As mentioned in an earlier entry, this year’s preliminaries are fierce and after 5 rounds, with Edgardo Borigas and Melvin Yu, the only two players who had 4 points after 4 rounds, drawing against each other, no one can boast a score of 100 percent anymore.

Chor Yuen Chong, playing with black, recovered well from his loss against Melvin last week by beating Robin Lai in what seemed to be a shoot-from-the-hip style of middle game with Robin managing to have his white pawns on a5, b5, c5 and d5 and Chor Yuen similarly having planted his king side pawns on the 3rd rank – with almost all other pieces still on the board that is!

Also in the top 10, in addition to Melvin and Edgardo, we have 3 other players who haven’t lost yet: Luen-Wah Luk, Brian Dew and Peter Whalley (! Caissa). Unfortunately, next week Peter will play against fellow Caissa member Hannah Dale.

Other Caissa player David Garceran Nieuweburg, who is feverishly browsing the internet to find out more about Ginko Biloba and other food supplements and sleep therapies to help brain power … sank to 45th place after losing against Mason Ching.