March was a good month for youth chess in Hong Kong. First of all we played out the Caissa Winter YGP with our Teddy emerging as champion.
A week later we had a dozen of our players participate in the Aktive Kids event bringing home personal and school trophies.
The week thereafter, on March 22, our kids again booked success, for school and personal, in the HKCF official inter-school event.
On 28-29 March it was HK Chess Juniors’ turn to hold an inter-school event and it went smooth. Compared to the official HKCF tournament a week earlier the venue was very crowded and too many parents within ‘intervening’ distance but the advantage was that the location offered outdoor areas where children in between their rounds could play.
Coach Matthew making sure the team is ready – and they were!
Discovery College participated with one team in Lower Primary and these Caissa pupils showed great spirit.
James on board 1 faced tough opponents and scored a good 3 points. On board 2 Seth, after a small dip after round 1, won a few in a row and ended with 4 points. Nathan on board 4 was less distracted now by the clocks and also scored 4 points, very good for a P1 student. Noah on board 3 was in top form and scored the full 7 out of 7 – and like last week collected a personal prize, but this time the top scorer prize!
James (back), Seth (standing) and Nathan and Noah analysing during the breaks
Noah, Nathan, James and Seth celebrate with Matthew
Proud coach Michel with happy Nathan and Noah
The team ended 5th out of 22 teams and that is a great result – well done DC team!
But Caissa also has students who do not go to Discovery College. In the Lower Primary Ritvik ended 7th with his Swiss German team and with 5.5 points got a personal prize: 3rd prize topscorer board 1. Nice!
Jake, who just started 3 weeks ago as Caissa student from scratch played on board 2 of the Hong Kong International C in his 1st tournament and for him this tournament was about getting experience only.
Caissa’s players in the Upper Primary were also active. Caissa student Howard played a great tournament and in his Quarry Bay School team B got 2nd top scorer prize on board 1 with 6.5 points. Impressive!
On board 2, Caissa member Toby Mak in the Quarry Bay School A Team, scored 6 points and got 2nd Prize Topscorer board 2 and 2nd prize for the team. Anika from Swiss German team A scored 5 points on board 2 – and with some more luck would have had a full point more.
Finally, in the Secondary we are very proud of Melvin Cheung who got shared 1st prize topscorer on board 1 of HK International Team A with 6 points. That is by any standard an impressive score. Congrats Melvin.
Melvin with 6 points on board 1 wins and wears 2nd Prize medal
