After three days of extreme heat and clear skies it was only natural a typhoon late Friday night would challenge the 4th Scholastic Chess Tournament on Saturday 22 June by passing by closely.

Fortunately (who wants a typhoon in the weekend anyway?!) the tournament could continue as planned and, successfully orchestrated by Alberto Muniz, supported by a team of chess veterans in Hong Kong, Active Kids’ Chess Academy pulled off yet another great event.

The tournament was played in five age categories, from Kindergarten (23 players!) to Secondary (also 23 players), and from Caissa we had the strongest line up ever in the three Primary School age categories. In a glance the players and their results:

 

 

Out of our 12 members we have 6 prize winners: a more than respectable result! Glad to see also that Discovery College won their first chess prize ever: we have come from a long way just a year ago with only 2-3 players knowing the game well enough to consider a real tournament.

 

 

P1-P2 Age Group (40 players)

Both Gauri and Saga, who learned how to play chess only a few months ago, scored well above average for a first time tournament. Well done girls! James, only in his second tournament, also played well and had a bit of bad luck now and then.

 

 

 

Mei Jing, who is improving fast nowadays, played very convincingly but with 4.5 points out of 5 games she was destined to play against her significantly more experienced club mates and friends, Gerent and Adrian, who were steaming in form and ended number 1 and 2 respectively only allowing a draw against one another. Congrats to all three of you with your prizes!

 

 

It must be said here further that Caissa’s close friend, Harold ending 4^th with 5.5 points just missed out 3^rd prize but confirmed his strong development since becoming U7 Hong Kong Champion two months ago.

Click here for final rank and cross-table of P1-P2.

 

P3-P4 Age Group (42 players)

Max started off very well with 3 out of 4, including a scholar mate in round 4 (!), but then, with such a high score facing former champions like Marco, did not find the right trigger in time to motivate himself. Similarly with Chor Wei who got off well with 2 out of 4 but let go here and there.

 

 

This is all part of getting up the learning curve – and it must also be said that this age category of 8-9 year old players could be the largest pool of Hong Kong’s strongest and talented players. In that context Jay, unfortunately the only player of Bradbury, did a very good job scoring 50%, showing also his recent form in Caissa’s Intermediate Group.

Miguel Angel showed again to be Caissa’s and Discovery College’s chess flagship by steering to 2^nd place, probably the only P3 student among the top 15 consisting of P4 students. Good job Miguel Angel!

 

 

Here we also congratulate Caissa’s close friend, James, with his overwhelming first place with 7 points out of 7. James continues to impress!

Click here for final rank and cross-table P3-P4.

 

P5-P6 Age Group (22 players)

Bryant and Wilson, scoring 3.5 points each, were the proud winners of Discovery College’s first ever chess prize by ending 3^rd as a school team (adding up their points). Well done boys. As one of your final activities in Primary you have set the bar high now for the other students!

Click here for final rank and cross-table of P5-P6.