The second Leg in this exciting series of competitions was played last Saturday, December 5, on the Lichess Platform.

There were over 250 participants from 10 different clubs, some of them new to this event. At The Chess Academy Hong Kong we are thrilled to see new clubs from different countries all over the Asia-Pacific region joining the tournaments.

This event started with the purpose of giving all the players an opportunity to test themselves against other kids while having fun, and also as a way to create bonds between all of our different nations and chess clubs. There are 2 more tournaments left in this first edition, but surely this will just be the first one of many others to come.

Going back to the second leg, it started with a lecture by one of the TCA Grandmasters, coach Manuel, who explained a game by Paul Keres, a player considered to be the best in the world at some point in his career (during the 1940s and 50s) that never managed to win the title.

This game was well received by the audience, asking several questions to the GM and offering ideas and solutions to the questions they were asked. After one last reminder about material not being the most important thing to worry about, the tournament was ready to start.

This second leg saw bigger numbers all around: bigger teams, more players, games and moves. 1224 games and over 66 thousand moves later, The Chess Academy Hong Kong finished in first place, followed by Chess Shoots Juniors in 2nd place and Chessnut Academy in 3rd place, while Vivid_Ghost from Chessnut Academy and Pokemon2020 from Looi Chess Club were the individual winners.

The competition was very intense and there were several leader changes. Chess Shoots and The Chess Academy were very close until the last 5 minutes were a few key individual victories gave the Hong Kong team the title.

The fight for 3-6 place was also a very entertaining one and it sets the bar of our expectations really high for the next 2 weeks. If the teams keep performing at this level one thing is guaranteed: not only the players but also the spectators will have a lot of fun.

Congratulations to all the teams, who are getting better and stronger and the players are performing at a really high level. From the TCA team we want to congratulate the young players that are making this result possible: Neel Iyer, Boris Chan and Kainos Wong. They were leading the team this week even being much younger than 16.

The next leg will be played on December 12 at the same time, 6-8pm. We hope to see everyone there and keep having fun playing and watching chess games together!