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Alberto Pardino Muniz Wins Hong Kong Chess Open 2012

October 30th, 2012

Round 7 was both the last and the decisive round in this years edition of the Hong Kong Open.

The winner of the match between Alberto Muniz with white and Luen-Wah Luk, both with 5 points and undefeated, would be the winner of the tournament. However, in a evenly balanced end of the middle game with both players just 3 minutes on the clock, Alberto accepted Luen-Wah’s draw offer, hence both players ended with 5.5 points.

 

Luen-Wah Luk (front left) contemplating his first move against Alberto Muniz while David Garceran Nieuwenburg (left back) and Brian Shin already entered the middle game.

 

On board 2, Caissa’s David Garceran Nieuwenburg, with 4.5 points played with black against Brian Shin with 4 points. Brian cleverly solved David’s rather wild king side assault but could not convert his better position into a permanent advantage. When the position finally cleared up David was a piece up. Brian did not go for a perpetual check option but his attempt to force the matter resulted in his loss. David now joined the ranks of Alberto and Luen-Wah with 5.5 points.

Sydney L.W. Lai, also with 4.5 points could also have ended with 5.5 points if he would have gotten more out of the game against C.K. Yeung than a draw. But C.K. had already proven to be a tough opponent throughout the tournament and the end game looked indeed like both sides were drawishly locked behind their long pawn chains.

 

Billy Lo (front left) against Seth Levine and Sydney Lai (back left) against C.K. Yeung

 

Billy Lo and Seth Levine played for a top 5 spot. Billy’s 2. c3 set-up against Seth’s Sicilian resulted in a very equal game where only at the very end Seth was a little more precise enough to claim the full point.

Michael Yang with white broke into Ian Scott’s weakened queen side to achieve a permanent positional and material advantage enough for a full point. Well done Michael!

Jake C.L. Chan defeated Joe Yiu-Cho Lau and Gregory Lloyd beat Antonia Lee.

Caissa’s Peter Whalley won against Ngai Yeung. Surely we expect after this tournament Peter to have recovered a bit from 20 years of chess hibernating and we look forward to Peter’s coming performances.

Finally, congratulations to Alberto Muniz who among the 3 players with 5.5 points had the best scoring opponents and deservedly won the Hong Kong Chess Open 2012.

 

Final ranking after 7 rounds in Hong Kong Chess Open 2012

Hong Kong Open Chess 2012 Round 6

October 23rd, 2012

As this competition takes place over just 7 rounds, the 6th round last Monday turned into an evening with impact. To start with, Caissa’s David Garceran Nieuwenburg with white could not get his rhythm into the game against Alberto Muniz. The queen’s pawn opening, responded to by black with 1 … g6, turned into a Sicilian which was a strong weapon enough in the hands of Alberto to hand David his first defeat.

L.W. Luk (FM), with white also, accumulated incremental positional advantages such that C.K. Yeung found his pieces too loosely coordinated to stop white’s victory. In the last round next week we have the pleasure of anticipating some fireworks between L.W. Luk and Alberto – the winner becoming the champion. A draw, however, still offers David G.N. and Sydney S.W. Lai perspectives to claim the title as well if they would win their games next week.

And Sydney is in hot steaming form, very fast on the clock and creatively aggressive, as Aravind Mahadevan experienced well last Monday, losing with the white pieces.

Brian Shin climbed up to 5th place by defeating Michael Yang and he will face David G.N. next week.

Billy Lo climbed up to 7th position by winning from Ian Scott; Ian’s first loss over the board. Seth Levine beat Jake C.L. Chan and next week we can expect another firework match between Seth and Billy.

It’ll be interesting next week.

Rank after 6 rounds and pairing for round 5 in Hong Kong Chess Open 2012

Hong Kong Open Chess 2012 Round 5

October 16th, 2012

In what could have been an interesting night with the top 8 players facing one another, the sudden absence of Billy Lo and Seth Levine, and consequently the respective “wins” for Aravind Mahadevan and Alberto Muniz, who came for nothing, was disappointing. It is not good for the Hong Kong chess scene, fragile in various ways, that such things happen rather frequently.

Numbers 1 and 2, Caissa’s David Garceran Nieuwenburg and Chun Keung Yeung did show up. Although C.K., with white, tried to simplify the position by trading most of the pieces, his two knights that remained on the board were too weak to defend a weakened queen side pawn formation and to handle David’s bishop and knight heading towards that direction to reap havoc there.

Number 3, Luen-Wah Luk (FM) played against the just-turned 12 year old number 5, Michael Yang. Luen-Wah found a way to penetrate the white fortress along the h-file and Michael could not hold the position when both black rooks and the black queen were moving about the second and third ranks.

Michael Yang (left) setting up the pieces with Luen-Wah after a tough fight

Ian Scott, with white, faced Caissa’s Peter Walley’s Scandinavian and although Peter damaged the white position considerably in the middle game, Ian somehow managed to maneuver his heavy artillery onto the black’s king side with a winning attack.

Finally, in the top half of the ranking, Sydney Lai started a wild looking offensive that overwhelmed Jake Chan’s black pieces and puts Sydney back in the top 4.

Next week we’ll see David and Alberto play for the first spot with still good chances for all players in the the top 9 to stay in the race.

Rank after 5 rounds and pairing for round 6 in Hong Kong Chess Open 2012

 

Hong Kong Open Chess 2012 Round 4

October 10th, 2012

After a couple of weeks after round 3, on Monday 8 October round 4 was played in the Hong Kong Open 2012 at Queen Elisabeth Stadium. The round started a little later than 6.30pm due to missing boards, but it went on smoothly after that.

Seth Levine, the rank leader after 3 rounds, saw his position deteriorate against Luen-Wah Luk quickly and had to admit defeat rather soon.

Billy Lo’s loss to C.K. Yeung and the win of David Garceran Nieuwenburg against Sydney Lai (in a Veresov (against) French with Nf6), couples David now to C.K., both with 3.5 points at the top of the table, to a match next week in round 5.

Alberto Muniz put his white pieces such that Brian Shin on the black side had no more good moves left despite the board being full with pieces. Alberto’s 3rd straight win keeps him at a 100% score and he will meet Seth and the young talent Michael Yang, who also scored his 3rd win, will meet the unbeaten Leun-Wah in round 5.

From the bottom we see two forces emerge, both Ian Scott, who missed the first 2 rounds, and Peter Whalley, who was rusty the first 2 rounds, are gradually moving up to where they belong … but in round 5 they will meet each other first …

Rank after 4 rounds and pairing for round 5 in Hong Kong Chess Open 2012

 

Hong Kong Open Chess Round 3

September 18th, 2012

Last Monday in round 3 Seth Levine and Chun Keung Yeung agreed to a draw. Billy Lo and David Garceran Nieuwenburg had played their game on Saturday already, which also resulted in a draw, and with Sydney Sai Ling Wai winning his game against Brian Shin the top five players now all share 2.5 points.

Closely following with 2 points are five players, of which Alberto Pardino Muniz and Luen-Wah Luk stand out a bit. Alberto only played two games and Luen-Wah remains unbeaten with a win and 2 draws, the last draw against Jake Chi Loon Chan who with this excellent result scored 1.5 points and is, for now, just out of the top 10.

In the second half of the league we see that Peter Whalley, Hysan Lai Hei Wong and Jefferson Lee scored their first win and definitely more is to come, also from Scott Ian who returned from the Chess Olympiads in Turkey (representing Hong Kong) seemingly well warmed up to score a full point in his first game in round 3.

Rank after round 3

Round 4 will be played on October 8 because players will be preparing for the Hong Kong International Open played on five consecutive days from 28 September to 3 October 2012.

 

Hong Kong Open 2012 Chess Tournament Started

September 4th, 2012

Last Monday, 3 September, the HKCF (Hong Kong Chess Federation) organized Hong Kong Open started in the Queen Elisabeth Stadium. The competition will be played over 7 rounds among 24 players. Two of these combatants, Peter Whalley and David Garceran Nieuwenburg, are our Caissa chess club members.

Peter unfortunately faced the only FIDE Master in the tournament, Luen Wah Luk, already in round 1. Despite some chess warming up on Thursdays at Caissa, Peter, with black playing a Scandinavian, is still a bit rusty after years of chess inactivity. Let’s see what happens in round 2 against Aravind Mahadevan next week.

David played a Sokolsky (again) and faced some troubles against a Queen Indian set-up with 1. … b6 and a later unexpected … d5. In the end game it surely helped David to the win when Ching Yuen Hui blundered away his queen in a somewhat equal position. Round 2 next week will be against Gordan Yu.

Cross table after Round 1 Hong Kong Open Chess Sept-Oct 2012