Caissa Hong Kong Chess Club

chess in hong kong

Hong Kong Juniors Championship 2013

November 11th, 2013

On Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 November the Kowloon Technical School turned into a venue for 150 players to compete for the title of Hong Kong Junior Champion 2013 in their respective age categories of U7 through U18. Our Caissa youth participated in the U7 and U10 age categories.

Under 7

Players U7 started on Sunday afternoon to work through 7 rounds of 10 minutes per person blitz games. Mei Jing Garceran Wang was Caissa’s only representative and hope in this age group and she started off very well with 4 straight wins.

In the 5th round her ferocious attack with black was leaving too many weak squares in her own defense; enough for Aaditya Kadam to win material such that Mei Jing, having to think too long, lost on time.

In round 6, a piece up against Harold Kwong, Harold still found a way to achieve perpetual check. An unlucky draw for Mei Jing, however, in round 7 against Tommy Yau, Mei Jing crawled through the eye of the needle managing to checkmate her oponnent in a very bad position.

Give and take, the end result of the top 5 did justice to all players who remained very close. Mei Jing ended 4th and was again the best girl of Hong Kong in U7. Well done!

Final Ranking U7 HK Juniors 2013

Mei Jing and Harold in Round 6

Prize Winners U7

Under 10

Caissa’s 5 players Richard Takasumi, Chor Wei Tang, Gerent Lee, Samira Salwan (all Discovery Bay Club) and Ray Sze (Sheung Wan Club) competed in the largest group of 78 players. Miguel Angel Garceran Wang, being sick, had to stay home and could not participate.

Ray, playing for the first time in this age group, scored 2.5 points ending on 59th place. Samira, who unfortunately missed the first game, still scored 4 points to climb up to 28th position in the end. Gerent, also playing in this age group for the first time, scored 4 points like Samira and ended 20st.

Samira with white stays calm with the black queen on her back rank

Chor Wei played his best national championship tournament so far scoring 5 points to end with the same amount of points as number 6, Ronald Choy, but on tie-break finally ranked 15th. Good progress!

Richard, who ended number 2 last year scored 6 points to end shared 2nd with James Kwong (last year’s champion) but on tie-break finally ended 3rd. Very impressive of these boys to continuously stay at the top – but this year’s champion was a 7 wins scoring girls, Chingchi Wong, from Shenzhen. Congratulations to you all.

Prize Winners U10

Final Ranking U10 (top 34 places)

Finally a quick congratulation to all prize winners in the other groups. In U13, especially for an impressive champion Benjamin Oh with 7 out of 7, and for last year’s U13 champion, and new champion in U18, Michael Yang, with 6.5 points.

Discovery College Students Bring Top Prizes Home from QBS all-ESF Primary Chess Tournament

October 6th, 2013

The second edition of the Quarry Bay School organized ESF schools Primary School chess tournament was a great success. In all aspects: weather, premisses, organization and … results!

The weather was excellent, probably a bit hot down at sea level, but up the mountain where QBS is housed, the wind (and aircon …) created a very pleasant atmosphere. The organization of the event was outsourced to chesskids and the entire event was very well managed, child-friendly and professional.

Different from last year the Discovery College students had not specifically trained for this event as 7 out of the 8 players already train or play with Caissa on a weekly basis.

Left to right: Saga, Mei Jing, Ashlin, Maxwell, Chor Wei, Richard, Miguel Angel, Arnav

Upper Primary (P5-P6)

Chor Wei, who played very well last year in the Lower Primary scoring 4.5 points scored a very decent 3.5 points in this section.

Ashlin played her first tournament ever and scored 0.5 points after 4 rounds. Unfortunately she had to miss the second half of the event and likely therefore she missed out at least another point or two.

Richard, champion in this category last year, faced sure competition, particularly from his peer-talents James Kwong and Collin Wong, but managed to prolong his title with an impressive score of 6.5 out of 7.

Richard (left) Champion Upper Primary

Lower Primary (P1-P4)

Some of our players here played too fast, not atypical for this age group and nothing to worry about. With continuous play this will improve.

Saga, somewhat overestimating her opponents, scored 2.5 points ending 22nd. Similarly, Arnav, who last year scored 1.5 points, scored 2.5 points (ending 23rd) this year and as confidence grows, fear will make place for respect for the opponent and that is an important major break-through for all players.

Maxwell, who scored 3.5 points last year, improved his score with his 4 points this time and ended very respectably on 11th place. Surely more is within reach if the urge for speed can be better balanced.

Mei Jing, who last year scored 3 points, made the biggest improvement and with 6 points (only losing against her brother, school and chess club mate, Miguel Angel) she claimed 2nd prize, 1 full point loose from number 3.

Miguel Angel, last year’s champion with 6.5 points, was unstoppable and with his 7 points 100% score he claimed the 1st prize again, convincingly.

Miguel Angel and Mei Jing (left) end 1st and 2nd respectively in Lower Primary

Miguel Angel 2013 Dutch Open (ONJK.NL) Champion U8

August 11th, 2013

From 5-10 August 2013 over 200 youth players from 7 until 18 years old played in the 39th edition of the Dutch Youth Open. In the category U10, 79 players in four sub-age groups, from U7 to U10, played in one group battling over 13 rounds for the title of Open Dutch Champion (daily reports U10 category – in Dutch).

Caissa’s Miguel Angel Garceran Wang, after a slow start, ended shared 5th in U10 (number 9 on tie-break). In the U8 his 9 points were enough to crown him Open Dutch Champion in this age category (final ranking U10) 2 points ahead of number 2 in U8! Impressive by any standard. Well done Miguel Angel!

Miguel Angel with Champion Trophy U8 together with best girl U8 and the numbers 2 to 4.

ONJK 2013 all Prize Winners

Caissa’s Mei Jing started to focus better in the second half of the tournaments and ended with 6 points 55th in the U10 and 3rd in U7, but unfortunately U7 did not have its own sub-group prizes. Still, good recovery Mei Jing!

Mei Jing and Miguel Angel with their proud mom

Many thanks to ONJK organization for their child friendly, relaxed but very professional approach. Children will want to come back. As Caissa club we are motivated to try to reach this benchmark set by ONJK in any future tournament we would organize.

Dutch Youth Open – Miguel Angel Leads Category U8 after 8 rounds

August 9th, 2013

In small town Borne in the Netherlands a big chess event is taking place: the Open Dutch Youth Championship, a prestigious tournament held since 1975.

Miguel Angel and Mei Jing at the entrance to the ONJK Jeugd Schaak Kampioenschap (youth chess championship)

From Caissa we have Miguel Angel and his sister Mei Jing participating. The players in age groups U7, U8, U9 and U10 (H, G, F, E groups respectively) play in one large group but compete for the title and prizes in their own age categories. The tournament is played over 13 rounds and is just because of that one of the most demanding events in youth chess.

After 8 rounds, Miguel Angel with 6 points is ranked 9th in the whole group (U7-U10) and is first, one point loose from number two, in his U8 age category. Mei Jing ranks 6th in her U7 age group with 3 points out of 8.

Round 8: Thijmen Bourgonjen – Miguel Angel Garceran Wang (0-1)

It is striking again how child friendly this tournament is. We have seen several birthdays over the last couple of days and it is really the right thing to do to have the whole players group singing a happy birthday to the birthday boy/girl seated on a balloons decorated seat before the game.

Well done ONJK organizers!

Caissa Youth Very Successful at 4th Annual Scholastic Chess Tournament

June 24th, 2013

Arbiter Alberto Muniz in Control

After three days of extreme heat and clear skies it was only natural a typhoon late Friday night would challenge the 4th Scholastic Chess Tournament on Saturday 22 June by passing by closely.

Fortunately (who wants a typhoon in the weekend anyway?!) the tournament could continue as planned and, successfully orchestrated by Alberto Muniz, supported by a team of chess veterans in Hong Kong, Active Kids’ Chess Academy pulled off yet another great event.

The tournament was played in five age categories, from Kindergarten (23 players!) to Secondary (also 23 players), and from Caissa we had the strongest line up ever in the three Primary School age categories. In a glance the players and their results:

Overview of Caissa’s Youth Players in 4th Annual Scholastic 22 June 2013

Out of our 12 members we have 6 prize winners: a more than respectable result! Glad to see also that Discovery College won their first chess prize ever: we have come from a long way just a year ago with only 2-3 players knowing the game well enough to consider a real tournament.

P1-P2 Age Group (40 players)

Both Gauri and Saga, who learned how to play chess only a few months ago, scored well above average for a first time tournament. Well done girls! James, only in his second tournament, also played well and had a bit of bad luck now and then.

Gauri drew with black against James and Saga would win her game with 3 extra queens ...

Gauri drew with black against James and Saga with with her hands on the white pieces would win her game with 3 extra queens …

Mei Jing (left) and Saga who played her first tournament

Mei Jing (left) and Saga more than ready

Mei Jing, who is improving fast nowadays, played very convincingly but with 4.5 points out of 5 games she was destined to play against her significantly more experienced club mates and friends, Gerent and Adrian, who were steaming in form and ended number 1 and 2 respectively only allowing a draw against one another. Congrats to all three of you with your prizes!

Round 5 Top 4 Players: Adrian (black ) against Harold and Mei Jing (black) against Gerent Ready

Round 5 Top 4 Players: Adrian (black ) against Harold and Mei Jing (black) against Gerent are Ready!

It must be said here further that Caissa’s close friend, Harold ending 4^th with 5.5 points just missed out 3^rd prize but confirmed his strong development since becoming U7 Hong Kong Champion two months ago.

Click here for final rank and cross-table of P1-P2.

P3-P4 Age Group (42 players)

Max started off very well with 3 out of 4, including a scholar mate in round 4 (!), but then, with such a high score facing former champions like Marco, did not find the right trigger in time to motivate himself. Similarly with Chor Wei who got off well with 2 out of 4 but let go here and there.

Chor Wei and Jay behind the black pieces

This is all part of getting up the learning curve – and it must also be said that this age category of 8-9 year old players could be the largest pool of Hong Kong’s strongest and talented players. In that context Jay, unfortunately the only player of Bradbury, did a very good job scoring 50%, showing also his recent form in Caissa’s Intermediate Group.

Miguel Angel showed again to be Caissa’s and Discovery College’s chess flagship by steering to 2^nd place, probably the only P3 student among the top 15 consisting of P4 students. Good job Miguel Angel!

Miguel Angel and Max side by side with black about to accummule 2 points for Discovery College

Miguel Angel and Max side by side with black about to accummulate 2 points for Discovery College

Here we also congratulate Caissa’s close friend, James, with his overwhelming first place with 7 points out of 7. James continues to impress!

Click here for final rank and cross-table P3-P4.

P5-P6 Age Group (22 players)

Bryant and Wilson, scoring 3.5 points each, were the proud winners of Discovery College’s first ever chess prize by ending 3^rd as a school team (adding up their points). Well done boys. As one of your final activities in Primary you have set the bar high now for the other students!

Click here for final rank and cross-table of P5-P6.

Bryant and Wilson Receiving 3rd Prize for Discovery College

Our Prize Winners (left to right): Adrian, Gerent, James, Miguel Angel, Mei Jing, Wilson and Bryant

Discovery College Prize Winners Posing

Gerent Lee, Champion P1-P2 appreciating both rewards …

Ten Caissa Members Participate in 4th Annual Scholastic Tournament

June 19th, 2013

The Chess Academy’s Annual Scholastic Tournament is likely to attract some 150 players in its 4th edition on 22 June. This event is becoming the de facto yearly end-of-school chess tournament: a tradition in the making!

In this tournament students play for both individual and for school prizes. As of today, Discovery College has 9 students, all Caissa players, in the line up and Caissa player Gerent Lee fights singlehandedly for Raimondi College.

P1-P2 Category

We got a strong line-up here of 3 girls and two boys. For Gauri and Saga it will be their first tournament, James played one before and the expectations are high for Mei Jing and Gerent Lee who are the ‘veterans’ in this group.

Gauri Swati (P1)
James Gui (P1)
Saga de Souter (P2)
Mei Jing Garceran Wang (P2)
Gerent Lee (P2) – playing for Raimondi College

P3-P4 Category

Both Max and Chor Wei have played a few tournaments and both were twice very close to a prize. Will this time be their break through? If no individual prizes, together with Miguel Angel we should expect several points for Discovery College in this age group. Go boys go!

Maxwell Moore (P3)
Chor Wei Tang (P4)
Miguel Angel Garceran Wang (P3)

P5-P6

Wilson Mueller and Bryant Chong can enjoy playing for the last time in Primary section. In the last year both players have evolved tremendously and although this age group is tough, points will surely be accummulated here!

Wilson Mueller (P6)
Bryant Chong (P6)

School World Chess Championship 2013: Mei Jing Garceran Wang ends 5th of the world in Girls U7!

May 17th, 2013

The School World Chess Championship 2013 in Halkidiki, Greece, has come to an end. Hong Kong’s official delegates to that championship, our Caissa players Miguel Angel Garceran Wang (U9 category) and his sister Mei Jing Garceran Wang (U7 girls category) had a great learning experience on and off the board spread out over 10 days and 9 rounds of tough chess.

The venue, Porto Carras is, at a distance of 1.5 hours drive away from the airport of Thessaloniki deep into a “tentacle” of one of the many peninsulas, a very remote place. With just one small tourist-less village nearby and with less than a handful of even smaller lifeless hamlets scattered around elsewhere, participants had little choice but to stay in the self-contained resort set-up. The weather partly rainy, and when the sun shone, too cold to swim, was good for indoor and some outdoor preparation for the chess event.

Preparation in the only nearby village easily accessible by ferry or car

The so-called 5-stars hotels at Porto Carras, impressive from the outside, reflected a troublesome state of maintenance with leaking roofs, elevators clearly in need of a touch-up, unstable wifi, malfunctioning aircons and various other small issues challenging the 5-star status. However, the 3 meals a day were well organized with a diverse choice of food and, in general, the service from and the attitude of the Greek were very pleasant and easy-going.

The tournament itself was, somewhat unfortunately for a world championship, completely unceremonious, but well organized and without incident.

Ready for round 1: special support from grandpa who came over from Holland

OPEN U9

Miguel Angel started off round 1 with a strong (rated 1616) player from England, Aditya Verma. Playing the Veresov-Richter attack, Miguel Angel came well out of the opening but made a positional mistake by going for a king side attack after black’s weak move 5. … Qa5: the center breakthrough was necessary to avoid havoc from the black knight eyeing a route via b6 to c4.

In game 3, against (1707 rated) Roumanian Stefan Taga similarly, Miguel having maneuvered his Philidor defense well through known waters, gave away both his win and draw chances by not trading pieces off towards an opposite colored bishop ending. Such is the level at a world championship like this in this age group that positional misjudgments become fatal.

Stefan Taga and Miguel Angel ready for their match in round 3.

Miguel Angel’s critical positions in round 1 and round 3

In the forthcoming rounds Miguel Angel would play strongly and whereas his wins were convincing, his losses were at times avoidable like the ones in round 1 and 3. It must also be said that lack of proper night rest could have affected the concentration. Both his father/coach, sick and bedridden for several days, and his sister, sick with an ongoing cough, kept the whole company in a light sleep for a whole week.

With 4 points Miguel Angel ended 45th of the world U9, but the learning from playing and analyzing the games was in any case invaluable and worth the efforts of getting to Porto Carras. Not bad Miguel Angel, as 8 years old in this age group!

GIRLS U7

Mei Jing started off with a solid 1.5 out of 3. The second game’s loss, in a winning position against Azarbaidzan Bailarova Jala, heralded a coming cough-flue though, that caught Mei Jing off balance, losing in round 4 against Mongolian Enkhasaran Batsaikhan with a queen up and in round 5 against United Arab Emirates Almaamari Zainab Darwish with a piece and pawn up.

Mei Jing’s winning positions in round 4 and 5 unfortunately did not translate into wins

Mei Jing’s recovery, despite midnight coughs of several hours, after round 5 was very strong. With 4 wins in a row in rounds 6 through 9 Mei Jing became 5th in the world for girls U7 and bring her medal home to Hong Kong. Well done Mei Jing!

Mei Jing ready for round 9 which turned into a crucial win against Sri Lanka Gamage M Nuwathi Silva

Mei Jing (3rd left) among the prize winners

Miguel somewhat disappointed but Mei Jing happy with her prizes among a proud mom and granddad

Caissa Youth Represent Hong Kong in School Chess World Championship in Greece May 6-15 2013

April 28th, 2013

Caissa is proud to see two of its pupils as Hong Kong’s official delegation to participate in the FIDE School World Chess Championship in May 2013.

Miguel Angel Garceran Wang, Hong Kong’s number 4 in the U8 group and National Champion blitz in U8 will play in the U9 category facing tough competition from around 80 top class players from Russia, Colombia, Turkey, England and dozens of other countries.

Mei Jing Garceran Wang, Hong Kong’s highest ranking girl in the U8 group will play in the U7 Girls category facing some 20 girls from 20 different countries.

We will be reporting regularly on this major event from next week.

Junior Rapid Chess Tournament Sunday 21 April

April 23rd, 2013

The German-Swiss School was host to a very well HKCF organized event on Sunday 21 April that attracted over 100 children of whom some 50 played in the Under 10 age group.

Congratulations to Michael Yang who could play in the Under 13 age group but played in and won first prize in Under 18 (9 players). Also congratulations to Benjamin Oh who won the Under 13 (20 players). Both players are well known at Caissa and performed very well in earlier Caissa organized events, like the Hong Kong – Macao Pearl Delta Cup.

The Under 10 age group was won by Ho Pang Huang, a strong player residing in Shenzhen, just ahead of local talent James Kwong who ended second on tie-break. Caissa’s Miguel Angel Garceran Wang ended 5th.

Congratulations, finally, to Harold Kwong who won the Under 7 age group (15 players) with 7 points out of 7: a worthy National Champion. Caissa’s Mei Jing Garceran Wang ended as first girl in this age group on the 5th place.

Prize Winners Per Age Group

Caissa Youth Take Home Prizes from Overseas Tournaments

January 2nd, 2013

17-21 December

The 29th Singapore National Open Championship took place in the week before Christmas. In the 9th and last round Miguel Angel Garceran Wang, in the Open Under 8 Category, unfortunately lost his game and consequently could not gain a top position but ended with 6 points on the 9th place.

Miguel Angel Garceran Wang (2nd from right) 9th Prize in 29th Singapore National Chess 2012

However, some of Miguel Angel’s games were very convincing, a prelude of what was to come in following 2 weeks.

Mei Jing Garceran Wang (4th from left) 6th Prize in 29th Singapore National Chess 2012

In the Girls Under 8 Category Mei Jing Garceran Wang started well with 4 points out of 4 games but ended after 9 rounds with 5 points on the 6th place and a nice trophy.

Mei Jing Celebrating Her First Overseas Prize

28 December

A city renowned in the Netherlands for strong youth players is Rotterdam of which the adjacent small town Capelle aan den IJssel once had a strong youth section conquering titles in Dutch national championships. And still now in 2012 the prestigious Open Capels Jeugdschaak Kampioenschap attracts good and promising youth players.

In the Open Category D (Under 10 years) both Miguel Angel and Mei Jing participated. Mei Jing scored 4 points and ended 16th but Miguel Angel was crowned Champion Under 10 years with the very impressive score of 10.5 out of 11 games. Well done!

It is very clear that such a small country like Holland, ending 6th in the latest Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, just behind some former USSR states, China and the USA, knows how to organize and attract young players. It is difficult to exactly describe how or why this “child friendly atmosphere generating” youth tournament differs from the “clinical and no-nonsense atmosphere” in youth tournaments held in this part of the world; but it could well be a contributing factor in keeping youth players interested even after they turn 14 years old – the moment in various places in this part of the world chess participation collapses.

02 January

Chess club Tornado, in the Dutch small town Druten held its regional IJSCO “jeugd schaaknacht” (youth chess night) on 2 January 2013 that attracted over 80 participants from around the region of East Holland. Again, in an ambiance attractive to and motivating for children, Miguel Angel (7 points out of 7 games in group H) and Mei Jing (5 points in group J) won 1st and 3rd prize respectively after a night of hard work (final ranking).

Miguel Angel Garceran Wang Overcoming Opponents of Different Size and Age

Meijing Garceran Wang Awaiting Her Prize

It is good to see that Caissa youth is internationally competitive and it is highly recommendable to play chess in different settings. In 2013 Caissa will aim to coordinate participation in overseas or international tournaments for a larger group of Caissa youth.

Stay tuned.