After a successful part 1 of the TCA Chess Open, last Sunday (Nov 15) continued with the “older” sections, U11 and U18.

With safety measures still in place, 19 kids spread across both sections came together to challenge each other in over-the-board chess which has been a rarity these past months. Both sections saw a dominant player in Max Ye and now a veteran in TCA tournaments, Justin Chen.

U11 Section

The Under 11 age group was won by newcomer to TCA events Max Ye with 4.5pts. After benefiting from a Round 1 bye (13 kids in the section), he went on to win 3 games including against top rank Su Bo Rui and drawing against second ranked Jacob Lu. Not too far behind was Jamison Kao with 4pts, only losing to Max but winning against both top seeds. Also with 4pts and placing 3rd due to tri-breaks was Lingshen Bu, who is actually 8 years old but took the challenge to play against older opponents and also along his older sister, Zhiming Bu who won the female prize.

For U11 section:
Champion – Max Ye (KCIS) 4.5 points
2nd Place – Jamison Kao (HKIS) 4 points
3rd Place – Lingshen Bu (ISF) 4 points
Female Champion – Zhiming Bu (ISF)

https://chess-results.com/tnr540423.aspx?lan=1

U18 Section

The Under 18 age group was played as a round robin and was dominated by the top 2 seeds, Justin Cheng and Theodore Lam. With only 5 players in the sections, both dominated the remaining opposition before drawing against each other. To decide the tie-break for first place a blitz match was played where Justin came out on top. Behind in 3rd place was Mo Fei, who managed to win against the one other female in the section, Lea Tang.

For U18 section:
Champion – Justin Cheng (ISF) 4.5 points
2nd Place – Theodore Lam 4.5 points
3rd Place – Pham Mo Fei (FIS) 3 points
Top Female – Lea Tang (FIS)

https://chess-results.com/tnr540424.aspx?lan=1&art=4

Next up in our events will be the Online version of the TCA Chess Open, scheduled for Saturday November 21 from 4-6pm played on the Lichess.org platform. Please join us from the comfort of your own home to play some exciting online chess!

Also, a reminder that any participating family who has joined our TCA Opens can enjoy a 20% discount on all our exciting upcoming ActiveKids Christmas camps. 

As you may know, our team of TCA coaches, with 2 GMs and highly experienced FIDE WIF, FI, CM and US Experts, is really the best in Hong Kong.  So if you have interest in our Elite/Advance classes, please give us a call at 3480-4199. 

After a few months without in person competitions given the current restrictions, yesterday (Nov 8) The Chess Academy Hong Kong organized the first of the rapid chess Open Tournaments scheduled for this month.

The safety of the chess players and our staff is on top priority. We have the hand sanitizers for players around the center and the arena, temperature check upon arrival, and most importantly there was 2 age groups playing in one time – Under 7 and Under 9 years old.

After the warm welcoming speech and the briefing of the tournament rules. Players were very excited to start their first game, instead of hand shaking, they had the head nodding before they start. Players tried their best in each round and giving us an intense day full of exciting chess games.

The Under 7 age group was dominated from start to finish by Nathaniel Chiu, who won all the games and looked calm and in control in every game. 

The fight for second place was decided only in the last game, where Brayden Tsui and Claire Wang played face to face. In the end Brayden won this game and finished 2nd. Even after losing Claire completed a really good tournament finishing 3rd and also being the female Champion. Tied with Claire finished Bruce Qin, but a lower tie break score meant he came in 4th place.

For U7 section:
Champion – Chiu Nathaniel Silas (CIS)
2nd Place – Tsui Long Hei Brayden (DBS)
3rd Place – Wang Rosemarie Claire

https://chess-results.com/tnr540307.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=6

The older group, Under 9, was very exciting and the use of the chess clock for all the games led to some nerve wracking moments. The rated players in this tournament, Julian Wang and Shun Him Leung were the favorites and they fulfilled the expectations finishing in the first 2 places.

Shun Him played a very solid tournament, winning 5 games (including a very convincing victory over Julian), and only drawing his game against David Chiu.

Julian Wang finished 2nd, only losing to Shun Him.

The 3rd place was for David Chiu, who played a really good tournament, losing only one game against Julian in a game where both players had only a few seconds on the clock and anything could have happened.

For U9 section:
Champion – Leung Shun Him (ICS)
2nd Place – Wang Julian Samuel (SIS)
3rd Place – Chiu David Zion (CIS)
Female Champion – Hari Anaisha (GSIS)

https://chess-results.com/tnr540308.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=6

After the tournament all the players stayed for the award ceremony and the closing speech by TCA and Activekids CEO, Grace So.

We have uploaded all photos on The Chess Academy facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/thechessacademyhk

This is only the first event of many more to come in these last couple months of the year. Next Sunday, November 15, the second Chess Open, with the older categories, Under 11 and Under 18. There are still a few open spots for late registration. 

Also, any participating family who has joined our TCA Opens can enjoy a 20% discount on all our exciting upcoming ActiveKids Christmas camps.  

As you may know, our team of TCA coaches, with 2 GMs and highly experienced FIDE WIF, FI, CM and US Experts, is really the best in Hong Kong.  So if you have interest in our Elite/Advance classes, please give us a call at 3480-4199.  

The Chess Academy Chess Open 2020 (In-person Arena)

Date: Nov 8 (U7 & U9) and Nov 15 (U11 & U18)
Time: 12:00 – 4:00pm
Venue: ActiveKids Learning Center – Unit A, 1/F, Nan Sang Building, 86 Belcher’s Street, Kennedy Town, HK
Format: 6 rounds Swiss, G/15, 30 minutes a round

The Chess Academy Chess Open 2020 (Online Arena)

Date: Nov 21, 2020
Time: 4:00 – 6:00pm
Section: U7, U9, U11, U18
Platform: Lichess.org
Format: Masnou style
Time control: 10 minutes + 5 sec

To register, please email player name, D.O.B., School, Grade and lichess ID to info@activekidshk.com

For more details, please contact us at 3480-4199 or info@activekidshk.com

The Chess Academy is offering lots of New and Challenging activities this New School Year! 

Besides our many exciting events thus far, such as the “Simul Challenge with Grand Masters“, the Intercontinental Tournaments against Malaysia and Spain,  the ISF and TCA Grand Prix Tournaments, and the great value TCA Club Subscription, we will be launching a Brand New League Tournament – “TCA Road to Master League“.

This TCA Road to Masters League is unique and offers students plenty of opportunities to keep playing competitive games with a flexible schedule.  This training tournament is especially beneficial to youngsters as they gain experience fighting against the top players.  Since we are only allowing 6 players per Division, we will be narrowing the levels of play so that the games will be more competitive.

Not only are these league games fun, but they are also extremely challenging, allowing students to have the opportunity to move up (or down) Divisions, climbing the ladder towards the Road to the Masters.  In addition, since school will be resuming, the one game-per-week flexible time format will be especially helpful to encourage kids to keep up with the competition.  Our TCA league players will be playing higher-quality, slow time control games – a way that FIDE titles are achieved. We strongly believe that the more tournaments one plays, the more experience one will gain and the better one will become.

Season 1 – First Leg: September 6 to October 10, 2020

Season 2 – Second Leg: October 25 – November 28, 2020
The entry fee for each leg is $100

Please see the League rules Here

To register: Please email us the Name, D.O.B., Lichess ID and the contact details to info@activekidshk.com

Please also note that the fee for this league will be waived when you become a member of our TCA Club Subscription.  Please see the many opportunities and savings that come with the subscription.

For more details, please contact us at 3480-4199 or info@activekidshk.com

Come and join The Chess Academy – Grand Master Special Event!

“Simul against the GM”
Date: Aug 29, 2020 (Sat)
Time: 10:00 – 11:30am

To Register:  Please send your Name, Date of Birth, FIDE ID and Lichess ID
to info@activekidshk.com or call 3480 4199.

Last Sunday, The Chess Academy had the opportunity to host the 11th Annual Hong Kong Scholastic Championships, Online Version!

49 kids did not let the current lockdown situation deprive them from Chess action, as they battled among each other in 2 sections. The tournament was held on the Lichess.org platform with everyone joining a Zoom meeting for some social interaction.

We have combined Division I & II and Division III & IV. The games in the 2 sections were tense. There’s only 1 single point separated 3rd to 13th place in Division I & II! The future of HK chess looks promising!

Here’re the results of the tournament in each division.

Division I

Individual Winners
1st Place Winner – Oscar Jin (Tsung Tsin Primary School and Kindergarten)
2nd Place Winner – Chase Yau* (ISF)
3rd Place Winner – Kainos Wong* (S.K.H. St Peter Primary School)

Team Winners
1st Place Team – GSIS
2nd Place Team – ISF*
3rd Place Team – Tsung Tsin Primary School and Kindergarten
Division II

Individual Winners
1st Place Winner – Shun Him Leung* (ICS)
2nd Place Winner – David Zion Chiu (CIS)
3rd Place Winner – Chu Yuan Felix Lee (BHS)

Team Winners
1st Place Team – BHS*
2nd Place Team – ICS*
3rd Place Team – CIS*
Division III

Individual Winners
1st Place Winner – Wang Ip Boris Chan (St. Louis School)
2nd Place Winner – Mishra Prakhar (GSIS)
3rd Place Winner – Madison Wu (HKIS)

Team Winners
1st Place Team – HKIS
2nd Place Team – St. Louis School
3rd Place Team – GSIS
Division IV

Individual Winners
1st Place Winner – Zhenning Li (Singapore International School)
2nd Place Winner – Thanneermalai Kannappan* (West Island School)
3rd Place Winner – Nicholas Woo (CIS)

Team Winners
1st Place Team – Harrow International School Hong Kong
2nd Place Team – ISF*
3rd Place Team – Wah Yan College, Hong Kong

 

Students name / Schools with * are under TCA coaching

Link to final tournament standings (Division I & II) – https://lichess.org/swiss/wAZ1K3ul
Link to final tournament standings (Division III & IV) – https://lichess.org/swiss/mudh95NW

Congratulations to all place winners! Thank you everyone who participated and hope to see you in our next event, finger-crossed, in over-the-board chess!
Please check out promotions for future chess activities and programs at www.TheChessAcademyHK.com

 

First online edition of this ISF tournament, and it was a big success with over 40 students from 15 different schools.  This 5-day Grand Prix competition over one week has offered the perfect opportunity for students to practice, train and have fun playing chess. All the players gave us plenty of exciting moments and beautiful tactics. The pressure of running out of time definitely added to that excitement and there were points in play until literally the last second of every day.  In particular, our ActiveKids The Chess Academy (TCA) students did extremely well – sweeping First Places in all three sections!

Below is the result in each section (Students name with * are under TCA coaching) 

Lower Primary Section:
1st Place – Leung Shun Him (ICS)*
2nd Place – David Zion Chiu (CIS)
3rd Place – Kainos Wong (St. Peter)*

The players in this category showed great fighting spirit and definitely gave us some really fun games to watch. There was a clear winner, Leung Shun Him, who won the tournament almost every day and in a very convincing way too. In second place finished David Zion Chiu. The battles between these two players were memorable and a clear proof of their high level. In third place Kainos Wong (St. Peter – TCA) managed to win one of the competitions with his hyper-aggressive style that made him lose more games than some of the players behind him, but also allowed him to win more games. In 4th place a very solid and creative Lingshen Bu from ISF only lost his matches against the top 2. In 5th place another ISF student, Xiaoyang Wang showed how much he has improved in this first year playing chess competitions and scored some really nice victories even against the winners.

 

Upper Primary Section:
1st Place – Max Dingwell (GSIS)*
2nd Place – Jacob Lu (SIS)
3rd Place – Jamison Kao (HKIS)

Max Dingwell dominated this category from the first day and won 3 out of the 5 days. He scored some really hard fought points against the Secondary players and that allowed him to keep his competitor at a safe distance. In second place finished Jacob Lu, who won the second day in a brilliant style defeating everyone (including the Secondary players!). In 3rd place we find Jamison Kao who also won one of the days. He consistently scored points against all his opponents and deserved this place in the top3. In 4th place Michelle Chan, only 1 point behind Jamison but showing a very promising style with many beautiful tactics throughout the tournament. The same could be said about Zhiming Bu, who finished in 5th place and with her attacking style got winning positions against the top rated players.

 

Secondary Section:
1st place – Thanneermalai Kannappan (West Island)*
2nd place Ben Han (ISF)*
3rd place – Justin (ISF)*

Some of the best young players in HK gave us 5 days of intense fight and very interesting games. Thanneermalai Kannappan was the clear winner, finishing in 1st place 4 out of 5 days. His battles with Ben Han and Justin Cheng were epic and surely all of them learnt some lessons for the future. In second place finished the aforementioned Ben Han, who couldn’t play a couple of days and that penalized his score. In 3rd place we find Justin Cheng, who couldn’t adjust to the system and found himself playing a lot less games than his rivals. 4th place was for Andrei Lupu, very consistently beating everyone outside the top3 and showing some very creative tactics, and in 5th place Jayden Lam, who scored some great results in some of the days that let him finish above all the other players.

 

The result of the ISF Academy Grand Prix Tournament 2020 has been posted on www.TheChessAcademyHK.com , and we will contact the winners directly for the prizes. Thank you once again for your support to The Chess Academy. We hope to see you again in our next Tournament!