Last Friday the first round of the Spring Open on Friday evenings started with a possibly strongest field ever with top player Alberto Muniz and IM Matthew Tan participating too (Matthew will play but not for the prizes).

It is a great opportunity if you can play a Standard time control chess game against a Master in Hong Kong, there are less than a handful active, and the honor for round 1 was David’s. Matthew with white handled David’s Philidor with an interesting c3 set-up to create a strong center and in the end game Matthew stayed precise enough to win.

Alberto’s Sicilian against Koji with white seemed on the surface a trade of many pieces but the few pieces and pawns left after the trades were better positioned for black and for Alberto to score a full point.

Conrad with white sacrificed a few pawns in the first move against Long and managed to get so much play that despite the material imbalance the game went into draw mode by 3 times repetition of the same position.

Henry with white could win a full point against Melvin after Henry’s far advanced center pawn proved to be worth more than the pawns Melvin went for on the queen side.

An exciting first round!