Caissa Hong Kong Chess Club

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Monthly Archives: September 2012

Lord of the Kings Tournament: Dwarfs, Orcs, Elves and Hobbits!

September 21st, 2012

Yesterday was the last day of the Discovery College Squad practicing at Caissa. We held a team-tournament-with-snacks with 4 teams playing for the title “Lord of the Rings/Kings”.

The four teams of 5 players playing in Lord of the Kings

The teams:

  • Dwarfs: Miguel-Angel, Bryant, Max, Franz and Julien
  • Orcs: Wilson, Lucas, Ask, Manon and Kaiden
  • Elves: Ruaidhri, Mees, Krijn, Chor Wei and Etienne
  • Hobbits: Aryan Shetty, Vaibhav, Jonathan, Mei Jing and Henry

It must have been somewhat hectic to our first time visitors Ask and Kaiden but despite being overwhelmed a bit, they did quite well.

In round 1 the Dwarfs narrowly beat the Hobbits with 3-2 and the Elves beat the Orcs with 3-1.

Hobbits (left) against the Dwarfs (right)

In round 2 the two winners met and resulted in the Dwarfs dwarfing the Elves with a 4-1 score. The Orcs had recovered from their earlier loss and beat the Hobbits 3.5-1.5. After two rounds the ranking was: Dwarfs 7 points, Orcs 4.5 points, Elves 4 points and Hobbits 3.5 points.

Elves (left) against the Orcs (right)

Round 3 was the decisive sound. The Orcs put up a strong fight against the Dwarfs and held them at a drawing 2-2 score. The Elves beat the Hobbits 3-1 but could not bridge the gap with the Dwarfs anymore.

End result:

  1. Dwarfs: 9 points – the Lord of the Kings Prize (Oriole cookies) winners!
  2. Elves: 7 points
  3. Orcs: 6.5 points
  4. Hobbits: 4.5 points

Hong Kong Open Chess Round 3

September 18th, 2012

Last Monday in round 3 Seth Levine and Chun Keung Yeung agreed to a draw. Billy Lo and David Garceran Nieuwenburg had played their game on Saturday already, which also resulted in a draw, and with Sydney Sai Ling Wai winning his game against Brian Shin the top five players now all share 2.5 points.

Closely following with 2 points are five players, of which Alberto Pardino Muniz and Luen-Wah Luk stand out a bit. Alberto only played two games and Luen-Wah remains unbeaten with a win and 2 draws, the last draw against Jake Chi Loon Chan who with this excellent result scored 1.5 points and is, for now, just out of the top 10.

In the second half of the league we see that Peter Whalley, Hysan Lai Hei Wong and Jefferson Lee scored their first win and definitely more is to come, also from Scott Ian who returned from the Chess Olympiads in Turkey (representing Hong Kong) seemingly well warmed up to score a full point in his first game in round 3.

Rank after round 3

Round 4 will be played on October 8 because players will be preparing for the Hong Kong International Open played on five consecutive days from 28 September to 3 October 2012.

 

Round 2 Youth Competition 2012-13

September 14th, 2012

In the second round on Thursday 13 September Miguel Angel played the white pieces aggressively up into last rows of black territory to gain the full point against Wilson. Manon won her second game as well, with black against Lucas. Because Mees also won his second game, with black against Etienne, after 2 rounds we have three players with a full 100% win score.

Bryant scored a win after last week’s draw by defeating Jonathan and through his win against Aryna Jain, Connor moves up into the top 5 as well with 1.5 points. The game of Aryan Shetty and Chor Wei ended in a draw by Chor Wei allowing position of stalemate.

Jay had a convincing win against Mei Jing, as was the case with Franz’ win against Aleesha and Vaibhav’s win against Ginu.

Julien got his first point against Ting Ting she had to, unfortunately, leave sooner.

Rank after Round Two Youth 2012-13 Caissa Hong Kong Chess Club

Hong Kong Open Chess Round 2

September 11th, 2012

In round 2 we unfortunately saw a couple of empty boards and consequently some regulatory wins and losses: too bad.

A board that remained empty for a long time was Sydney’s who arrived with only 30 minutes left on his clock, and despite his opponent being FM Luen-Wah, the game resulted in a draw!

Another remarkable game was played between Seth against Michael. Michael is clearly a very talented youth, but as he was multi-tasking and reading his book when Seth was in deep thoughts to find the best moves, he did not put up serious resistance enough on the board to neutralize Seth’s kingside attack.

Perhaps the most remarkable game was played between Caissa’s Peter and Aravind. Peter had pushed his pawns on the kingside up to pressure his opponent into a very defensive position.

Peter plays 0-0-0 ...

The position looked more or less like the diagram above when Peter found an in principle logical move, castling long to get more firepower behind his advanced king pawns. Yet, it turned out to be a checkmate in 1, to himself, when Aravind responded to 0-0-0 with Rc8xc3+…

Next week we will follow Caissa’s members in round 3 when Peter will play against Joe Lau and David will face Billy Lo.

Ranking after 2 rounds:

Hong Kong Chess Open 2012 Round 2

Hong Kong Chess Open 2012 Ranking after Round 2

Round 1 Youth Competition 2012-13

September 7th, 2012

After having warmed up since June, finally the first Thursday of September had arrived … to start the competition.

We had a special evening because the Discovery College squad to participate in the Quarry Bay ESF organized chess tournament had joined for their chess practice.

Full House Round 1 Caissa Chess Club Hong Kong Youth Tournament

Max smiling as Miguel and Krijn (foreground) and the two Aryans (background) meet on the board

Round 1 was fireworks all over the place. Etienne had just a lonely king but Connor did not know how to move his pieces into a check mate plan and because of repeat of moves this game resulted in a draw. Something similar happened with Bryant and Chor Wei, when Bryant won on time but with only a king left, without check mate potential, the game ended in a draw. After the game Chor Wei was explained how to give check mate with two rooks (extra) and next time a situation like this will definitely result in a win.

Aleesha, who preferred to stand and was a bit far from the clock … lost on time against Lucas and because Meijing lost against Jonathan it was Manon who saved the girls’ honor by winning from Julien who tried out chess for the first time. Well done Manon, but also very good effort from Julien – keep it up!

Despite a good fight Jay could not hold Wilson and Krijn could not stop Miguel Angel from winning. Max lost a bravely played game against Aryan Shetty and Aryan Jain beat Ginu in a tough game.

Finally Ruaidhri beat Vaibhav and Mees scored a point against Franz.

Ranking after Round 1

 

Hong Kong Open 2012 Chess Tournament Started

September 4th, 2012

Last Monday, 3 September, the HKCF (Hong Kong Chess Federation) organized Hong Kong Open started in the Queen Elisabeth Stadium. The competition will be played over 7 rounds among 24 players. Two of these combatants, Peter Whalley and David Garceran Nieuwenburg, are our Caissa chess club members.

Peter unfortunately faced the only FIDE Master in the tournament, Luen Wah Luk, already in round 1. Despite some chess warming up on Thursdays at Caissa, Peter, with black playing a Scandinavian, is still a bit rusty after years of chess inactivity. Let’s see what happens in round 2 against Aravind Mahadevan next week.

David played a Sokolsky (again) and faced some troubles against a Queen Indian set-up with 1. … b6 and a later unexpected … d5. In the end game it surely helped David to the win when Ching Yuen Hui blundered away his queen in a somewhat equal position. Round 2 next week will be against Gordan Yu.

Cross table after Round 1 Hong Kong Open Chess Sept-Oct 2012

ESF Quarry Bay Junior Chess Star Competition Training Preparations

September 2nd, 2012

Quarry Bay School PTA is organizing a first all-ESF school chess tournament on 7 October. As the local Discover Bay chess club, Caissa fully supports the squad from our local Discovery College and we will facilitate the training for this event in the upcoming weeks.

Some 14 DC students have registered so far for this event, which is great given the fact that in the last inter-school tournament organized by Active Kids the DC team went in with only 3 players.

Last Sunday, 2 September, about 10 players joined the first training session at DC. Next training will be coming Thursday at Caissa. Stay tuned as we will be reporting more around the preparations!