Caissa Hong Kong Chess Club

chess in hong kong

IM Marcos Llaneza wins 4th Discovery Bay Rapid Open

December 1st, 2014

Caissa 4th Discovery Bay Open Rapid

Show me the whole photo album first before I start reading!

The 4th edition of Caissa’s Discovery Bay Open Rapid last Saturday went smooth. We were glad to again have guests coming over from Shenzhen and we were also happy to see some of Hong Kong’s highest rated players, including ‘local chess celebrity’ Daniel Lam and International Master Marcos Llaneza from Spain, join us in our cozy corner of Hong Kong.

Thanks Rapid Moms for bringing in your children from far away in Hong Kong and as far as Shenzhen.

We also look back with modest pride to our very own Caissa members, especially our youth players, who definitely made a strong impact and grossed 8 out of the 11 prizes available!

As always in our Open events, players of all age categories were mixed and played against one another, young against more experienced. Youth players, however, played for prizes in their respective age categories of U8 (2007 or earlier), U10 (2005/6) and U12 (2003/4).

Young against experienced …

In the U8 category Noah (1.5 points) and Kian and Ritvik (both 2 points – note that Ritvik had missed the first 3 rounds) got used after several rounds to the nerves of tournament play and as they began to play slower they started collecting points.

Ritvik U10 playing against Samuel U12

Kian in action

Result corner – the most important place in the venue … Seth making sure he is still on top!

It was however our guest player from Shenzen, Jin Hao, also with 2 points, who won 2nd prize ahead of Kian and Ritvik on tie-break. Yet, with 3 points, the Champion of U8 was Caissa’s young talent Seth. Well done!

Seth and Jin Hao

In the U10 category we had a mix of very experienced players as well as some with very little or no tournament experience at all.

Pak's little sister checkmates in 1 move!

Pak’s little sister, supporter today, checkmates in 1 move … we’ll be hearing more from her!

Kevin was among the first-timers and his 1.5 points is not a bad result at all in this strong field, including adults. Yat Hei, Samuel and Pak all scored 3 points but the 4th prize went to Harold with 3.5 points. Mei Jing defended the honour of all girls in and around DB well by scoring 4 points, ending 12th overall and 3rd in the U10 group.

Happy Mei Jing

Miguel Angel, who was leading this age category until the last round, found Daniel in round 7 to be an obstacle too strong and by losing Miguel Angel ended 7th place overall and 2nd place in U10 with 4.5 points. Teddy did good business in the last round by defeating soon-to-be DB resident Matthew and with 5 points he ended 6th overall and became Champion of this age group.

U10 prize winners: Migueal Angel, Mei Jing, Harold and Teddy

U10 prize winners: Miguel Angel, Mei Jing, Harold and Teddy

The U12 age group also comprised of some very experienced as well as very new players. Samira scored 2 points and Jay with 3 points ended 4th in this age group. James Kwong with 5 points managed to end 3rd overall and as such he was entitled to get 3rd prize in the Open group. Herewith Toby, with 4 points could collect 1st prize in the U12 group and Richard, also with 4 points, collected 2nd prize.

U12 Prize Winners Toby and Richard

In the Open group then, 3rd prize went to James Kwong, 2nd prize to Daniel with 6 points, only having conceded a loss against the new DB Open Rapid Champion IM Marcos who scored 7 out of 7.

New kid in town, Matthew, started off well with 4 out of 4

Marco vs. Daniel and Billy vs. Long in the back

Marcos vs. Daniel and Billy vs. Long in the back

Open Prize Winners Daniel, James and Marcos

Final Ranking

For youth players this event qualified for the Grand Prix with a pool of 18 points into U12 and 48 points in U10. The points were distributed as per below table with new ranking.

YGP Score and Ranking per 29 Nov 2014

Benjamin, Oliver and Miguel Angel Winners of YGP 1

October 27th, 2014

It does not happen often that in a tournament with 7 rounds 5.5 points is the top score. We are glad to see that in our first YGP there was no runaway winner and the competition remained extremely fierce until the last round. From that perspective we have achieved a major goal: youth playing and learning from meaningful games at standard time control.

Miguel Angel and Teddy Warming Up before Round 7

At the start of round 7, Benjamin, James, Ronald and Miguel Angel all had 4.5 points closely followed by Oliver and Rachel with 4 points and Richard and Harold with 3.5 points.

It was unfortunate that on the top board the game between Miguel Angel and Ronald had to end in a win by default for Miguel Angel as Ronald could not be in town on Sunday. The expected fireworks from that game, however, were well spread out over the other boards.

Rachel with white on board 2 against Benjamin played the longest game – again, almost the full 3 hours. The position seemed to be quite equal until in the endgame of Queen + Bishop and few pawns Benjamin managed to break through to win some pawns, sufficient for the win.

Oliver played active on the king side, pushing up his rook supported h-pawn and lining up his bishop, queen and knight to assault James’ f7-g6-h7 defense. After a few exchanges black was a piece down and the exposed king was too vulnerable for further counter play.

Harold with black on board 4 made a mistake against Richard that proved to be fatal quickly and on board 5 Mei Jing with white entered an endgame of knight + pawns against Steven’s bishop + pawns which Mei Jing managed to win by stopping Steven’s king side pawn majority before rushing her 3 against 1 pawn majority on the queen side.

Andy beat Samach on board 6 and on board 7 we got a sharp Sicilian with Marco storming his white pawns into the black’s king side while Teddy aimed his pawn march to breach the defense of the white king castled on the queen side. Teddy had a defensive idea that stalled Marco’s attack just long enough for his own attack to be decisive, promoting his a pawn followed by check mate.

Toby on board 8 stayed very focused and precise enough to win his game with white against Sabrina and Samual on board 9 did not allow Ray to recover from various careless mistakes.

Final Ranking Cross Table

Because we only have one U14 player, the U14 category was merged into U12 and instead of 2 prizes in U12 we increased to 3 prizes for U14-U12. The trophies and prize money we will hand out on a separate occasion soon about which we will inform you.

At risk of repeating, again we congratulate all players for their impressive fighting spirit which resulted in a tournament in which it was not sure until the last minutes who would be the prize winners.

Special congratulations to:

Benjamin for winning the tournament and be the number 1 in the U14-U12 group
Oliver for being the best U12 player and 3rd place in the overall ranking
Miguel Angel for being the only undefeated player, 2nd in the overall ranking and number 1 in the U10 group.

Finally, this first Youth Grand Prix event resulted in the first ranking on the YGP table. Given the little difference in strength so far anything can happen as we proceed into the next YGP qualifying events.

Register now for the Rapid on 29 November and the Blitz on 7 December. And keep your agendas open for the Open YGP2 starting 11 January 2015.

YGP Ranking after YGP 1

Caissa Successful in Shenzhen – 4 players win prizes

October 19th, 2014

Caissa players Joseph, Mei Jing, David, Miguel Angel, Koji and Richard

Last Saturday, 6 players and 2 supporters from Caissa crossed the border into Shenzhen early in the morning. The first round started at 9am and a total of 5 rounds were played until 5pm. With 2 more rounds on Sunday this was an action packed chess weekend.

The location of the event was a very nice school, and the hotel right around the corner was excellent, but also somewhat out of the way of residential facilities and it took quite a while to get a taxi to take us to Coco Park where some of our Shenzhen friends play outdoor chess and where we would have dinner.

Dinner at Coco Park

Nonetheless, over 2 days Mei Jing took the tournament seriously and scored 6 out of 7 ending second overall in group C among 120 players, also winning the first prize in the Girls category. Bravo Mei Jing!

Mei Jing (left) Best Girl with 6 out of 7

In the highest youth group Richard and Miguel Angel defended our honour with all they had. Miguel Angel had a glitch halfway the event and it was Richie who stayed on top of the pack until the last round, when he lost. Both Richard and Miguel Angel ended with 5.5 out of 7 within the prize range, 3rd and 7th respectively. Well done boys!

Richie 3rd and Miguel Angel 7th both with 5.5 out of 7.

In the Open Group, with a handful adults, including 2400+ rated International Master Li Bo who ended 6th in the recent HK International Open, and dozens of strong youth players, Koji and Joseph started off with a loss. Koji could not really find his rythm but Joseph, the player in form in our Autumn Open, recovered well and towards the end of the tournament with 5 out of 7 ended on 9th place. David started off very well with 3 out of 3 but lost 2 consecutive games after that, in an unnecessary fashion. His recovery on the second day with 2 wins pushed him up to 7th place with 5 points, like Joseph, and within prize range.

David, on behalf of Caissa, receives a plaque, token of appreciation

This was a very nice event, with hundreds of young players, well disciplined and clearly enjoying their weekend behind their board and pieces. What else can you ask as organizer. Well done Huateng Chess Club.

Autumn Youth Grand Prix Fully Open Again after draw between James and Miguel Angel

October 14th, 2014

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 faces Andy's Sicilian (foreground)

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

Miguel Angel ends 2nd in the Dutch Closed Youth Championship U9

June 21st, 2014

The Dutch National closed championship U7, U8 and U9 (Nationale Pupillendag) is like the grande finale of Dutch youth chess in which only players are invited to participate who were qualified by winning or ending in the top 3 of their respective regional chess associations. One of Caissa’s star players, Miguel Angel, was qualified to participate in the U9 category when he became the National Open Champion U8 in 2013.

Miguel Angel Garceran Wang in Dutch National Chess Championship 2014 with proud father and trainer

Among the best of the best U9 players in Holland, Miguel Angel played a strong tournament ending with 6 out of 7 on the second place. An interesting game showing Miguel Angel’s attacking spirit, although not always 100 percent precise, is here below where Miguel Angel doesn’t take a free rook, nor the queen but nestles his white queen on d7 for the checkmate. Cool …

The tournament was perfectly well organized with lots of space for parents and guests to sit and wait, eat, talk and have a good cup of coffee while the children played their games in a comfortable and spacious setting.

Anish Giri, currently the strongest Dutch player, ranked 14 in the world (rating 2752), and given his age of only 20 years old likely a serious contender to Magnus Carlsen’s world title any time soon, had come over as a special guest at the end of the tournament to hand out the prizes. Good motivation for all players who know that Giri was only 14 years old when he turned Grandmaster. Go boys and girls – it can be done!

Anish Giri, top 15 Grandmaster in the world and the best Dutch chess player handed out the prizes.

Anish Giri, top Grandmaster in the world and the best Dutch chess player at the moment, handed out the prizes.

All prize winners – tired but happy!

World Youth Chess Championship Al Ain – Hong Kong Results

January 4th, 2014

It has been a week now since the closing ceremony wrapped up 11 rounds of standard chess and 7 rounds of blitz chess over a period of 12 days at the World Youth Chess Championship 2013 in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.

Mei Jing and Miguel Angel Defending Hong Kong

On various web sites, blogs and facebook pages an abundance of reports have emerged, especially about the negative side of the management of this event. True, the tournament started hours late – the Al Ain Classic which ran parallel with dozens of GMs participating didn’t even had a physical location on the starting day – pairing of each blitz round took an hour or more, the catering queues, chaotic photo session, irritations from extensive patrolling at the venue … it was all part of this event and can be read about elsewhere.

Despite the chaotic dimensions which should not have been such omnipresent at a world championship level event, on the other side, this was a massive gathering of thousands of people from over hundred different countries who were very well hosted in an isolated but comfortable and fully equipped university campus, which was a city in itself. It is amazing that a game with a relatively simple set of rules can tie thousands of players, their supporters and other observers into a shared reality, deep and wide enough as to satisfy the mind’s highest needs for wonder.

ACF President Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Al- Nehynan and FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov among the Spectators

ACF President Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Al- Nahyan and FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov among the Spectators

Good to meet our Macao Friends

Our Caissa members and Hong Kong delegates, Miguel Angel and Mei Jing, did not reach their level they had shown at other tournaments. Mei Jing, and even more so Miguel Angel, came out of the opening very well with a plus almost every single game but in the transition to the middle game, where such advantages are to be exploited, it went wrong. This was not predominantly because of chess technical reasons (in the analysis it was clearly understood that some exchanges, tactics or strategic concepts were not well applied), but more so, the mental mindset was not tuned properly to believe in winning games against, for example, “rated players”.

Miguel Angel: Impressive and Overwhelming Environment …

Mei Jing (pink cap) Playing Blitz

Every time you see a good position slipping out of your hand, even when you do your best even more, you lose some confidence and we could unfortunately not break this vicious cycle. Miguel Angel ended with 4.5 points and Mei Jing with 5 points out of 11 in standard chess and with blitz chess Miguel Angel and Mei Jing ended with 4 points and 3 points respectively out of 7 games which in itself are not very bad result at all – and, give and take a half point, is very much in line with our other talents who recently went to such large international tournaments.

Nonetheless, the experience of participating in a massive tournament like this, and really doing your best, was worth another 5 “future” points at least. Well done Miguel Angel and Mei Jing who put up good fighting spirit representing Hong Kong at the world’s highest level youth chess event.

Two Caissa Players Represent Hong Kong in the World Youth Chess Championship in Al Ain (UAE)

December 7th, 2013

Our own home grown Caissa players Miguel Angel and Mei Jing will represent Hong Kong at the World Youth Chess Championship 2013 (17-29 December) in the Under 8 category.

Unfortunately there are no other players representing Hong Kong in the other age categories and it is therefore up to Miguel Angel and Mei Jing to leave a positive impression of chess in Hong Kong.

Form of the day, mental mindset, physical status and some luck are important influencing factors but if all come together well, some points will surely be scored.

Miguel Angel, Hong Kong National Blitz Champion U8 2012, Open Dutch Youth Champion U8 2013, ESF Schools Champion Lower Primary (2012, 2013) and for several years a top 5 finalist in his age group in the Hong Kong National Championships will benefit from the fact he is one of the older players in Under 8.

Mei Jing, number 5 in the World Youth School Championship U7 girls, ESF Schools Lower Primary 2nd place (2013) and best girl in her age group several years in a row in the Hong Kong National Championships is in good form but will have to overcome she is likely among the youngest in the U8 category.

We will not be aiming too high, have fun, but definitely do our best.

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!