Although blitz chess has the tendancy to have the biggest amount of blunders among all time controls, this edition of FIDE's fastest time control was pretty much decided beforehand. Alberto signed up late and attracted no other strong players. With almost 500 rating points more than the second placed WCM Hoi Ting Leung, Alberto raced through the tournament and clinched first place with a perfect 11/11. Second place also was never really exciting. Lam Lok Sum had only lost aga

Our youngest beginners had to rise early on 24 May, the third MFM tournament moved to a morning timeslot with a 10am start. 19 of our students joined this time around and we continued the same formula. The very youngest in the B-group get a taste of competition by playing our Step Method mini games while the A-group play "real" games and even get introduced to playing with a clock. They'll be ready in no time to join our End of Month cycle! Coach Matthew led Group B which thi

Full house on 17 May: 36 rapid chess enthusiasts gathered to compete for the Caissa Spring Rapid title. Again a very young field - we're happy to see many of our students finding their way to fide rated chess! On to the results: Rounds 1 and 2 Usually, this is where people are still warming up and when they're finding out what their form of the day is. Kin Ho Chu was the only rated player who was still waking up and lost a full point to Caissa student Cyrus Ho Him Lau. In the

Between 17 and 21 June, the chess world's finest are coming to Hong Kong to fight out which team can call themselves World Champions in the World Rapid and Blitz Team World Championships. In the morning, there's a side event which certainly is no less exciting: the World Amateur Team Amateur Rapid Chess Cup. Coach Astrid and Coach Eduard will both be captaining a team with some of our most promising youth players. Caissa Team A Caissa Team B 1 WFM Coach Astrid Barbier Coach E

U7 In the youngest category we have Alexander Tu and Richard Li, here playing against each other in the final round. They're good friends and represent the same school (Hong Kong International School) and got third place just between the two of them. Individually, Richard finished in sixth place while Alexander won all of his games and clinched first place with 7/7! Congratulations Alexander! U9 He might be getting used to it, but that doesn't make it any less special: Shayne

The Harrow 1st Open Scholastic was a big success with around 420 participants and Ding Liren as a special guest. For the Harrow 2nd Open Scholastic we went back to the basics, no special guests and no side activities - except for a Mother's Day banner where the players could take pictures (sometimes not entirely to their liking, you know who you are, dear teenagers!) with their mother with roses we handed out. Except for that, the day was just a celebration of chess! The form

By now, the U1800 Standard League has become a permanent fixture on the Caissa Tournament calendar. We play 6 rounds over 3 Sunday afternoons on the fast classical 60+0 time control. With this concept we provide the perfect conditions for students getting their first experience with classical or unrated players chasing their first rating in a safe environment. In the Spring Edition we have a full house with 33 players of which 9 players are rated. No less than 10 players (!)