Caissa Hong Kong Chess Club

chess in hong kong

First round in 2014 Intermediate and Beginners Group Discovery Bay

January 11th, 2014

Last Saturday we had 7 games going in the Beginners/Intermediate group. All players were required to write down their games and that was an extra challenge for some of the newer players.

We have now used the “Keizer System” pairing system and we will continue using that until the end of the season. In the first round in 2014 it was the game between Fiona and Kian that was a thriller: Kian, up a queen, two rooks and some other material, went marching with a pawn to promote for more material but forgot that by now Fiona, cleverly giving away her last pawn, was stale mated.

Gsp = played, Gw = won, Rm = draw, Vl = lost

Caissa Training Center and Moving Kennedy Town Club to Sheung Wan

October 10th, 2013

At the Discovery Bay Club we have been giving lessons on Saturday mornings to meet ad hoc needs, especially those of very beginning players who need to learn the basic rules, and a little beyond, before they can start play in the Beginners group in the afternoon.

In this flexible approach students could book single lessons, which resulted in teaching a different group of students almost every week. From November on we will organize the small group training differently.

Taking one lesson is of limited value as there is no growth path. Therefore we will offer 4 lessons in a batch to the same group of classmates so that all students in the same group go through the same material and are at the same level during and after the course. We will make use of the Step Method that can lead complete beginners to a FIDE rating of around 1900 (Step 5).

For Intermediate and more Advanced players we will also use a mix of classroom and online teaching with world class players and trainers, like the course by GM and Junior World Champion 2012 Alexander Ipatov, Building an Opening Repertoire: Queens Gambit Declined in the Train with the Best Series.

Inspiring World Class Trainers: GM Alexander Ipatov Surrounded by Caissa Youth

Caissa Members Following GM Alexander Ipatov’s Explanation of the Carlsbad Pawn Structure (via Skype)

Trainers CM Collin Madhavan (left) and GM Efstratios Grivas (middle) Appreciated Guest Teachers at Caissa.

Our Kennedy Town Club will move out of Kennedy Town into a permanent location from 20 October in Sheung Wan (15/F, Well View Commercial Building, 10 Morrison Street). This allows us to have longer opening hours on Sundays and during week days we can start playing and training in the “Caissa Way” on Hong Kong Island as well.

Registration for training for November onwards is online. Places are limited!

Saga de Souter and James Gui Lead Beginners Group after Round 3

June 11th, 2013

Last week was a quiet week in the Intermediate and Advanced groups without any play affecting the Spring Competition results in those groups. In the beginners group, on the other hand, we played 2 full rounds with great passion.

First of all we welcome Saga de Souter as our new member … and she is making a great start!

Round 2: Kaya – Gauri 1-0, Kaiden – Saga 0-1, Kian – James 0.5-0.5, Chris: bye

Round 3: Saga – Kian 0.5-0.5, Chris – Kaya 0-1, Gauri – James 0-1, Kaiden: bye

Saga and James are leading the group now, with Kaya strongly following. As for Kian, in both rounds he played towards an endgame with considerable material advantage, at least a queen up in both rounds, but it can be hard to remember how to exactly check mate again in such positions under pressure of the game being a match: and 3 times same position is a -convenient- draw. This kind of draws, including stalemates with overwhelming material advantage, happen to all youth players. It is our aim to let this happen just once or twice: queen and rook endgames back on the agenda next week!

Gauri and Chris, still ocassionally somewhat unsure, are learning fast now about illegal moves and once those get down to the minimum, they will surely quickly be in pursuit.

Results after Round 3

Spring Competition: Intermediate Group Shakes

June 2nd, 2013

Beginners

It is in the nature of Discovery Bay residency that people move in and out of town relatively frequently. We regret to see that Mikael and Kaiden will be leaving the club in June as they move out of Hong Kong, but we wish them good luck and hopefully a new chess beginning in their new places!

It is good to see that several players in the Beginners Group have matured enough to start their first tries in competition chess. Of course, in this group no shortage of spectacular chess: Saga with white played convincingly towards a win once she had captured Christopher’s queen and something similar happened with Julien who won against Aleesha once he got a queen up. James and Kaiden had a more positional game which was won by James who made use of his open lines very well. Gauri had a bye.

Results after Round 1

Intermediate

Sophie kept the tension below Bryant high as she defeated Franz who with 3.5 points is still second but only at half a point distance between two close followers. In a crucial match between Jay and Max it was Jay who claimed the win by winning on time. Jay’s 3rd straight win puts him now at 3 points on equally shared 3rd place.

Cross table after Round 7

Advanced

In the advanced group the legedary game between Lasker and Thomas in 1912 was discussed to show the power of a good development towards the center in attacking, with queen sacrifice and all, an underprotected kingside. The check-forced route of the black king from h7 all the way to the check mate on the first rank of white remains a spectacular sight.

Only one game was played, between Gerent and Miguel Angel (aka Colle System against Philidor set-up) which was won by Miguel after what in analysis later seemed to be a confusing situation in the end game in which both players in turn unexpectedly put a rook at risk.

Spectacular chess actually in all groups…

Round 5 Cross Table Advanced

Spring Competition 2013: Bryant Leads Intermediate and Mei Jing Leads Advanced

May 27th, 2013

The Spring Competition is at a stage now that we can see indicators of the players moving into the prize zone in the Intermediate and Advanced groups. The Beginners group is being prepared now for competition play.

Beginners

In the beginners group, first we welcome Kaya and Kian as our new members. The group is growing now towards over 10 players, which is the maximum for this, always most dynamic, group.

In this group we played a real match for the first time, but only for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes the games were stopped and we would all go the boards to agree who had the better position.

We agreed that Kaiden had a slight advantage over Kian. Saga, although a Queen up, would lose that queen on next move and would be in material disadvantage of a queen against rook. Christopher had the upper hand against Kaya and Mikael was proud to be assessed drawish with a plus against coach David. Way to go Mikael!

Kaya (left) against Christopher (foreground), Sage (left middle) against James and Kaiden (left back) against Kian

Mikael played confidently with black to claim a draw!

Intermediate

With 2 more games to go Bryant is steering towards a 100% score after 6 wins in 6 games. Based on this score so far Bryant would add 72.2 points to his rating once the the tournament is closed. Franz is making a strong comeback and with 3.5 points stands strongly on 2nd place. Max, with 3 points on 3rd place has thus far increased his rating most with over 100 points. Noteworthy is also that Jay is crawling closer to the top 3 with 2 consecutive wins. Well done!

Also welcome to Hyung Jun as our new member!

Cross Table Intermediate Group after 6 rounds

Advanced

Chor Wei got his first win in an exciting game against Max with several queen promotions on both sides. The clock was for both players close to zero which is an indicator of the players taking their time. Great progress.

Similarly Wilson and Mei Jing had a great game with Mei Jing little time left on the clock, but enough advantage on the board to win the game in time. With 3 points out of 4 Mei Jing is now leading the Advanced group, on the way improving her rating in this championship with 93.3 points for now. Miguel Angel and Gerent, both without a loss for now, are still within range though once caught up a couple of games.

Cross Table after Round 4 Advanced Group

Round 3 Spring Competition Advanced Group

May 20th, 2013

In last Saturday’s club meeting “the pin” was discussed in the beginners group. We were glad to welcome Christopher as our new member in this group and together with Mikael, Julien, James and Kaiden some really decent chess was played. The group is picking up and as a whole seems to be heading towards a higher plateau: developing towards the center, castling and no early queen ventures all around the board has become common good.

In the advanced group smothered check mate was discussed after which 2 games were played in the 3rd round of the Spring 2013 competition. Miguel Angel defeated Chor Wei and Mei Jing beat Max who joined from the Intermediate group to try Advanced out.

Ranking after Round 3

Wilson and Bryant did not have time to play their competition match but they did get their practice with casualquick games: Bryant tried his luck against Mei Jing and Wilson played against Richard Takasumi who paid a quick visit as guest. With the move of the Takasumi family to Discovery Bay we look forward to see Richard become member too!

Chor Wei front and Max (back) look at the games Bryant vs Mei Jing and guest Richard (white shirt) vs Miguel Angel

New Members and Visitors Mark the first week after Easter

April 15th, 2013

With pleasure we see that the Intermediate Group was almost complete present on 11 April, the first meeting after the Easter break: Ian, Maxwell, Jonathan, Franz, Jay and Sophie. With Mees hopefully joining from next time this group is ready to start the Intermediate Club competition, playing 1 game each week until end of season in June.

The Beginners Group from 1.30pm on Saturday 13 April was also well populated with Kaiden, Julien and Mikael present. James and Kian were there too trying the Saturday out and glad also that Gauri was there for the first time as a member now after having taken a few small-group lessons on Saturday morning. We hope to see Etienne, Mohamed and Ting Ting back soon as also for the Beginners Group we will start a competition. Finally, it was great to see three new girls visiting and trying some chess out. We would be heading towards a majority of girls in this group which would be a rather unique situation.

Kian (left back) having fun with Kaiden while in the foreground the two new visiting girls eagerly move their pieces at the same time...

Kian (left back) having fun with Kaiden while in the foreground the two new visiting girls Kaya (left) and Juliette eagerly move their pieces at the same time…

Mikael with sun glasses playing pawn game against Julien while Mei Jing watches

Gauri (right) on her first club meeting against Juliette who tried for the first time

The Advanced Group from 3.30pm started their first round of the competition already. The games could not be finished in time and are adjourned to next week when we will get the results: Bryant vs. Mei Jing and Wilson vs. Chor Wei. Miguel Angel had a bye and hopefully we will see Gerent next week and also Ruaidhri when his schedule allows.

On Saturday there is now availability for 2 participants in the 11-11.45am small-group class and for 1 participant in the 12-12.45pm class.

Round 1 Youth Competition 2012-13

September 7th, 2012

After having warmed up since June, finally the first Thursday of September had arrived … to start the competition.

We had a special evening because the Discovery College squad to participate in the Quarry Bay ESF organized chess tournament had joined for their chess practice.

Full House Round 1 Caissa Chess Club Hong Kong Youth Tournament

Max smiling as Miguel and Krijn (foreground) and the two Aryans (background) meet on the board

Round 1 was fireworks all over the place. Etienne had just a lonely king but Connor did not know how to move his pieces into a check mate plan and because of repeat of moves this game resulted in a draw. Something similar happened with Bryant and Chor Wei, when Bryant won on time but with only a king left, without check mate potential, the game ended in a draw. After the game Chor Wei was explained how to give check mate with two rooks (extra) and next time a situation like this will definitely result in a win.

Aleesha, who preferred to stand and was a bit far from the clock … lost on time against Lucas and because Meijing lost against Jonathan it was Manon who saved the girls’ honor by winning from Julien who tried out chess for the first time. Well done Manon, but also very good effort from Julien – keep it up!

Despite a good fight Jay could not hold Wilson and Krijn could not stop Miguel Angel from winning. Max lost a bravely played game against Aryan Shetty and Aryan Jain beat Ginu in a tough game.

Finally Ruaidhri beat Vaibhav and Mees scored a point against Franz.

Ranking after Round 1

Chess Youth Training Started

June 7th, 2012

On the first chess meeting we welcomed Jonathan, Bryant, Wilson, Jay, Miguel Angel and Mei Jing as our first six youth members.

Starting off with some causal chess and walking through the basic rules, we later practiced 10 minutes per person chess with all players playing twice against one another.

After this we played some simultaneous chess and did some puzzles.

Next week’s schedule is as follows:

6pm-6.30pm: group 1 (Miguel Angel, Wilson and Bryant): the pin; group 2 (Mei Jing, Jonathan and Jay): concepts of the opening.
6.30pm-7.30pm: first competition of 2 games in each group (writing down the moves).
7.30pm-8pm: optional time for casual chess with choices between blitz chess, simultaneous chess or transfer chess, or preparing to go home.