Caissa Hong Kong Chess Club

chess in hong kong

Alberto Pardino Muniz Wins Hong Kong Chess Open 2012

October 30th, 2012

Round 7 was both the last and the decisive round in this years edition of the Hong Kong Open.

The winner of the match between Alberto Muniz with white and Luen-Wah Luk, both with 5 points and undefeated, would be the winner of the tournament. However, in a evenly balanced end of the middle game with both players just 3 minutes on the clock, Alberto accepted Luen-Wah’s draw offer, hence both players ended with 5.5 points.

Luen-Wah Luk (front left) contemplating his first move against Alberto Muniz while David Garceran Nieuwenburg (left back) and Brian Shin already entered the middle game.

On board 2, Caissa’s David Garceran Nieuwenburg, with 4.5 points played with black against Brian Shin with 4 points. Brian cleverly solved David’s rather wild king side assault but could not convert his better position into a permanent advantage. When the position finally cleared up David was a piece up. Brian did not go for a perpetual check option but his attempt to force the matter resulted in his loss. David now joined the ranks of Alberto and Luen-Wah with 5.5 points.

Sydney L.W. Lai, also with 4.5 points could also have ended with 5.5 points if he would have gotten more out of the game against C.K. Yeung than a draw. But C.K. had already proven to be a tough opponent throughout the tournament and the end game looked indeed like both sides were drawishly locked behind their long pawn chains.

Billy Lo (front left) against Seth Levine and Sydney Lai (back left) against C.K. Yeung

Billy Lo and Seth Levine played for a top 5 spot. Billy’s 2. c3 set-up against Seth’s Sicilian resulted in a very equal game where only at the very end Seth was a little more precise enough to claim the full point.

Michael Yang with white broke into Ian Scott’s weakened queen side to achieve a permanent positional and material advantage enough for a full point. Well done Michael!

Jake C.L. Chan defeated Joe Yiu-Cho Lau and Gregory Lloyd beat Antonia Lee.

Caissa’s Peter Whalley won against Ngai Yeung. Surely we expect after this tournament Peter to have recovered a bit from 20 years of chess hibernating and we look forward to Peter’s coming performances.

Finally, congratulations to Alberto Muniz who among the 3 players with 5.5 points had the best scoring opponents and deservedly won the Hong Kong Chess Open 2012.

Final ranking after 7 rounds in Hong Kong Chess Open 2012

Caissa Youth Chess Clinic ends with certificates and medals

October 26th, 2012

Large portions of the Discovery Bay population typically travel during school breaks and the autumn break this week was no exception. Gladly, though, we were able to arrange a high quality chess clinic by a real master, CM Collin Madhavan, for our youth chess players who were in town during 24-25 October.

On these two days, coach Collin guided seven students from 9.30am-12.30pm through their instruction materials and organized several games. Students would accumulate points for both these activities.

Solving puzzles and playing chess with coach Collin Mahadvan at Caissa

After two days all students had received enough points to receive their award and a medal as token of appreciation for their hard work.

A special thanks to Collin for passing by our club to professionally instruct our students and introduce various facets of the beauty of chess to them.

"Graduation" day: certificates for (left to right back row) Jacob, Franz, Chor Wei, Wilson and Bryant and (front left to right) Miguel Angel and Mei Jing with coach Collin to the left and Caissa's David Garceran Nieuwenburg to the right

Hong Kong Open Chess 2012 Round 6

October 23rd, 2012

As this competition takes place over just 7 rounds, the 6th round last Monday turned into an evening with impact. To start with, Caissa’s David Garceran Nieuwenburg with white could not get his rhythm into the game against Alberto Muniz. The queen’s pawn opening, responded to by black with 1 … g6, turned into a Sicilian which was a strong weapon enough in the hands of Alberto to hand David his first defeat.

L.W. Luk (FM), with white also, accumulated incremental positional advantages such that C.K. Yeung found his pieces too loosely coordinated to stop white’s victory. In the last round next week we have the pleasure of anticipating some fireworks between L.W. Luk and Alberto – the winner becoming the champion. A draw, however, still offers David G.N. and Sydney S.W. Lai perspectives to claim the title as well if they would win their games next week.

And Sydney is in hot steaming form, very fast on the clock and creatively aggressive, as Aravind Mahadevan experienced well last Monday, losing with the white pieces.

Brian Shin climbed up to 5th place by defeating Michael Yang and he will face David G.N. next week.

Billy Lo climbed up to 7th position by winning from Ian Scott; Ian’s first loss over the board. Seth Levine beat Jake C.L. Chan and next week we can expect another firework match between Seth and Billy.

It’ll be interesting next week.

Rank after 6 rounds and pairing for round 5 in Hong Kong Chess Open 2012

Round 3 Youth Competition 2012-13

October 19th, 2012

On 18 October we played the 3rd round of our youth competition. Jay played with white against Lucas. Their game became the longest game of the evening with the victory eventually going to Jay.

Connor had a tough night against Ruaidhri and had to give in after the middle game. Mei Jing, in a rather equal position, lost on time against Chor Wei and Mees could not stop Miguel-Angel’s attack. Franz stayed very focused and Julien could not escape his grip.

Max played very well against our new member Sophie to claim the full point through a ‘chain checkmate’, but Sophie’s play showed clear hints of this young lady’s capabilities to fast track on the learning curve of positional chess.

Ask Naper played solidly and patiently against another new member, Mikael. Despite Mikael’s loss, he proved to be a fearless fighter and with some patience his play could develop into an attractive attacking style.

Aiden against Kaiden, again two new members, played an interesting game in which Kaiden attacked to such a degree that Aiden’s position was broken, but there was not enough material anymore to take advantage of that and Aiden cleverly turned the game into a win using the extra material Kaiden had sacrificed for his ferocious attack.

The rank after 3 rounds:

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

Hong Kong Open Chess 2012 Round 5

October 16th, 2012

In what could have been an interesting night with the top 8 players facing one another, the sudden absence of Billy Lo and Seth Levine, and consequently the respective “wins” for Aravind Mahadevan and Alberto Muniz, who came for nothing, was disappointing. It is not good for the Hong Kong chess scene, fragile in various ways, that such things happen rather frequently.

Numbers 1 and 2, Caissa’s David Garceran Nieuwenburg and Chun Keung Yeung did show up. Although C.K., with white, tried to simplify the position by trading most of the pieces, his two knights that remained on the board were too weak to defend a weakened queen side pawn formation and to handle David’s bishop and knight heading towards that direction to reap havoc there.

Number 3, Luen-Wah Luk (FM) played against the just-turned 12 year old number 5, Michael Yang. Luen-Wah found a way to penetrate the white fortress along the h-file and Michael could not hold the position when both black rooks and the black queen were moving about the second and third ranks.

Michael Yang (left) setting up the pieces with Luen-Wah after a tough fight

Ian Scott, with white, faced Caissa’s Peter Walley’s Scandinavian and although Peter damaged the white position considerably in the middle game, Ian somehow managed to maneuver his heavy artillery onto the black’s king side with a winning attack.

Finally, in the top half of the ranking, Sydney Lai started a wild looking offensive that overwhelmed Jake Chan’s black pieces and puts Sydney back in the top 4.

Next week we’ll see David and Alberto play for the first spot with still good chances for all players in the the top 9 to stay in the race.

Rank after 5 rounds and pairing for round 6 in Hong Kong Chess Open 2012

Hong Kong Open Chess 2012 Round 4

October 10th, 2012

After a couple of weeks after round 3, on Monday 8 October round 4 was played in the Hong Kong Open 2012 at Queen Elisabeth Stadium. The round started a little later than 6.30pm due to missing boards, but it went on smoothly after that.

Seth Levine, the rank leader after 3 rounds, saw his position deteriorate against Luen-Wah Luk quickly and had to admit defeat rather soon.

Billy Lo’s loss to C.K. Yeung and the win of David Garceran Nieuwenburg against Sydney Lai (in a Veresov (against) French with Nf6), couples David now to C.K., both with 3.5 points at the top of the table, to a match next week in round 5.

Alberto Muniz put his white pieces such that Brian Shin on the black side had no more good moves left despite the board being full with pieces. Alberto’s 3rd straight win keeps him at a 100% score and he will meet Seth and the young talent Michael Yang, who also scored his 3rd win, will meet the unbeaten Leun-Wah in round 5.

From the bottom we see two forces emerge, both Ian Scott, who missed the first 2 rounds, and Peter Whalley, who was rusty the first 2 rounds, are gradually moving up to where they belong … but in round 5 they will meet each other first …

Rank after 4 rounds and pairing for round 5 in Hong Kong Chess Open 2012

Great Results for Discovery College in Quarry Bay School ESF Tournament: Miguel Angel Champion!

October 8th, 2012

Well done Quarry Bay School PTA for organizing an amazing chess event on October 7^th which turned out to be a very beautiful weather day on which around 80 students from 8 different ESF schools competed in their school uniforms for individual prizes.

The Discovery College squad of 14 players was unfortunately slimmed down to 11 players on the day of the event due to some logistic and other unforeseen issues, but nonetheless, the 11 players that competed wore their uniform with dignity.

Left, back to front: Aryan, Vaibhav, Aleesha. Middle, back to front: Chor Wei, Wilson, Max, Jonathan. Right, back to front: Mei Jing, Manon, Arnav and Miguel Angel

The tournament was divided into 2 groups, Lower Primary (P1-P4) and Upper Primary P5-P6) with the DC team participating with 7 players in Lower Primary and 4 players in Upper Primary.

Our P2 girls faced stiff competition from the elder students, yet they did manage to score results. Aleesha, with just a couple of month’s experience, managed to score 2 draws. Mei Jing started very strongly with 3 out of 4 and she can be proud of those 3 points.

Our P3 boys did a great job. Arnav, also very new to the game, and even more so to the tournament hectic, started with a solid win and scored another draw later on to end with 1.5 points. Max and Vaibhav had a very strong tournament, also both first-timers, they scored 3.5 and 3 points respectively which is well a full point or more higher than what is normally expected. Miguel Angel, our DC Primary School Champion and Hong Kong under 8 Blitz Champion played a very strong tournament and ended first, only drawing once against James Kwong Wing Ki (P4 Kowloon Junior School), another titan of youth chess in Hong Kong. In any case, DC can count the first ESF Champion among its students. Congratulations Miguel!

Another very exceptional score is that of our P4 student Chor Wei who scored, also as first-timer, 4.5 points and ended number 12. Actually, Chor Wei had an equal score as the number 9 and 10 who also scored 4.5 points, but unfortunately the opponents of number 9 and 10 had higher scores and that is decisive when players end up with an equal score and Chor Wei just missed a medal because of that.

Discovery College's Miguel Angel, far right, Champion of ESF Lower Primary

In the Upper Primary we only had P6 students and also here the DC shirts were proudly worn. Aryan, first-timer, collected 2.5 points as did Jonathan who improved his score with 250% compared to his previous results. Wilson’s consistent play resulted in 3.5 points for him. Well done boys! But not only boys deserve compliments here, Manon our only girl in this category showed her kind nature by grossing 4 peace treaties (draws) and together with a win the 3 points collected for a first time experience is well above normal expectations. Good job!

Results of DC chess players in QBS ESF Chess Tournament 7 October 2012

Enjoy the movie!

England Zhou Yang-Fan (IM) Wins Hong Kong International Open Chess 2012

October 3rd, 2012

The Hong Kong International Open (28 September – 3 October) attracted about double the players compared to the 2011 edition, including some players at various master levels: GM, IM and CM.

Some 25 players came from abroad and if this trend continues we hopefully see an even stronger field in coming years, which a city like Hong Kong deserves and is able to pull off with a modern and very capable organization like the HKCF.

Whereas other FIDE rated tournaments often spread out 9 rounds over 9-10 days, the demanding schedule here, organized around a consecutive few national holidays, saw players pull off two games on a single day (from 9am-2pm and 3pm-8pm), doing 9 rounds in just 4.5 days.

FIDE Arbiter Luk Luen-Wah speaks with the Hong Kong Participants Robin Lai (front) and Cyrus Lai while PT Cheung (foreground standing) listens in.

Participants from Discovery Bay were Peter Whalley and David Garceran Nieuwenburg (both Caissa) as well as Jean-Sebastian Brett. David had recently played an international tournament but for Peter and Jean-Sebastian it was their first such tournament and the warming up for the ones to come!

Peter Whalley (sitting left) analyzes his game against Alberto Muniz while Hong Kong Champion HK Tsang (left standing) and Chak Man Chan observe.

After 9 rounds David had scored 5 points, Peter 4 points and Jean-Sebastian 3.5 points. Definitely we will be practicing more in Discovery Bay in the coming year and gradually work ourselves up the rankings of coming tournaments.

Below the final ranking after 9 rounds with a special congratulations to both Robin Lai and Alberto Muniz who manged to end in the top 10.

HK International Open Chess 2012 End results (1)

HK International Open Chess 2012 End results (2)