Our Caissa Hong Kong Kids (left to right): James, Aaditya, Alan, Anika, Mei Jing, Richard, Miguel Angel and Harold
Sunday 3 May, in preparation of the World School Championship in Pattaya, Thailand, starting later this week, we had organized a practice internet match against the top youth of the Netherlands in the U9-U11 age group.
As mentioned earlier, through our Dutch Partners we were provided with Playchess.com accounts and as a first ever for Hong Kong chess our 8 kids played against a team of their age peers over 9,000KM away.
The Dutch team comprised of following players:
1. Tommy Tran
2. Liqin Lu
3. Javeria Komal Zubair
4. Circe Janse
5. Saad Komal Zubair
6. Kimmily Tran
7. Jesse van Dongen
8. Yisha Chen
Pathena Dutch Team
Alan and Anika having fun warming up before the match
Richard and Harold right before the Match: Jokes on the Chat …
The pairing was based on two rounds: in round one board 1 of HK played against board 1 of Holland, board 2 against board 2 and so on. In round two, board 1 of HK played against board 2 of Holland, and board 2 of HK against board 1 of Holland, board 3 against board 4 etc.
The scores of our team members were (R1, R2):
1. James (0,1)
2. Miguel Angel (1, 1/2)
3. Richard (1, 1/2)
4. Aaditya (0, 0)
5. Alan (1, 1)
6. Harold (0, 0)
7. Mei Jing (0, 1)
8. Anika (1, 0)
Both round 1 and 2 thus ended in 4-4!
Analysis by parents and grandparents …
Mei Jing in Deep Thought
It was suggested by the Dutch team to play a decisive blitz and we do not walk away from a challenge, of course not …
The Decisive Blitz Round: our Top 4 Boards
However, whereas in regular time we might have gotten somewhat too little from the 4-4 results, especially in round 2, our Dutch opponents were clearly the better blitzers. The maximum we could get out of this decisive round was 2.5 points: James and Anika won their games and Miguel Angel drew. Nonetheless, a big applause to all our players who gave it their all during this long and memorable day.
Congratulations to the Pathena Holland team. Well done! We are looking forward to a rematch though!
Special thanks to our Dutch partners Pathena Chess and Delemare Chess Academy for having coordinated the Playchess.com internet logistics and for having provided through the Royal Dutch Chess Federation Playchess.com accounts for our kids who can still use these for a year for free – and we will practice online blitz! Also thanks to Matthew for his coordination here on the ground with the Dutch.
Final thanks to all our Caissa kid parents for helping to bring in laptops and staying positively involved until the end.
