Caissa Hong Kong Chess Club

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Prize Giving Ceremony / Party to Celebrate end of Spring Cycle Series

June 26th, 2015

Yesterday we concluded the last prize winning ceremony of this season by handing out the prizes to the winners of the Spring Open, held on Friday evenings.

All players of the Friday Autumn, Winter and Spring events were invited to join the prize giving and enjoy some snacks, including famous Dutch fingerfood, authentic from the only Dutch restaurant (Orange Tree) in town. Of course, this was a good moment also to play some blitz chess in preparation for the next day’s National Blitz Championships.

Social Blitz with Dutch snacks in the foreground

In this Spring Cycle we had Matthew Tan joining, but he would not play for any prize. However, it was great to have an IM playing with us and analyzing with his opponents where they went wrong … and as a thank you we found it appropriate to give him an Honorary Champion prize.

Readying for the Prize Ceremony

The Prize Winners

Matthew receives his prize form David will Tejpal manages to bring his son Mahir back ... Mahir is hungry now and surely we'll see more from him without any need to hold him back!

Matthew receives his prize from David while Tejpal manages to bring his son Mahir back … Mahir is hungry now and surely we’ll see more from him without any need to hold him back!

Long You managed to prolong his Winter Champion title and was a convincing Champion of the Spring Open. Congrats Long!

Henry and Melvin tied for 2nd and 3rd place but Henry won the tie-break. Well done to both and glad to see Melvin seems very ready for the Open Dutch where he will be playing in the Caissa shirt in the U16 category.

Matthew hands out Champion Prize to Long You

Henry receives 2nd Prize from Matthew

Melvin gets 3rd Prize from Matthew

After the prize ceremony we finished the 7 rounds blitz. It was finally won by Matthew, followed by James (great result James!) and Long. Tomorrow will be the National Championships in which Long, Richard, David, Melvin, Miguel, Tejpal, Koji and Mei Jing all will participate. Judging from today’s play we truly expect to have some serious title contenders among this Caissa group…

Final Ranking Social Blitz

Rectification – James and Miguel Angel win YGP3 in U12 and U10 and are overall 2014-15 YGP Winners in Their Age Groups

June 22nd, 2015

In 2014-15 we introduced the Youth Grand Prix to Hong Kong: a series of 3 tournaments standard chess (90 minutes per person, 7 rounds), 2 Blitz and 1 Rapid event. In each event grand prix points could be won by ending in the top 5 of the player’s age category.

Yesterday Sunday was the last round of the Spring YGP 3 and also the last round of the entire cycle that spanned some 10 months!

As in YGP 3 we had no U14 player we added a 3rd prize to the U12 and U10 age categories and because we had 4 U8 players we also added a Champion prize for that age group.

In the U12 category James could only be overtaken by Oliver if James would lose from Anika and Oliver would beat Miguel. The latter happened when Oliver, with only some 3 minutes left on the clock, surprised Miguel Angel with a checkmate in a complicated rook/bishop (Oliver) vs rook/knight and pawns end game. However, James did not lose from Anika in a rook endgame with 2 extra pawns and as such James became champion in the U12 group, followed by Oliver 2nd and Richard, who had to forfeit 2 games in earlier rounds, on the 3rd place.

In U10 age group, Miguel Angel, despite his loss against Oliver, stayed on top to be champion. Because of a BYE input mistake for Anika in round 4, Miguel Angel was followed by 2nd place Ulysses, who beat Harsh, and 3rd Harold, who with several pieces less miraculously managed to check mate Zeth. However, after correction and adding 0.5 points to Anika in round 4, it turned out that Anika ended number 2 and Ulysses number 3. Apologies for the mistake – and Anika will get her trophy and prize money soonest.

Zeth still remained the best performing player, and thus Champion of U8.

Congratulations to all prize winners!!!

Zeth Champion U8 with coach Matthew Tan

Prize Winners YGP3 with coach Matthew (left to right): Harold, James, Miguel Angel, Zeth, Richard, Ulysses and Oliver – we are missing Anika who won 2nd prize in U10

Top players in each age category U14, U12 and U10 would be fully sponsored, including return flight, lodging, additional training etc., to join the Dutch Youth Open 2015. Prerequisite was that players would play minimal 3 YGP events and as such unfortunately we have no U14 winner.

The final YGP ranking after 6 events shows a strong winner in Miguel Angel in U10 and James in U12. We wish our YGP champions, and of course our other players who will join the Dutch Youth Open 2015, good luck, success and fun from 3-8 August. We will be reporting from there!

YGP 2014-15 Final Ranking

Updated (5 June) – YGP3 has 6 Players with 3 points after 4 rounds

June 4th, 2015

Differences are minimal in the top half of the YGP cycle. Just like in the YGP1 and YGP2 editions, there surely won’t be a walk-over for any player and we need to sit tight until the final round to see what will eventually happen.

Such tight competition makes this tournament one of the most worthwhile events for our youth as it is also the only event in Hong Kong for youth with regular/standard time control of 90 minutes.

The ranking after 4 rounds here below:

Cross Table Rank after Round 5

Below the pairing of round 5:

Round 3 Spring Open Results and Pairing Round 4

May 20th, 2015

Last Friday Henry put up a great opening and middle game fight against Matthew but had to accept a loss when in the later part of the game he did not really blunder but also did not always played the best moves. Enough for an IM to crunch out a win…

Melvin, on a fast track of continuous improvements, drew against former champion Long and might not have gotten himself enough after a strong recovery of an early pawn loss.

Newly joined Ray played well and sensibly against Conrad but had to concede a loss after an inaccurate exchange.

Coming Friday in round 4 all players will be in town and it is up to Long to stop Matthew!

Pairing Round 3 Spring Competition and YGP3

May 14th, 2015

With many of our top youth playing in the World School Chess we had to postpone one round of both the YGP3 Cycle on Sunday and Spring Cycle on Friday evening as well as Saturday competition in Discovery Bay and all lessons of last weekend.

But we will be back and below the pairing of round 3 of both the Spring Open on Friday, with still various BYEs due to late traveling in from Thailand of a handful of players, and the YGP3 on Sunday which should be full house!

Pairing Round 3

Spring Open and YGP3 Round 2 Results

April 29th, 2015

Last Friday Alberto played with white against Matthew but got entangled enough to lose in what turned out to be Matthew’s pet French line. Long with white beat Koji and David with white got the initiative against Conrad’s pawn sacrificing Budapest gambit when Conrad did not punish David’s dubious early a3 pawn move.

There will be no chess this coming Friday 1 May and the pairing will be done the Wednesday before the next game.

Caissa Spring Open 2015 Cross-Table after Round 2

In the YGP 2nd round last Sunday, the clash of the titans between Miguel Angel and James Wing Ki ended in a win for James who simply got too much activity from his two pieces against Miguel’s rook.

Another noteworthy game was between Oliver and Anika – a rook (Oliver) against 2 bishop end game which lasted well over 3 hours to end in a draw. A record for our club!

In the below cross-table you can find all other results.

Also note here, there will be no round 3, as per schedule, on Sunday 3 May and pairing will be done on Wednesday before the Sunday match.

Caissa YGP 3 Spring 2015 Cross-Table after R2

Caissa Youth in Final Preparation for the World School Chess Championship: Pizza

April 27th, 2015

In the upcoming youth internet match against The Netherlands on Sunday, May 3 we will play two rounds against eight top youth players on the other side of the world – let’s get in the mood for the upcoming World School Championship!

Our eight Caissa players are: Richard, James, Miguel Angel, Harold, Mei Jing, Anika, Aaditya, and Alan (in order of age, more or less). Each player will play one game with black and one with white.

Practice for World School in the weekend - with parents supporting

Caissa Kids Practice for World School in the weekends – with parents supporting

Aaditya looks around while Anika studies the position from higher altitude. In the back Richard watches his dad Koji play against Miguel Angel

Aaditya looks around while Anika studies the position from higher altitude. In the back Richard lunches and watches his dad, Koji, play against Miguel Angel

We will primarily play for honor and glory but we are also trying to arrange a nice prize for the players of the winning team.

Through our Dutch partners, Pathena Chess and Delemare Chess Academy, internet accounts via the Royal Dutch Chess Federation will be arranged on Playchess.com.

After each round we will get together to briefly discuss the games as to also create a valuable learning experience.

Time: 15.00 – 19.00
- Pizza lunch: 15:00-16:00 (that should motivate!)
– Round 1: 16.15 – 17.00
– Discussion of games and break
– Round 2: 17.45 – 18.30
– Discussion of games and conclusion

Playing time: 20 minutes per person + 5 sec increment per move

We will be trying to stream the match live on our Caissa YouTube channel – stay tuned!

Spring Cycle Standard Chess Events Started

April 23rd, 2015

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!

Cross Table after Round 1

Pairing Round 2

Teddy Wins Winter YGP2

March 12th, 2015

By defeating Marco, Teddy became the winner of U10 and the Champion of the YGP2 with 5.5. points. Teddy, our Caissa pupil, has developed strongly in the last couple of months. Well done!

Front: Harsh (white) vs. Oliver. Back: Marco (white) vs. Teddy

James, who won against Richard, became winner of U12 and also got 5.5 points but ended 2nd overall on the 4th tie-break, that is, Teddy had more wins with black.

Andy defeated Miguel Angel by a good occupation of Miguel’s back rank with his white rook. Herewith Andy ended 2nd in U10 and Miguel Angel 3rd.

Although Oliver won his game against Harsh, it was Ronald by defeating Mei Jing who with 4.5 points could claim 2nd prize in U12.

Final Ranking Cross Table Winter 2015 YGP2

Ronald had left earlier and did not get his prize handed out – but the other prize winners got their trophy and cash prizes handed out by coach Michel.

Miguel Angel 3rd place U10 YGP 2

Andy Au 2nd Prize U10

Teddy Yang, Winner U10 and Tournament Winner

James Kwong Champion U12

Finally the ranking of the YGP:

Ranking YGP per 8 March 2015

Excitement and Drama in Round 6 of YGP 2 – Anything can happen in next round

March 4th, 2015

Unfortunately Ulysses could not make it today (resulting in an automatic win for Andy) but apart from that we had action on all other boards in round 6.

The Start of Caissa YGP Round 6 – Time to wake up Anika!

This was a round with highs and dramatic lows. To start with, on board 1 Teddy could have freed himself up to pole position for round 7 by beating James. His ferocious attack led to win of a piece and just-not-check-mate. However, possibly Teddy forgot that he was a piece up when he accepted James’ draw offer when his immediate check mate didn’t work.

On table 2 even more drama. Given the above, by winning from Ronald, Richard could have pushed himself up to first place instead of Teddy. But at the end of a long pawn endgame battle Richie let his completely winning position of King + Queen against Ronald’s King + pawn end in a draw. Tension and pressure must be high in this event as we all know Richard’s qualities to be way above this to happen – and similar things were to happen on other boards too…

Ronald (white) vs. Richard and Miguel Angel (white) vs. Harsh in the background

These results were definitely useful to Miguel Angel who beat Harsh by timing his king-side attack well enough to gain some pawns for free. It was also calmer and more straightforward to winning routes on the boards where Marco beat Toby and Mei Jing beat Harold after both Toby and Harold had made some early mistakes.

Samuel came with lots of advantage out of the opening with white against Anika but the excitement of having a good position could work against you if you lose patience and that is what might explain why Samuel lost the game.

Samuel against Anika on the foreground, followed by Seteven against Pak, mei Jing against Harold and Marco against Toby

Samuel against Anika on the foreground, followed by Steven against Pak, Mei Jing against Harold and Marco against Toby

Finally, the most impressive game seen in a while on any chess board was between Steven and Pak. Steven had developed his white pieces in such a harmonious way that when he lost his queen through a knight double attack check, he managed to create immediate counterplay. Allowing pins, creating new ones, trading few pieces in the way of several checks he wanted to give with his combined bishops, Steven suddenly had pushed the black king back to the middle of the board where it was checkmated by a combination of 3 minor pieces and a rook. Pak probably could have done something about it 10 moves earlier, e.g., by sacrificing something back, but the last 5 moves were already part of a forced win.

As can be seen from below ranking tables in the coming last round, anything can happen.

Cross Table Ranking after Round 6

Ranking after Round 6

Pairing Round 7