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

Alongside the FIDE World Team Rapid and Blitz Championships there was a side event in the mornings: the World Amateurs Rapid Chess Cup. The rules are simple: teams of six people will fight it out in two pools over nine rounds. The top three of both pools play the finals. All players, no matter the board, cannot have had a FIDE rating of more than 2000 in any time control at any point in time before registration. © Michal_Walusza / FIDE - Team A in Action This served as a grea

It's the middle of June so it's time for... the EOM?! To avoid conflicts with people's travel plans, we moved up the last EOM of the schoolyear to 14 June. As a refresher: our students play in four groups based on their level. Groups C and D play together, groups A and B play together. At the end of each cycle (consisting of three legs), you can promote to the next level. From D to C, from C to B and so on. If you promote out of the A-group, we say you graduated the EOM and y

We played a rapid tournament over three Friday evenings with a slower than usual rate of play: 15+10, matching the one from the World Team Rapid and Blitz Championships. Many who participate in that event joined as warmup, creating a very competitive tournament! Declan versus Clement - two of our players in the World Team Amateur Rapid Chess Cup Day 1: surprising results set the tone The first round was as calm as it can get. Hubert - arbiter of the evening - saw all 10 ratin