Caissa Hong Kong Chess Club

chess in hong kong

Rapid Tournament Concludes Caissa 1st Year Anniversary Festival

July 14th, 2013

After Alexander Ipatov’s visit in June and Collin Madhavan’s full-house clinics in July, Caissa Chess Club Hong Kong wrapped up her first year anniversary chess festivities with a concluding Summer Rapid tournament yesterday.

The event attracted international players as well as local Hong Kong players, young and old, experienced and starters. For all 24 youth players from Hong Kong the event was FIDE CiS rated (a first-timer in Hong Kong!) and, also with FIDE Arbiter Collin Madhavan strengthening the organization, the tournament went as smooth as we could hope for with such a unique diverse group.

FA Collin Madhavan quickly going through the rFIDE ules of Rapid

FA Collin Madhavan quickly going through the FIDE Rules of Rapid

Delegatin from Shenzhen with 5 youth players

Delegation from Shenzhen with 5 youth players

Left to right: Eugene, Umberto and Stuart from Shenzhen with their chess buddies Billy and Cyril.

In the Open Group Hong Kong’s Andrew (8 points) stayed closest to the winner Eugene (UKR) (8.5 points) who had come in from Shenzhen with his two friends Stuart and Umberto.

The third place was taken by Caissa’s own Hannah (6.5 points) who could definitely claim the most exciting win of the tournament with a checkmate with only 1 second on the clock. Well done Hannah!

1 minute on the clock - Hannah wins with white ...

1 second on the clock – Hannah wins with white …

Prize Winners Open Group in between David and Bee Shan: Hannah, Eugene, and Andrew

Prize Winners Open Group standing in between Organizers David and Bee Shan: Hannah, Eugene, and Andrew

In the P4-P6 youth group we saw some powerful play from Shenzhen youth. Both Jiatong and Xingzhe scored an impressive 6 points which resulted in their respective 1st and 2nd places. Third place was claimed by Hong Kong’s James Kwong with 5.5 points.

Players in Action

Prize Winners P4-P6 category: (left to right) James, Xinzhe and Jiatong together with David and Mr. Liu and Ms. Li who accompanied the Shenzhen youth.

Prize Winners P4-P6 category: (left to right) James, Jiatong and Xingzhe together with Mr. Liu and Ms. Li who accompanied the Shenzhen youth.

In the P1-P3 category our 3 local Hong Kong boys claimed all prizes with Caissa’s Gerent (5 points) and Caissa’s Miguel Angel (4.5 points) getting 1st and 3rd prize respectively and Harold (5 points) receiving second prize.

David and Collin behind (left to right) Gerent, Harold and Miguel Angel.

David and Collin behind (left to right) Champion Gerent, Harold and Miguel Angel.

The tournament, as official end-of-season celebration, was also the stage to put Caissa’s top performing members in the well deserved spotlight.

In the Intermediate Group the 1st Prize was won by Bryant and the 2nd Prize by Max. Both are promoted to the Advanced Group. In the Beginners Group Saga won 1st Prize. James, who won 2nd Prize was abroad and will receive his trophy at opening of the 13-14 season.

Bryant (left) and Max (right) receive 1st and 2nd Prize respectively

Saga receives her Champion of Beginners Group Prize

Finally, the 5 prizes (a digital DGT chess clock, a chess board with pieces and several chess books) of the trivia questions showed Aravind was the most knowledgeable being the only participant to get a 100% score.

Eugene, champion of the tournament, forfeited his prize in favor of giving a youth player the chance to get a prize. Eugene, congratulations: you were the undisputed Champion today.

All results and ranking can be found here: cross table caissa summer rapid 13 july 2013.

Photos are posted on Around DB Magazine.

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.

Great Results for Discovery College in Quarry Bay School ESF Tournament: Miguel Angel Champion!

October 8th, 2012

Well done Quarry Bay School PTA for organizing an amazing chess event on October 7^th which turned out to be a very beautiful weather day on which around 80 students from 8 different ESF schools competed in their school uniforms for individual prizes.

The Discovery College squad of 14 players was unfortunately slimmed down to 11 players on the day of the event due to some logistic and other unforeseen issues, but nonetheless, the 11 players that competed wore their uniform with dignity.

Left, back to front: Aryan, Vaibhav, Aleesha. Middle, back to front: Chor Wei, Wilson, Max, Jonathan. Right, back to front: Mei Jing, Manon, Arnav and Miguel Angel

The tournament was divided into 2 groups, Lower Primary (P1-P4) and Upper Primary P5-P6) with the DC team participating with 7 players in Lower Primary and 4 players in Upper Primary.

Our P2 girls faced stiff competition from the elder students, yet they did manage to score results. Aleesha, with just a couple of month’s experience, managed to score 2 draws. Mei Jing started very strongly with 3 out of 4 and she can be proud of those 3 points.

Our P3 boys did a great job. Arnav, also very new to the game, and even more so to the tournament hectic, started with a solid win and scored another draw later on to end with 1.5 points. Max and Vaibhav had a very strong tournament, also both first-timers, they scored 3.5 and 3 points respectively which is well a full point or more higher than what is normally expected. Miguel Angel, our DC Primary School Champion and Hong Kong under 8 Blitz Champion played a very strong tournament and ended first, only drawing once against James Kwong Wing Ki (P4 Kowloon Junior School), another titan of youth chess in Hong Kong. In any case, DC can count the first ESF Champion among its students. Congratulations Miguel!

Another very exceptional score is that of our P4 student Chor Wei who scored, also as first-timer, 4.5 points and ended number 12. Actually, Chor Wei had an equal score as the number 9 and 10 who also scored 4.5 points, but unfortunately the opponents of number 9 and 10 had higher scores and that is decisive when players end up with an equal score and Chor Wei just missed a medal because of that.

Discovery College's Miguel Angel, far right, Champion of ESF Lower Primary

In the Upper Primary we only had P6 students and also here the DC shirts were proudly worn. Aryan, first-timer, collected 2.5 points as did Jonathan who improved his score with 250% compared to his previous results. Wilson’s consistent play resulted in 3.5 points for him. Well done boys! But not only boys deserve compliments here, Manon our only girl in this category showed her kind nature by grossing 4 peace treaties (draws) and together with a win the 3 points collected for a first time experience is well above normal expectations. Good job!

Results of DC chess players in QBS ESF Chess Tournament 7 October 2012

Enjoy the movie!

Caissa Has New Hong Kong Champion Blitz Chess Under 8 Years Old

May 26th, 2012

On what started as a rainy Saturday 26 May 2012, the Hong Kong Chess Federation organized its first youth Blitz tournament in three age groups: under 18, under 11 and under 8 years old.

In the category under 8 Caissa’s Miguel Angel Garceran Wang played an excellent tournament and pushed the competition, including top seed like Marco King Buet Ching, Peter Daiyang Zhao and Ben Jabal, off the board after 6 rounds and 6 wins. Perhaps the knowledge he was already number 1 and champion no matter the result of the last round took away the necessary adrenaline to beat his last opponent as well – but with 6 out of 7 Miguel Angel proved to be a special talent!

The final ranking after 7 rounds.