

Nathan Goodhue of Wellington defeated fellow Wellingtonian Marciej Wojnar, and with Stanislav Shatalin's win over Jeffrey Boardman, enabled Shatalin to be in front contention for the Junior Prize.

In the mid-field, Gary Putt is continuing to impress, he is now on four points out of six.