On the FIDE site we can find a pleasantly readable article by International Grandmaster Efstratios Grivas about his visit to Hong Kong. It suffices to read that to get a good feeling of his 5 days visit. It was a pleasure to have Efstratios visiting us and to getting to know him. We will meet again.
IGM Grivas Playing Simul at Caissa in Kennedy Town
IGM Grivas discussing the “blockade” with his chess audience from Caissa Chess Club in Discovery Bay
In the weekend of 20-22 September IGM Efstratios Grivas led 20 participants, including 8 participants who had come from 7 different federations, through an interesting and important seminar that will result in an expansion of the Hong Kong certified trainer base by at least double.
The Hong Kong FIDE TRG Seminar 2013 Participants
Efstratios Grivas made each three of the 5 hour session fly by. The topics presented covered a wide array of useful information for trainers to better support their students, from nutrition facts, sleeping patterns, motivation, analyzing results, chess wisdom from classics, opening preparation, handling of endgames and so on.
Despite the fact that various logistics had to be rearranged to hold the last day of the seminar in the middle of the biggest storm on the planet in 2013 passing through Hong Kong, 19 of 20 the participants were able to make it and complete the seminar successfully.
IGM Efstratios Grivas Addressing the Audience
Well done participants and congratulations. Well done Efstratios and thanks for your visit and inspiring seminar!
If the 2013 HK Open is an indicator for what is to happen in the Hong Kong Open International Championship 2013 end of this month we can possibly expect some exciting developments.
Newly appointed Caissa coach Andrew Leung kept his steady performance on track by drawing against Hysan Wong who is gradually developing into a force to reckon with.
Hysan keeping his white side inaccessible for Andrew’s black pieces
Michael Yang, who defeated Aravind Mahadevan, will meet Andrew next week and Hysan will find the in-form “100%-Joe” Lau, who defeated top seed Christopher Masters, on his way to maintain a top 3 position.
Christopher’s strong initiative with white was not enough to hold against Joe
In the bottom ranking we see that Hong Kong Champion Luen-Wah Luk has slowly started his engines with a win over Ian Scott while Caissa’s David GN, who blundered a rook in the end game against the strong attacking player In Hei Ho is at risk of starting to find it cozy down there …
Round 3 Rank and Pairing Round 4 HK Chess Open 2013
In the late evening of lucky Friday the 13th, six of Caissa’s Advanced group players, accompanied by several supporters, boarded our national carrier to fly to Singapore and participate in the 2013 Serangoon Inter-Team Chess Championship.
Team 1 and Team 2 in Singapore!
Team 1: Open Rated Mixed 4 Members Team – David, Koji, Richard and Miguel Angel
Team 1 Ready
Team 2: U16 Unrated Mixed 2 members Team – Bryant and Mei Jing
Team 2 ready
The tournament was not that large scale with a total of some 25 teams, but it was well organized and pleasantly located in a quiet residential neighborhood it was a worthwhile test for our Caissa teams gaining experience playing abroad. It was nice also, that Bryant had secured a handful of local supporters through his family who watched with interest how this chess tournament evolved over two days.
In 7 rounds Swiss, first 4 rounds on Saturday afternoon and 3 on Sunday morning, the top teams would qualify for the knock out rounds on Sunday afternoon.
Chinatown and chilli/pepper crabs
Koji played very convincingly and with 6 out of 7 grossed most points for Team 1 in this stage of the tournament, followed by David with 5 points, Richard with 3 points and Miguel Angel, who at the airport was doubtful to even join us because of slight fever and other such symptoms, with 2 points.
Caissa Team 1 Playing (round 3)
In the overall ranking Team 1 ended 5th and in the Open Rated category all players could collect a medal for 3rd prize – and on to the knock out rounds!
Mei Jing and Bryant in Team 2 actually played a round robin and Mei Jing was in very good form scoring 4 wins out of 6 and with Bryant’s win that was also enough to qualify for a 1st Prize medal in U16 Unrated category and play some more chess in the knock out stages…
Bryant and Mei Jing Collecting their 1st Prize
Team 1 in the 1/16 finals steamed on with 3 wins and a draw (Miguel Angel) and went on to 1/8th finals. Unfortunately this time the scoring engine Koji had a small hick-up and the point scored by David and the draw by Miguel Angel was not enough to go to the quarter finals.
In Team 2 Bryant had a good chance to repair Mei Jing’s loss in a King + Pawn against King end game but a stalemate prevented Bryant to claim the full point and Team 2 was also out in the 1/8th finals.
All Individual Scores
A good chess experience richer, Caissa will definitely be going to other places.
Discovery Bay Beginners
With well over 20 players showing up last Saturday, the Beginners group was too crowded for the venue. Of course that is good news (!) and we will be talking with BMSE to see if we can get a larger venue in the building.
Coach Andrew joined for the first time and supervised the group A players who played their first round:
In group B, with lots of new players with whom the rules were reviewed, two games were played by the somewhat more experienced players:
Ranking after Round 1
Discovery Bay Intermediate
The Intermediate group had started Thursday already. We see strong results from the “veterans” in this group whereas the newly promoted or newly joined players, Saga and James are still adjusting.
Ranking after Round 1
Discovery Bay Advanced
The Advanced group is also divided in a Group A and B and in the B group we had two spectacular results.
Chor Wei with a queen, 2 rooks and an army of pawns up, let Maxwell walk into a stalemate position on the outskirts of the board and Bryant with queen and rook allowed Mei Jing’s lonely king in the middle of the board to run into stalemate …
Amazing if not heroic stalemate: Maxwell needs a rest …
Bryant wisely ignores Mei Jing’s “relief” …
In group A Richard with white played against Miguel Angel and benefited well from his early built up space advantage. Miguel Angel could not repair the damage that came from opening up the position for his counter attack deep in white’s territory. In the other game, Andrew with black defeated Koji.
Ranking after Round 1
Kennedy Town
There was no meeting in Kennedy Town because all venues in the community center had been reserved for that day.
The season has now formally started … and apart from the regular official chess meetings at Discovery Bay North Plaza and Kennedy Town, we are also picking up the social chess activities again where we left off before the summer.
From now on, the Thursday evenings from after 8pm, join us for some fun and casual chess with a drink, a snack and nice background music.
Thursday evening Chess at DB Plaza: young and old, experienced and starters met at iCaramba
A good warming up for the Hong Kong International Open Chess Championship 2013 from 26 September until 1 October is the Hong Kong Open 2013 Championship which runs throughout September and October.
Yesterday’s round 1 saw some interesting results. Hong Kong 2013 Champion FM Luen-Wah Luk had to accept a loss against Ritesh Mahajan. Jake Chan, in good form in previous tournaments, found his opponent Kuen Yui Pang with black breaking through just a bit faster on the queenside in a typical Sicilian play where white attacks black’s king side and black goes for the queen side attack.
Youngster Ronald Choy won calmly against veteran Pak Tuen Cheung and other youth player Benjamin Oh drew convincingly against Caissa’s David Garceran Nieuwenburg. Caissa’s Peter Whalley, after a hiatus of several months, started off rusty with a loss against Wai Kit Lin in what seemed an equal game for a long time.
Let’s see what next week will bring.
Ranking after round 1 and pairing round 2 Hong Kong Open 2013
Discovery Bay Intermediate
We looked at forks and pawn endings – doubled pawns, isolated pawns, backwards pawns and advanced pawns – which are good and bad and how to take advantage of them. Important learnings the great Philidor would agree with: pawns are the soul of chess.
Discovery Bay Beginners
It is getting crowded in the this group! Nonetheless we warmly welcome our new member Victor.
The Beginners Group in Full Action.
The Beginners Group can now be divided into two groups and after some introduction about tactics and strategy we played a small practice tournament.
In group A with Joshua, Wo Han, Max and Alex the differences were not so big. Joshua ended first (1.5 points) , Max (1 point) and Alex (1 point) both had a draw twice and Wo Han (0.5) had one draw. Interestingly, Max had a winning position twice but allowed his opponents to escape into the dark catacombs of stalemate. As mentioned in various earlier entries, this is quite normal and surely this won’t happen that often anymore with Max.
In group B it was Roshan who ended first with 1.5 points, followed by Gaurie (1 point), Julien (0.5 points) and the newest members Victor and Kevin did not score a point yet. No worries. These boys’ talents did not go unnoticed. It’s the clock (that countdown looks so fast), have to press it with the same hand you move pieces with, background (or is it foreground?) noise from fellow chess enthusiasts slamming on their clocks, coach David who keeps on talking (out loud) about “develop center pawns, minor pieces towards the center, castle …”. The first time at our chess club is an intense experience!
Discovery Bay Advanced
Having arrived right in time before an enormous rainfall all players were bringing thunder in on the boards.
In group A, Koji, Richard, Miguel Angel and David played a double blitz (first round 5 minutes, second 10 minutes) and it was somehow David who won all games …
The double blitz (10 minutes) in group B with Bryant, Wilson, Chor Wei and Mei Jing turned into a win of the tournament for Bryant this time who only had to concede a loss against Mei Jing.
Kennedy Town
The group is growing steadily and we are glad to see some regulars coming back as well as new players visiting the club for a try on Sundays. Aditya had a good match with Regis (1-2) and the youngest players Hannah and Ritvik played the longest game of the day (1.5 hours!). Matthew L showed his talent to solve chess puzzles as did the two new visitors Matthew C and Adiya. There is lot of potential in this group.
The afternoon ended with a nice simul given by Miguel Angel which due to time constraints could not be finished. If players here take 1.5 hours to play one game we must soon think of extending the opening hours!
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Next week, 8 September, no chess in Kennedy Town due to unavailable room. Locations for remainder of September as follows:
