IM Matthew Tan - Hong Kong's Ultimate Blitzer!

After winning the 6th CNY Blitz on 3 February 2019 Matthew repeated this result on 24 March at the Caissa Spring Blitz Open.

Caissa 6th CNY Blitz Photo Impression

Both events were based on preliminaries after which based on score the players were grouped in 4 final groups to play for prizes in these groups. The Group A winner would also win the title.

At CNY we had the following prize winners:

Group D: Stella, Patrick and Khrish. Special congrats to Stella for her first tournament ever and first trophy!
Group C: Ritvik, Noah, Jacob
Group B: Peter, Jean-Sebastien and Oliver
Group A: Wing Ki, Eduard (new Caissa coach!) and Matthew, Champion.

The Spring Blitz few weeks later on 24 March attracted 25 players, the top 4 rated over 2000. Caissa coach IM Mathew Tan with over 2400 rating was top seed.

The results of the preliminary rounds would not only decide which final group the players would be playing in, but also all tie-breaks in the final group stages were decided in favor of the best placed player in the preliminary stage. The preliminaries were not just a formality ...

The finals were thus played in 4 groups. The Champions Group was so strong that no player could avoid a loss. Matthew again proved to be the strongest player and was deservedly crowned Champion. In Group B the top 3 were very close but in Groups C and D there were clear winners 2 points loose from 2nd place.