Team CAISSA at the Eastern Asian Youth Championships 2025 Zhuhai

Team Caissa

On July 19^th, seven brave CAISSA students set off to Zhuhai for the Eastern Asian Youth Championships: Eric Jin (U16), Marvin Zhang, Kyle Chen, Brandon Fang, Kainos Wong (U14), Clement Lau (U10) and Shayne Meng (U8), together with myself (Coach Matthew). We arrived a day early, expecting Typhoon Wipha to ruin our initial travel plans. Other participants were still affected by the typhoon, which caused the start of the tournament to be postponed for a day. A good opportunity for us to plan some extra training sessions, some physical activities and some fun. 

Pre- tournament training session and indoor activities while outside the typhoon rages.

On Tuesday the tournament finally kicked off. We started off slow, but kicked back on day 2 and 3, getting the players in good spots right before the rest day. On the rest day we decided to challenge our brains a bit more by puzzling our way out of an Escape Room. The afternoon was spent preparing for the opponents for the next day. The work paid off and we finished strong in the second half of the tournament. We were finally rewarded with a silver team medal in U14 for Brandon and a bronze team medal for Shayne in U8.

The “lunch break” was used analyzing the games and preparing for the next round

As if seven days of chess wasn’t enough yet, there was still a blitz tournament to be played after the final round and a rapid tournament on the final day. Everybody was visibly tired, but Kyle managed to grab the bronze team medal in U14 at the blitz. In the rapid the results were very respectable, but no prizes.

After the final prize giving ceremony the kids decided they wanted to play some more card games. Once they decided they had enough playing cards, they went back to playing… more chess!

Left, the U8 bronze team medal (Jake Chong, Anderson Fok and Shayne Meng)

Right, Brandon Fang getting the silver team medal