Thursday 9 January was the first round of the adult group and on Sunday 12 January the youth group played their first round of Standard Chess in the Caissa Winter Competition 2014 in Sheung Wan.
Adult Group
In the adult group we had originally 7 players but unfortunately one player withdrew after round 1 because of uncertainty where the Blitz finals would be held at. The game was declared void.
To clarify, the finals are planned to be held in Sheung Wan, but as we have changed the format of the finals into an OPEN tournament, if we exceed 32 players we will move to the Discovery Bay chess club venue. All players, adult and youth, who played in the Standard Chess edition will be automatically qualified for the OPEN Blitz Finals.
Because of the void declared game, effectively there was one game played as both Daniel Lam and Hannah Ball had given notice they could not make the first round.
The matches Daniel -James and Hannah-David will be played after round 5 and below is the ranking and schedule of the Round Robin pairing.
Youth U12
In the youth U12 group on Sunday we had 10 players facing off in round 1.
Youth U12 in Round 1
The longest game was played between Miguel Angel and Arjun in a game in which Miguel Angel won a center pawn which he could push deep into the black position enabling him to grind a win for his white pieces after 2 hours.
Jonathan managed to win a rook in the middle game and maneuvered his material advantage into a sure win against Ray.
Rachel won an early pawn on f7 against Hugo and despite early resistance Rachel’s white pieces kept on improving their position which let to inevitable material gain and a win.
Ronald and Oliver had an equal game going into a pawn end game with queen + rook against queen + rook. However, Ronald benefited well from Oliver’s more exposed king and turned the game into a win.
Ronald with white against Oliver
Mei Jing was a piece up since the middle game but Regis created some counter play through pushing his white queen side pawns up until the 6th rank. While doing so Regis oversaw a checkmate on the back rank which brought Mei Jing the full point.
