Coach Emile

We were supposed to have a FIDE Blitz and FIDE Rapid tournament one after the other for our July summer tournaments. But organizing events in Hong Kong during this time of year is always a risk - because of a typhoon alert we had to postpone the Summer Rapid from 19 July all the way to 16 August. Enough time for certain people to realize they were missing out! During that time, new signups started coming in until we had to close registration with a full house. The playing field was an...

Over twenty players made up an interesting field for our first Summer tournament. All ratings ranges from unrated up until 1700 were represented with Ruhao Liu (1942) clearly ahead of the pack. We used the usual concept: seven double rounds for a total of fourteen games. On the night of 19 to 20 July, Spain and Argentina are playing the finals of the FIFA World Cup. Lots of drama and conspiracy theories have been surrounding the tournament and anyone who follows football a bit, knows that the...

A unicum in Hong Kong: The FIDE World Team Rapid and Blitz Championships. A relatively new concept introduced a couple of years ago that brings the world's greatest players together. In 2026, Hong Kong hosted this event in the Queen Elizabeth Stadium. Rapid is played over twelve rounds in Swiss format. For the Blitz tournaments, the teams are split into four round robin pools with a grand final on Sunday. One special rule for this event: each round six players from a squad of nine players...