Caissa Hong Kong Chess Club

chess in hong kong

Caissa Youth Represent Hong Kong in School Chess World Championship in Greece May 6-15 2013

April 28th, 2013

Caissa is proud to see two of its pupils as Hong Kong’s official delegation to participate in the FIDE School World Chess Championship in May 2013.

 

 

Miguel Angel Garceran Wang, Hong Kong’s number 4 in the U8 group and National Champion blitz in U8 will play in the U9 category facing tough competition from around 80 top class players from Russia, Colombia, Turkey, England and dozens of other countries.

Mei Jing Garceran Wang, Hong Kong’s highest ranking girl in the U8 group will play in the U7 Girls category facing some 20 girls from 20 different countries.

We will be reporting regularly on this major event from next week.

Spring Competition Round 2 Results

April 27th, 2013

The Intermediate group on Thursday 25 April played round 2 of the spring competition. Bryant continued his winning streak winning from Jay and Franz scored a half against Ian who got his second stalemate on the board! Max recovered from his loss in round 1 by getting the full point against Jonathan and Mees, back again, scored a win against Sophie.

 

Intermediate Group Round 2

Intermediate Group Round 2

 

Mees scored his first win tonight

Mees Winning His First Game

 

Cross Table Intermedate after Round 2

Cross Table Intermediate after Round 2

 

On Saturday the Advanced group played their round 2 as well. It was very good to see Gerent joining today coming from far out of Discovery Bay. Gerent with white played his first game against Wilson who just out of the opening got his bishop trapped on d5. Sacrificing the bishop for a pawn on h2 was not enough to avert the upcoming white attack on the queen side where black had castled.

 

Gerent (left) against Wilson

Gerent (left) against Wilson with his bishop trapped on d6

 

Chor Wei unfortunately lost his queen in the middle game and had to resign soon after that against Mei Jing. Bryant lost against Miguel Angel and we got an interesting ranking now with 6 players with 1 point.

 

Advanced Group, Mei Jing casual game against Wilson and Miguel Angel playing competition round 2 against Bryant

Advanced Group, Mei Jing casual game against Wilson and Miguel Angel playing competition round 2 against Bryant

 

Cross Table after Round 2 Advanced Group

Cross Table after Round 2 Advanced Group

 

As we are adding FIDE CIS accounts to the players we will soon add the players’ FIDE CIS rating rank to the scores too.

Junior Rapid Chess Tournament Sunday 21 April

April 23rd, 2013

The German-Swiss School was host to a very well HKCF organized event on Sunday 21 April that attracted over 100 children of whom some 50 played in the Under 10 age group.

 

 

Congratulations to Michael Yang who could play in the Under 13 age group but played in and won first prize in Under 18 (9 players). Also congratulations to Benjamin Oh who won the Under 13 (20 players). Both players are well known at Caissa and performed very well in earlier Caissa organized events, like the Hong Kong – Macao Pearl Delta Cup.

The Under 10 age group was won by Ho Pang Huang, a strong player residing in Shenzhen, just ahead of local talent James Kwong who ended second on tie-break. Caissa’s Miguel Angel Garceran Wang ended 5th.

Congratulations, finally, to Harold Kwong who won the Under 7 age group (15 players) with 7 points out of 7: a worthy National Champion. Caissa’s Mei Jing Garceran Wang ended as first girl in this age group on the 5th place.

 

Prize Winners Per Age Group

Prize Winners Per Age Group

Caissa Introduces Official FIDE CIS Rating for Youth in Hong Kong

April 21st, 2013

At some tournaments in Hong Kong the organizers sell certificates with a player’s tournament rating at the end of the event. However, there is no official national rating system for youth to indicate relative strength.

Yet, it is imperative to any sport to understand one’s personal or team rank compared to competitor peers. Without it, there is no sport spirit, and without sport spirit there is little motive to train, endure and overcome obstacles for the greater good of becoming better or as good as one can be.

The World Chess Federation, FIDE, and many national chess federations around the world, meticulously keeps track of players’ performance in a number that indicates one’s relative strength: the chess rating.

FIDE also attempts to help chess federations with their Chess in Schools Commission, CIS, and it offers national federations various kinds of assistance to introduce chess in schools. Several countries through this initiative have already introduced chess in one form or the other in a school setting and the results, for example seen from the Turkey case, are impressive when it comes to the increase of quantity and quality of their youth players.

 

An official FIDE CIS rating, study materials, newsletters and a nice credit card size ID comes with the Premium Student Membership

An official FIDE CIS rating, study materials, newsletters and a nice credit card size ID comes with the Premium Student Membership

 

As part of the CIS approach, by obtaining (10 euro/year) a Premium Student Membership (PSM) – demo), players get an official FIDE ID and a CIS rating (somewhere between 600 and 800 to start with, depending on the age). Studying chess, playing in tournaments or doing otherwise chess work will help improve the CIS rating.

Caissa is proud to be the first, but hopefully not the only one for too long, chess organization in Hong Kong to have members enrolled in PSM.

Spring Competition Results Round 1

April 20th, 2013

Before last Thursday meeting ended in a dynamic transfer chess festivity, the spring competition had yielded its first results from round 1. Both Jonathan and Bryant secured their first win against Franz and Max respectively and Ian shared half a point with Sophie upon stalemating her.

 

Round 1 Intermediate Chess Group Caissa

Round 1 Intermediate Chess Group Caissa

 

On Saturday we welcomed another new member in the Beginners group, James Gui, who already played for Discovery College in the inter-school championship earlier this year and as P1 student scored a good 2 points. James, Kian and Kaya focused on check mate puzzles whereas Mikael, Mohamed and Kaiden played games, with, and equally distracted by, clocks…

In the Intermediate Group on Saturday the 2 games that were adjourned last week were finished with Bryant defeating Mei Jing and Wilson scoring the full point against Chor Wei.

 

Round 1 Advanced Chess Group Caissa

Round 1 Advanced Chess Group Caissa

 

Before the competition though, following knight composition was topic of our study. We now know how white to move can draw. Right?

 

White to move draws (N. Grigoriev 1938)

White to move draws (N. Grigoriev 1938)

 

Brian Dew (FM) Wins Hong Kong Chess Championship Preliminaries 2013

April 17th, 2013

The clash in the 9th and last round last Monday between the two Fide Masters, Javier Martin Perez and Brian Dew, turned out to provide Brian the score needed to win the Preliminaries – and a result that pushed Javier to 10th place, just 1 place below qualification. But, congratulations Brian! And also to Caissa’s Peter Whalley who kept Brian leashed to a draw in round 1.

Unfortunately in round 9, Peter and Caissa’s Hannah Dale both lost their games against Ian Scott and Sai Wai Lai respectively. However, given the very strong competition this year the score of 4.5 points out of 9 is not bad at all.

Brian’s winning of the Prelims was somewhat partly helped in the last round by the strong performance of Jake Chan who (unexpectedly?) defeated Melvin Yu who had been top of the leader board for weeks. Jake ended very strong on 3rd place: well done.

Somewhat unfortunate to see the 12 year old youth talent Michael Yang dropped below the qualifying 9th place for the first time after several weeks upon his loss against Chak Man Chan (CM) – who instead qualified on 9th place through this result. But Michael has many years ahead, and we can expect it won’t be longer than next year that we will hear from him again in the 2014 prelims!

All scores from all rounds can be found in this cross table.

New Members and Visitors Mark the first week after Easter

April 15th, 2013

With pleasure we see that the Intermediate Group was almost complete present on 11 April, the first meeting after the Easter break: Ian, Maxwell, Jonathan, Franz, Jay and Sophie. With Mees hopefully joining from next time this group is ready to start the Intermediate Club competition, playing 1 game each week until end of season in June.

The Beginners Group from 1.30pm on Saturday 13 April was also well populated with Kaiden, Julien and Mikael present. James and Kian were there too trying the Saturday out and glad also that Gauri was there for the first time as a member now after having taken a few small-group lessons on Saturday morning. We hope to see Etienne, Mohamed and Ting Ting back soon as also for the Beginners Group we will start a competition. Finally, it was great to see three new girls visiting and trying some chess out. We would be heading towards a majority of girls in this group which would be a rather unique situation.

 

Kian (left back) having fun with Kaiden while in the foreground the two new visiting girls eagerly move their pieces at the same time...

Kian (left back) having fun with Kaiden while in the foreground the two new visiting girls Kaya (left) and Juliette eagerly move their pieces at the same time…

 

Mikael with sun glasses playing pawn game against Julien while Mei Jing watches

Mikael with sun glasses playing pawn game against Julien while Mei Jing watches

 

Gauri (right) on her first club meeting against Juliette (?) who tried for the first time

Gauri (right) on her first club meeting against Juliette who tried for the first time

 

The Advanced Group from 3.30pm started their first round of the competition already. The games could not be finished in time and are adjourned to next week when we will get the results: Bryant vs. Mei Jing and Wilson vs. Chor Wei. Miguel Angel had a bye and hopefully we will see Gerent next week and also Ruaidhri when his schedule allows.

On Saturday there is now availability for 2 participants in the 11-11.45am small-group class and for 1 participant in the 12-12.45pm class.

 

Hong Kong Youth in 2013 Cross-Straits Four in Shenzhen End Results

April 7th, 2013

After 3 days and 11 rounds of chess the 2013 edition of the cross-straits tournament ended with very decent results for our Hong Kong youth.

 

left to right: Harold, James, Miguel Angel, Mei Jing, Adrian and gerent

left to right: Harold, James, Miguel Angel, Mei Jing, Adrian and Gerent

 

In U10, James Kwong ended on the 11th place, earning an Award of Honour with 7.5 points and by himself as one-man-team he also managed with these 7.5 points to get 3rd prize for best team! Well done, James.

 

Everybody Celebrating James' U10 Team 3rd Prize

Everybody Celebrating James’ (all the way in the back) U10 Team 3rd Prize

 

In U8, Gerent Lee, who recently joined Caissa as a member (welcome Gerent!), scored 7 points, just outside the top 16 who would receive an Award of Honour.

With 7.5 points for both Adrian Leung and Miguel Angel Garceran Wang they ended 12th and 9th respectively, both earned the Award of Honour with Miguel Angel just outside reach of a medal  (given to the top 8 of 16) in addition to the Award.

 

Adrian (red maws) Ready for Round 11

Adrian (red maws) Ready for Round 11 with White Pieces

 

In U7 Mei Jing Garceran Wang had a strong comeback on the last day winning 2 out of 3 to end with 5 points on the 9th place of the girls in this age category. Harold Kwong, with true fighter spirit achieving an amazing draw with a queen down in one of the last rounds, ended comfortably with 6.5 points in this age group.

 

Mei Jing before Round 11 (saving her smiles for after the game: her quickest win in less than 5 minutes ...)

Mei Jing before Round 11 (saving her smiles for after the game: her quickest win in less than 5 minutes …)

 

In this field of hundred or so players in each of these age groups, of whom the (top) players from China receive training from Masters and Grand Masters and are introduced to chess at schools already, as we understood from the organizer, the disadvantage for our youth not receiving any of these opportunities in Hong Kong, was handsomely compensated by their talent and interest for the game.

It is time that in Hong Kong chess for youth is taken to the next level to nurture our players to develop their talents to the maximum possible. This is not done by small scale (semi-)private lessons, an occasional holiday chess clinic and a handful of tournaments here and there: this requires a structural approach to build a chess infrastructure of clubs, teaching programs, introducing chess to schools and other well coordinated activities that take part in a well designed pipeline of chess education and motivation.

This tournament proved to be a good opportunity to have established first contact with the organizers (and especially a thank you to Mr. Lui the organizer in charge for his warm welcome to the Hong Kong players and parents) to explore further ways of cooperation for Hong Kong youth. You will be kept posted on this.

 

David Garceran Nieuwenburg (standing 3rd right) Invited as Caissa Hong Kong President to Hand Out Prizes – More Cooperation to Come and Hopefully Handing Out Prizes to More Hong Kong Youth Next Year!

David Garceran Nieuwenburg (standing 3rd right) Invited as Caissa Hong Kong President to Hand Out Prizes – More Cooperation to Come and Hopefully Handing Out Prizes to More Hong Kong Youth Next Year!

Hong Kong Youth in Cross-Straits Four Open Chess in Shenzhen

April 5th, 2013

From early morning April 4 to late afternoon April 6 youth from Shenzhen, Taiwan, Macao and Hong Kong are meeting in the Shenzhen Foreign Language School to play chess over 11 rounds.

 

A Massive Set-Up with over 500 children in the Playing Hall

A Massive Set-Up with over 500 children in the Playing Hall

 

Given the fact it is Easter holidays in Hong Kong some parents took the initiative to bring their children into this event for practice at higher levels than possible in Hong Kong only and after the first day Hong Kong is doing really fine.

 

Hong Kong Youth and Parents with Chief Organizer in Middle (Yellow Jacket)

Hong Kong Youth and Parents with Chief Organizer Mr. Liu in Middle (Yellow Jacket)

 

On day 1, James Kwong playing in U10 scored 2.5 out of 4 games. In U8 Gerent Lee scored 3 points out of 4 and both Adrian Leung and Miguel Angel Garceran Wang, playing a draw between themselves (!), finished day 1 with 3.5 points out of 4. In the U7 group Harold Kwong scored 3 and Meijing 2 points out of 4.

 

Our Hong Kong Heroes Posing (left to right): Miguel Angel, Mei Jing, Gerent, James, Harold and Adrian

Our Six Hong Kong Heroes Posing (left to right): Miguel Angel, Mei Jing, Gerent, James, Harold and Adrian

 

Hong Kong Youth in Action

Hong Kong Youth in Action …

 

Today another long day, again 4 rounds. Not only a long day for the players …

 

The Hong Kong Parents' Waiting Area

The Hong Kong Parents’ Waiting Area