Today's morning post brought an unexpected treat - a packet from half the world away, containing the complete set of game scores from the latest New Zealand Championship tournament. We can report that the event, a twelve-man round-robin held at Nelson, saw Messrs. Alfred Gyles, E. Hicks, and John Grierson finish in a triple tie for first place with 8 1/2 points each, the last-named claiming the title after defeating his two rivals in a play-off. Mr. Grierson thus becomes New Zealand Champion for the second time, having previously won the annual tourney ten years ago at Dunedin.
The press of other affairs has today allowed us time to examine only the games of the three top finishers, and those but cursorily. Nevertheless, we have already come across much of interest, and present below two victories each by Messrs. Gyles and Hicks; tomorrow we shall offer a selection by Mr. Grierson, the Champion.
Here Mr. Gyles, after first directing his attack toward the enemy King, decides the contest by "checkmating" the opposing Queen. His opponent, R.J. Barnes, finished in fourth place in the tourney, one point behind the leaders.
In our next game, Mr. Gyles gains the advantage and coolly meets all Mr. Hicks' ingenious attempts to complicate the struggle:
Notwithstanding his defeat in the game immediately above, Mr. Hicks possesses an imaginative style and a fine eye for combinations, as is evidenced by the following gem, and, in particular, its concluding move.
Another attacking masterpiece by Mr. Hicks. It would appear that Black has no way to save himself after 22.Bxd5:
More on the New Zealand tourney in our next report.
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