Grants

The Middle Game Chess Foundation have a set of short, medium and long term goals for the next few years.

• Sponsorship for the winner of the 2024 NZ Junior Championships (which will be held in Palmerston North concurrently with the NZ Chess Congress from January 2 -12, 2024) to the amount of $1,000 (to assist with travel & accommodation) to enable the NZ Junior Champion to travel and compete in either the 2024 Doeberl Cup in Canberra over the Easter break or the new Darling Downs Open to be held in Toowoomba, Queensland from May 2 – 6, 2024.

  If that player is unavailable to go to the two Australian events then the MGCF would offer the $1,000 assistance for them to attend an Asian Youth event (or even a World Junior). [NB We may need to use a tiebreak in the case of joint Champions or consider an extra travel grant in this case].

• Support for the NZ Olympiad Open Team Captain/Coach to help cover travel costs as well as to cover his professional coaching stipend for the duration of the 2024 Olympiad in Budapest, 10 – 23 September (The MGCF is committed to helping to continually improve New Zealand’s performance at this prestigious event).

• The MGCF is committed to supporting our young players and helping to achieve their chess goals. We announce the establishment of three financial scholarships each of $5,000 to be awarded to young New Zealand players that achieve the following titles and ratings before reaching their 25th birthday. Firstly, two $5,000 scholarships will be awarded to the first two players to achieve the title of IM [International Master] and reach a published FIDE ELO rating of 2400.

  An additional $5,000 scholarship will be awarded to the first female player to achieve the title of WGM [Woman Grandmaster} and reach a FIDE ELO rating of 2200.

• To sponsor an IM norm tournament or tournaments scheduled to held at the Waipuna Conference Centre from January 13 – 19, 2025 directly following the NZ Chess Championship Congress which will be held from January 2 – 12 at the same venue. It is envisaged that there will be at least three round robin events of ten players each in different rating bands.

  These will include the now established “Bob Wade Memorial Masters” event but will also see the inaugural “Hilton Bennett Memorial Masters” taking place. These tournaments will offer opportunities to our young aspiring players to gain experience, improve their ratings and to try and achieve IM norms.