Editor's note: guest writer Coach Astrid wrote the following piece about the first-ever Ladies (K)Night - enjoy! Two years ago, we set out with a mission to build a more inclusive, vibrant space for girls in chess. What a journey it already has been. From launching our exclusive girls-only classes and organizing an international online match with our friends in Shanghai, to hosting our very own girls festival in Discovery Bay. Our girls-only teams swept board medals and finis

Both C/D and A/B were fully booked. Many EOM regulars were joined by some of our new students from both our centers and our schools. We were ready for a fun afternoon of competitive chess with a great atmosphere and that's exactly what we got! C/D As always, we start with the C/D group. We can find our Step 1 and Step 2 students who are finding their way to competitive chess here. Avoiding falling Scholar's Mate lookalikes (we don't allow the actual Scholar's Mate!), sidestep

There are a couple of tournaments on the chess calendar that people usually look forward to. The Candidates Tournament in which the Challenger for the World Championship gets decided and the World Championship itself are the front runners. But also tournaments where we know the excitement and drama will be high are highly popular among chess enthusiasts. The FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships in December are an absolute must to follow. The Tata Steel tournament held in

No "Back to School Rapid" this year, or so we thought... We welcomed a full house with 34 registrations of which 29 were younger than twelve!! After two rounds with no major upsets, Daniel King Wai Lam was held to a draw by Zachary Tong. Four talented youngsters capitalized and shared first place with a perfect 3/3. After two long hard fought draw between Daniel Wing Shing Luu and Xiangyi Meng (Shayne); and Chi Ngo Chan (Declan) and Shun Wang Liu (Ernest), Daniel Lam put hims

At Caissa, we believe chess is a game that knows no boundaries. Since 2025, we have been dedicated to building a supportive environment for our growing community of female players. Through our tournaments, training sessions, annual festival, and weekly classes, we have seen your enthusiasm. Due to this popularity, we are happy to announce that starting this October, Wednesdays will officially be 'Caissa Girls Club Day' at our Sheung Wan Center—a dedicated space for our female

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 fie

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 bi

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