It was already our 3^rd edition of the Discovery Bay Open Blitz last Saturday and despite the traditionally quiet summer period we were glad to welcome 37 players to our event which was different from previous years, and in many ways more demanding.

We started off with qualifiers of 10 minutes per person games, 7 rounds of Swiss. And whereas this is when many a tournament is concluded, we played another 7 rounds of 5 minutes per person in the round robin group finals.

In the qualifier rounds the 1^st DB open Champion, Cyril Anicete, proved to be top of the pack again with Daniel Lam, Hong Kong’s highest rated player and our recent number 2 in the Caissa Winter Blitz on 1 March 2014 – both scoring 6 points.

Alberto Muniz, 2014 Champion of Hong Kong Chess Federation players, had also qualified for the Champion Group with 5 points and this group was completed to 8 persons with the 5 points scoring Caissa youth members Melvin Cheung and James Kwong and youngsters Raphael Chang (4.5 points) and Ernest Cheung (5.5 points!) together with our visiting guest Chiu Liang (4.5 points) from Shenzhen Chess Club.

 

 

The Round Robin Finals Groups were determined by adding numbers 1-8 in the Champion Group, numbers 9-16 in Group B, numbers 17-24 in Group C and so forth. This way everybody had a good chance to compete for a prize against opponents of more or less equal scores in the qualifiers.

In Group E, Toby, our newest Caissa member, won 5 of his 6 games showing he clearly prefers the speed of 5 minutes games – well done! Ip, in his first tournament, had lost some games due to unfamiliarity with some of the Blitz rules but he showed he is a worthy first-time-tournament player claiming 2nd place with 4 points.

 

 

 

Group D saw our unleashed Caissa member Teddy score 100% in this 5 minutes games version of blitz – good job! Lan, our visiting player from Shenzhen got 2nd prize with 5 points, and as such did a good job as well by staying ahead of our Caissa youth players Samira, Mei Jing, Harold and Wo Hang and another strong youngster, Bosco.

 

 

In Group C Umberto and Zhi Yan both scored 4.5 points but because Zhi Yan had won against Umberto she won 2nd prize on tie-break. Well done Zhi Yan and perhaps next time it is your turn Umberto – thanks for already having visited our tournaments since our 1st Blitz!

The winner of Group C though was our very own Caissa member James Nichols, only conceding 2 draws. Congrats!

 

 

In Group B we had a few players who just missed the Champion Group by maximum half a point or so – and they were ready for some kind of revenge … Caissa’s Miguel Angel scored 5.5 points in this strong field to win 2nd prize and Nicole, the new-in-town Woman FIDE Master, secured 1st Prize with an impressive 6 points in this strong group.

 

 

In the Champion Group Caissa’s 9 year old James Kwong did very well by scoring 3.5 points amidst the titans of Hong Kong chess, as did Caissa’s youngster Melvin who played an extraordinary strong tournament and scored 3 points in this group.

However, the strength and experience of Hong Kong’s top players Daniel and Alberto was too overwhelming. Daniel scored 5.5 points to confidently secure 2nd Prize, one full point ahead of the best ranked player in the qualifiers, Cyril. But the strongest player in the 5 minutes blitz was the undisputed champion with 7 straight wins, Alberto Muniz.

 

 

 

All in all, it was a great day of chess in Discovery Bay, and to the people who played or watched 14 games of hard fought chess battles, it must have gone unnoticed this is actually a sleepy town where a golf cart is about the maximum excitement you can get.

And for Caissa, we are proud to have 4 prize winners among the 10 prize winners of the day. And to both our Caissa members and other players who did not win a prize this time – keep on practicing and hope to see you all in our coming Autumn chess tournaments of Standard and Rapid Chess: registration is open!

 

 

Click for more photos on 12 July 2014 – Dicovery Bay 3rd Open Blitz Album on Flickr.