All 16 players were present last Sunday for round 2 of the Youth Grand Prix 2. Only James, Ronald and Teddy remain unbeaten with Teddy the new leader of the pack after round 2!
Results Round 2 YGP 2
Crosstable and Ranking after Round 2
Pairing Round 3 YGP2
Differences are really small in the very strong line-up of Hong Kong’s best youth players. Last Sunday we saw 3 draws on the first three board.
On board 1 Benjamin moved his white pieces to active squares trying to crack Miguel Angel’s Philidor – but Miguel Angel’s position held well and just as the black pieces were about to leap out into white territory Miguel Angel offered a draw. With almost all pieces still on the board and with only a minute left for Benjamin, he wisely accepted the draw. Stress levels are high at this tournament. That, and perhaps the toll of the Shenzhen tournament still played that same morning, can explain why Miguel Angel offered a draw – a minute, without increment, is really a short time to survive. The game was in any case a wortwhile event in itself to watch and nothing but applause for both Benjamin and Miguel Angel.
James (white ) and Ronald in Deep Though (or are they hiding for the camera?)
On board 2, James against Ronald, we also had the time dimension echoing into the game. With little time left on the clock James was still calmly walking around looking at other games but when he finally had created himself a winning end game of rook with few pawns against knight with less pawns James had no time enough to finish it and he had to head fast towards a draw.
Oliver, a little sick, faced Richard, who also had just come back from Shenzhen, and in a double rook end game the boys settled for a draw as there seemed to have been some perpetual elements on the board and they both looked genuinely tired.
Andy, who actually also was participating in Shenzhen, got stuck in traffic and his opponent Rachel won by default, as did Mei Jing because Ray could not make it.
Harold won against Marco, Teddy beat Sabrina, Samach beat Samuel and Steven won against Toby.
With the top 4, actually the top 8 players so close to each other anything can happen next week. A BYE has not been allowed anymore since round 5 and hopefully most players will make it next Sunday or will be able to arrange their game to be played before Sunday under parental supervision.
Last Sunday on board 1 the only two undefeated players, James Wing Ki and Miguel Angel were facing off to stay on top. James opened d4 against Miguel Angel who choose and Old Indian set-up in the same spirit of playing his Philidor weapon against e4. After 28 moves the game was agreed to be a draw but it is somehow unfortunate that young players agree on draws when the board is still full of adventures to explore.
James, Wing Ki with white vs Miguel Angel
On board 2 Ronald and Andy played the longest game of the evening, won by Ronald. On board 3 Benjamin won against Marco in a game that was simply played too fast as was what happened on board 4 with Oliver winning against Ray.
Ronald Choy
On board 5 Rachel beat Sabrina and on board 6 we had a thriller between Richard and Teddy in a rook vs. bishop end game – after Ronald vs. Andy, the longest game. Although technically it should have been a draw, under various kinds of pressure, like Teddy having to return to Shenzhen, Teddy made a mistake and Richard scored an important point.
Teddy vs. Richard aka Bishop vs. Rook endgame
Wing Shun Harold played more concentrated and motivated than Mei Jing which translated into a deserved win for Harold. Steven, despite being some material down in the beginning against Samach, managed to win a queen by double attack and thus won his game as did Toby against Samuel early in the evening.
With 4 players with 4 points all playing against each other next week we will have a great Sunday to look forward to – anything can happen!
Ranking after 5 Rounds and Pairing Round 6
After 3 rounds Benjamin triumphantly leads with 3 straight wins after defeating Sabrina last Sunday. He is closely followed by James and Miguel Angel who won their games against Harold and Samach respectively.
Ronald, Rachel and Teddy had straightforward wins against the youngest players Louis, Samuel and Steven. Ray played precise, with confidence and winning appetite against Thomas who actually played a good game but Ray’s energy was overwhelming. In chess, skills, knowledge, calculation and inspiration are all magnified when combined with the absolute will to win. Today it was Ray who was energized more. Tomorrow, an energized Thomas will win his game – and thus by playing chess we all gain qualities that are useful in real life!
Coming back from dubious philosophy to the competition, Richard and Mei Jing played a tense game that ended with a king and few pawns against king with few pawns in a Stonewall set-up: draw. In the longest game of the day Andy with white managed to beat Oliver by controlling an open file with his rook which he placed on the 7th rank; and according to the great Nimzowitsch this is a decisive advantage. Marco had a 0.5 points BYE for not being able to play today and Toby got a full point BYE due to odd number of players.
Rank After Round 3
Autumn Open
Because of the tournament in Singapore in which Caissa participated with several teams, round 1 last Friday of the Autumn Open only had 3 games going with BYEs from James, Richard, Koji, Hannah and David.
The game between the two youth players Toby and Ray ended with a win for Toby. Melvin, another youth, lost with white against Henry and Joseph, number 2 in the winter competition earlier this year beat Michel who, perhaps still a little bit jet lagged, blundered a rook.
An interesting game in the next round will definitely be between Joseph and Hannah who in the last winter competition had an intense and explosive game.
Rank after R1 Caissa Atumn Open 2014
Pairing R2 Caissa Atumn Open 2014
Autumn YGP1
Also in this group last Sunday we had 5 BYEs from Richard, James, Miguel Angel, Harold and Mei Jing who were playing for Caissa in Singapore.
Nonetheless we had some interesting results.
On board 1 Benjamin scored a win against Andy who in the previous round had beaten Richard, one of Caissa’s best youth. And on board 2 Sabrina continued her winning streak against Steven who had managed to beat Marco in the previous round.
Samach, who had a BYE last week drew against Oliver on board 3 and on board 4 Ronald was back winning against Teddy after his last week loss against Benjamin.
On board 5 Marco made no mistake this time and scored a point against Toby while on board 6 the advantage in the game moved back and forth between Thomas and Samuel, finally ending with a win for Samuel.
On board 7 Ray played a solid Philidor against Rachel but a small miscalculation resulted in material loss and a point for Rachel.
Louis had a BYE.
the new pairing will be announced every Thursday with Wednesday the cut-off to request a BYE (only 2 BYEs allowed in first 4 rounds).
Rank after R2 Caissa Atumn YGP1 2014
On Saturday 5 July Mr. Mao, the coach of a group of 24 youth players from Fu Hao Chess Club in Nan Chang, Jianxi province, maneuvered his players to our Discovery Bay chess club for a friendly match over 6 rounds against 24 of our Caissa team players.
The Teams of Fu Hao and Caissa on the Stairs in North Plaza Discovery Bay
Before the players worked through the full 6 rounds they first exchanged their favorite book with their opponent before round 1 – a gesture to underline the friendly and Youth Exchange character of the match.
Then … some 50 chess hungry children were set loose and with the uncompromising energy of young minds the pieces dazzled over the boards towards ecstatic wins, dramatic losses, beautiful miniatures, unexpected stalemates and other memorable turns of events.
When the dust settled after 6 rounds, Fu Hao Team D had scored 21 points versus 14 points by Caissa and as such the Team Prize went to Fu Hao. Big thanks to Sydney Lai, from Aktive Kids, who brought in a few of the youngest and freshest players into our team to savor the taste of an International Match so early in their career. Sydney’s help in controlling this super creative group was instrumental to the steady proceedings in this group.
Teams D in Action
Teams D Ready for Action
The best scoring and undefeated Caissa player, Charles, on his first tournament scored 4.5 points. But the two top scorer players were from Fu Hao, Ye Ya Rong and Chen Yan Yang, with 5 points. Yan Yang could finally collect the Top Scorer Prize in this group on tie-break, having more wins than Ya Rong. Congratulations!
Chen Yan Yang Top Scorer Group D
Fu Hao Winning Team Group D
Group D Caissa Team
In Group C Caissa’s Ray was top scorer until he lost in the last round and saw his 4 points to be insufficient to hold Ma Yan Wu from becoming top scorer with 5 points and together with his team mates win the Team Prize with 18 points versus 13 points of Hong Kong. Congratulations to Fu Hao prize winners and big bravo to our Caissa players who stayed focused the entire match.
Teams C in Action
Fu Hao’s Ma Yan Wu Top Scorer Team C
Fu Hao Winning Team C
Team C Caissa
Team B consisted of some of Hong Kong’s best players in their age group. In total 4 players ended with 5 points as top scorer: Thomas, Harold, Samira and Deng Chun Wen from Fu Hao. Samira won the Top Scorer prize on tie-break and together with her team mates also won the Team Prize with 22.5 points versus 13.5 points scored by Fu Hao Team. Well done all!
Team B in Action
Samira Top Scorer Team B
Caissa Winning Team B
Fu Hao Team B
Caissa’s Team A, finally, was populated with some of Hong Kong’s finest players among whom James put on the most impressive show of the day by winning all his 6 games, closely followed by Richard scoring 5.5 points. With the solid scores of the other team mates the Caissa team won the Team Prize with an overwhelming 24 points versus 12 points for Fu Hao. Good job boys!
Lunch “Break” at Team A Table
Team A in Starting Position
James Top Scorer team A with 6 out of 6! Best result of the day.
Caissa Winning Team A
A warm thanks to Mr. Mao for bringing in his players and enabling all 50 children to have a great time – and thanks for the introduction behind the scenes Allen and Grace!
All individual results are here:
Team A
Team B
Team C
TEAM D
On Sunday morning the Fu Hao team visisted the Caissa Sheung Wan club venue for a short training in whihc we explored teh Dutch opening and the Scheveningen variation of the Sicilian opening.
An impression of the event through photos can be found on our Album Fu Hao Chess Club from Nan Chang Visits Sheung Wan for Training.
On 14 June over 110 youth players made their way to Bradbury School to participate in the Active Kids yearly scholastic. We recommend AK tournaments: well balancing both being relaxed and well organized. The recommendation we passed on to all our members/students and as such a group of 17 Caissa members/students went up the mountains behind Happy Valley to compete for both individual and school prizes (adding up points of the top 3 players of a school in an age category).
Joshua warms up with Wo Hang while Jay watches and in the background Thomas and Louis do their warming up
James, Lucas, Wo Hang, Miguel Angel and Ritvik have other ideas about warming up …
Our Caissa crew defended the honor of following schools:
In the Secondary Age Group, Lucas played his very first tournament and as a Secondary 1 player he found himself in tough competition from older students. Having gotten used a little bit to tournament play, Lucas played stronger towards the end and scored a win against a tough opponent. This was a good experience and the way Lucas has progressed at the club hints towards much more to expect from him in the near future.
Lucas is ready to start – let’s shake hands!
Cross Table Final Ranking Secondary
In the P5-P6 Age Group our club’s top seed Richard exceptionally had to concede two losses which pushed him just out of the prize zone. Of course that can happen to the very best – but Richie will be back!
Ray’s fast progress through Step 2 and (about to finish) Step 3 in less than 6 months translated into a solid 3 points in this strong field – perhaps a loss here and there could have been avoided too and we will work on that surely.
Jay, who hadn’t played a tournament for a long while, scored 2 points and his schoolmate Samira couldn’t find her rythm today – it happens to all of us. Great effort and no worries!
Despite the late deliveray of McDonalds, lunch at the Caissa table was enjoyed in a nicely shaded area.
Joshua, also at his first tournament, had 2 points among which a good win in the last round. Again, the “experience points” are what count on your first tournament, nothing else. We welcome Joshua to the world of tournament players and let’s gradually improve.
Cross Table Final Ranking P5-P6
In the P3-P4 Age Group the club had the biggest representation.
Saga had an off-day, but still her 1.5 points mattered a lot. Together with the points of Mei Jing and Miguel Angel, the three of them managed to win the 3rd Prize for Discovery College in this age category. As there was another 3rd Prize winner they will receive their trophy soonest to put in the Discovery College trophy corner. Well done!
Thomas scored 2.5 points and Howard scored 3 points. The boys did their very best and it is somewhat unfortunate that these fine results yet still conceal their true strength – by the way they are progressing at the club we look forward to see more of their full potential unleashed in their next appearances!
Pak scored well over 50% with 3.5 points and Meijing with 4 points (winning the prize for Best Girl in P3-P4: congrats!), and even more so Wo Hang on his first tournament scoring 4 points as well, can all be proud of these results.
Mei Jing is ready and Pak makes sure he takes another sip of water.
Miguel Angel, the club’s top seed in this age category, despite having slept little watching, and enjoying, his Dutch team trash the Spanish with 5-1 in the World Cup Football 2014 at 3am earlier in the morning, did good business and became Champion of P3-P4 by only allowing 1 (perpetual check) draw.
The top 4 players, Miguel Angel, vs. Adrian and Sabrina vs. Ben, in the last round.
Cros Table Final Ranking P3-P4
In the P1-P2 Age Category we had 3 players giving it their all. Louis, likely the youngest player in this group, managed to get 2.5 points and James scored 3 points. Well done boys.
Ritvik with 4 points, losing only to the numbers 2 and 3, did great heavy lifting and we expect a further break through any moment soon based on his solid performance during the lessons.
James, Louis and Ritvik getting ready in their own ways …
Cross Table Final Ranking P1-P2
Finally, a big thank you to AK for allowing us to still register players at late notice. That is the spirit – let the children play and enjoy!
Miguel Angel, Mei Jing, Samira and Saga leaving Bradbury School. Another trophy still to be received for Discovery College by courtesy of Miguel Angel, Mei Jing and Saga!
On the 5th consecutive day of rain, thunderstorms and ligthing our 10 May club meeting started with discussing rooks – a thundering white rook that had penetrated onto the 7th rank versus the black rook miserably protecting its b-pawn from b8.
Discussing the Relative Value of Rooks
In the middle Suneh watches Ian warm up with Chor Wei up before Round 19
Maximilien warming up with white against Joshua – on the second board we see creative play with the black queen from Alex M against Saga …
In round 19 Joshua did good business to walk into a stalemate against Ian and Jay scored an important win against Suneh. Seth managed to play out his advantage on the board against Roshan before his time was up and as such Seth climbed further up, meeting the player in top form, Ian, in round 20. Ian won this game.
Round 19 Results
Round 20 Results
Jay beat Kian and Joshua beat Maximilien in round 20 which resulted in Wo Hang, who was absent in the last 2 rounds, moving to 4th place. It is not clear who can stop Ian from becoming champion but the race is still full on for the 2nd and 3rd place.
Ranking after 20 Rounds
In the last round in the adult group Daniel pressured James position such that a collapse was just a matter of time. And when it came Daniel had secured first place with an impressive 4.5 points out of 5. His trophy is awaiting him on 1 March at the Open Winter Blitz.
Joseph won a piece in the middle game against Hannah and despite Hannah being able to get some pawns back, Joseph’s minor pieces majority constantly eyed the weaknesses around Hannah’s pawn majority which could not get enough traction for serious counter play.
Final Ranking
In the youth group Ronald got his last point through a win by default as his opponent did not show up. Despite Rachel, after a long game against Arjun, also won her last game and ended with 6 points like Ronald, it is Ronald who by tie-break became champion and he can collect his trophy coming Saturday at the Open Winter Blitz finals. Also congratulations to Rachel for a good result.
Hugo called in sick and as Oliver had canceled earlier this seventh and last round had to be reshuffled so that both Mei Jing and Jonathan could play – against one another. And what a game it was. Mei Jing managed to win a piece early in the game with white but Jonathan gradually collected several pawns for this piece and in the endgame it was Mei Jing who had to try to hold a draw with her knight against 3 pawns. The game finally ended in a draw with two lonely kings on the board. Well done Jonathan and Mei Jing – that is fighting spirit we like to see.
Regis gave away several important squares to Miguel Angel which weakened the coordination of his pieces. Miguel Angel benefited well from this and gained material advantage enough for a calm win.
Final Ranking Youth Cross Table
The Winter 2014 competition has herewith ended and we look forward to see many of these players back on Saturday 1 March when we will formally conclude the winter with an Open Blitz Finale.
At our Sheung Wan location seven students invested 4 hours of their vacation, 2 hours on Monday and 2 hours on Tuesday, to participate in our holiday-break chess clinic.
We looked at various ideas behind openings (open, closed, semi-open/closed, flank) focusing on the French Advance variation; an instructive semi-open opening to become familiar with occupation of center space and attacking the center from the flank.
Talking about the Pin
After a brief exploration of king pawn endgames and associated critical squares we further discussed some of the greatest chess players like Philidor and the World Champions Steinitz, Lasker and Carlson and what they brought to chess. In between each topic we played 5 minutes blitz chess.
After some exercises around the Pin we played a 10 minutes blitz team match of blind chess: Gauri, Mei Jing, Ray and Adrien in one corner of the room were only allowed to look at and move their own black pieces while Horatio, Ian and Miguel Angel in another corner of the room could only see and move their white pieces. They needed to cooperate as a team and two cheats were allowed … 20 moves later, after time was up for the black team, in a very equal position, the match was completed with all pieces on the board.
The graduates … always in for a joke …
It was fun
