Caissa Hong Kong Chess Club

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Rectification – James and Miguel Angel win YGP3 in U12 and U10 and are overall 2014-15 YGP Winners in Their Age Groups

June 22nd, 2015

In 2014-15 we introduced the Youth Grand Prix to Hong Kong: a series of 3 tournaments standard chess (90 minutes per person, 7 rounds), 2 Blitz and 1 Rapid event. In each event grand prix points could be won by ending in the top 5 of the player’s age category.

Yesterday Sunday was the last round of the Spring YGP 3 and also the last round of the entire cycle that spanned some 10 months!

As in YGP 3 we had no U14 player we added a 3rd prize to the U12 and U10 age categories and because we had 4 U8 players we also added a Champion prize for that age group.

In the U12 category James could only be overtaken by Oliver if James would lose from Anika and Oliver would beat Miguel. The latter happened when Oliver, with only some 3 minutes left on the clock, surprised Miguel Angel with a checkmate in a complicated rook/bishop (Oliver) vs rook/knight and pawns end game. However, James did not lose from Anika in a rook endgame with 2 extra pawns and as such James became champion in the U12 group, followed by Oliver 2nd and Richard, who had to forfeit 2 games in earlier rounds, on the 3rd place.

In U10 age group, Miguel Angel, despite his loss against Oliver, stayed on top to be champion. Because of a BYE input mistake for Anika in round 4, Miguel Angel was followed by 2nd place Ulysses, who beat Harsh, and 3rd Harold, who with several pieces less miraculously managed to check mate Zeth. However, after correction and adding 0.5 points to Anika in round 4, it turned out that Anika ended number 2 and Ulysses number 3. Apologies for the mistake – and Anika will get her trophy and prize money soonest.

Zeth still remained the best performing player, and thus Champion of U8.

Congratulations to all prize winners!!!

Zeth Champion U8 with coach Matthew Tan

Prize Winners YGP3 with coach Matthew (left to right): Harold, James, Miguel Angel, Zeth, Richard, Ulysses and Oliver – we are missing Anika who won 2nd prize in U10

Top players in each age category U14, U12 and U10 would be fully sponsored, including return flight, lodging, additional training etc., to join the Dutch Youth Open 2015. Prerequisite was that players would play minimal 3 YGP events and as such unfortunately we have no U14 winner.

The final YGP ranking after 6 events shows a strong winner in Miguel Angel in U10 and James in U12. We wish our YGP champions, and of course our other players who will join the Dutch Youth Open 2015, good luck, success and fun from 3-8 August. We will be reporting from there!

YGP 2014-15 Final Ranking

James and Miguel Angel lead their age groups after Round 6 in YGP 3

June 17th, 2015

In last Sunday’s round 6 James consolidated his 0.5 points lead by winning against Aaditya. He is also a full point ahead of Oliver, the number 2 in his group U12.

Miguel’s hard -fought win against Harsh kept him also a full point ahead of the numbers 2, 3 and 4, Andy, Anika and Aaditya, all with 3.5 points in the U10 age category.

Harsh (white) vs. Miguel Angel in a long and the last game …

Coming Sunday will be the last match in the YGP cycle and we will hand out the prizes to the winners of the Spring YGP3 and we will announce the overall YGP winners in the the age categories U12 and U10 who will get a fully funded trip to the Dutch Open!

Below the pairing for round 7 and the ranking after 6 rounds.

Pairing Round 7 Caissa YGP 3

Updated (5 June) – YGP3 has 6 Players with 3 points after 4 rounds

June 4th, 2015

Differences are minimal in the top half of the YGP cycle. Just like in the YGP1 and YGP2 editions, there surely won’t be a walk-over for any player and we need to sit tight until the final round to see what will eventually happen.

Such tight competition makes this tournament one of the most worthwhile events for our youth as it is also the only event in Hong Kong for youth with regular/standard time control of 90 minutes.

The ranking after 4 rounds here below:

Cross Table Rank after Round 5

Below the pairing of round 5:

Miguel Angel Leads YGP 2 flanked by four other players with equal points

February 3rd, 2015

After the 4th round there are five players, each with 3 points, topping the ranking.

On board 1 we had a lengthy but noteworthy battle of the titans of U12, James, and U10, Miguel Angel. Both players lead their age group in Grand Prix points and the game was daring and adventurous from both sides. In the beginning of the endgame Miguel Angel with white managed to force his queen towards close range from the black king and after some necessary exchanges to ease the pressure in front of the black king, Miguel Angel ended in a rook-bishop vs rook-bishop end game one pawn up. With only few minutes left on the clock Miguel Angel accepted the 3-fold repetition by James’ rook checks.

A great game worthy a replay:

On board 2, the U12 boys Ronald and Oliver drew in a game that looked very good for Oliver for a long time, but the pawn up advantage in the end was not enough for Oliver to win.

On board 3, Andy and Teddy had an important game for the U10 grand prix points. Teddy with black had put a lot of pressure on white, winning 2 pawns and later returning them for a superior king pawns endgame which was won very well.

Ulysses with white found Richard blocking his way to get a 3rd win in a row and through this win Richard is back in the top 5.

Marco played concentrated and well against Anika as did Harsh against Mei Jing. Despite their resilience it turned out not to be a good day for the girls.

Harold with white benefited from an error Samuel made early in the game and Toby unfortunately had to wait an hour and got a free point because of Steven’s no show.

Harold playing chess against Toby and Ulysses after finishing their games (Toby waiting for his opponent)

YGP2 Cross Table after Round 4

Winter Youth Grand Prix (YPG2) Round 1 Results

January 14th, 2015

Sunday 11 January the second cycle of standard chess (90 minutes for each player) took off with again some of Hong Kong’s best youth players competing for trophy prizes and grand prix points for sponsored overseas tournment participation. The current ranking in the YGP can be found in this entry.

On board 1, two prize winners of the preceeding YGP1, James and Andy had a tense game which in the end, pressurising the position, James managed to turn into a win.

Harold against … who?

Harold against Marco!

On board 2 Harold lost a piece somewhere down the line in the middle game and Marco had no problem converting the material advantage into a win.

On board 3 we had again 2 prize winners of the preceding YGP, Oliver and Miguel Angel, playing against each other. The game resulted in a draw when Miguel Angel did not see a way through after having closed down the position with his powerful black pawns on a5, b4 and c3.

On board 4 Pak lost a piece against Richard who remained cool enough to stop Pak from getting enough counter play with his advanced a-pawn.

Pak with white against Richard

On board 6 Ronald managed to win material from Samuel early in the game and converted this into a straightforward win and on board 7 Toby’s black queen had entered on b2 to create some havoc but found no way out when Teddy trapped it there and therewith secured the win.

Teddy with White against Toby

We had an odd number of players and Mei Jing was (very voluntarily) paired against the BYE.

There were no requests for a BYE for coming Sunday before today, Wednesday 12 noon, and the pairing for round 2 is a per below.

YGP Pairing Round 2

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

Finale Coming Sunday to become a thriller as top 3 boards all drew

October 20th, 2014

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 hiding for the camera?)

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.

Autumn YGP Round 2 and Autumn Open Round 1

September 10th, 2014

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