IM Matthew Tan Crowned King of Caissa Winter Festival 2020

Newly introduced chess tournament format: the Caissa Winter Festival 2020. An event consisting of two FIDE rated tournaments. The Rapid was played on 12 January and the Blitz on 19 January. The final standings would be calculated using scores in both events.

The Rapid attracted 25 players among which Hong Kong's top players in all age categories. And one of Hong Kong's top coaches, Matthew! Unstoppable today with 5 out of 5. Daniel came second with a draw and looking at places 3 to 6 we see the young Niilo among those with 3.5 points. Well done! Other high scoring Caissa students were Seth and Julian wo all ended in the top 10.

The Blitz a week after the Rapid was played with 23 players. It was very nice we had the Colombian GM Gallego Alcaraz joining the event. With IM Marcos Llaneza also joining Matthew would surely meet more resistance.

But also in this stronger field Matthew proved again he is Hong Kong's ultimate Blitzer, having won the CNY event in 2019 as well as the 7th Caissa Blitz open in 2018 already. With a score of 11 wins out of 11 and he left Andres Felipe and Marcos 1 and 2 points respectively behind.

In the top 10 we see Caissa youth players like Niilo (again!), Advay and Neel appear. Well done boys! Niilo did actually so well that adding up the scores of the earlier played Rapid he had the same score and tie-break as Edgar and Lok Ching which meant we had to go for the ultimate tie-break: armaggeddon matches between the three players for Second and Third Prize.

With some tactical draws here and there it was finally Edgar who won the tie-break, Lok Ching got second place and Niilo third, hence stayed out of reach of prize ware.

Finally the prizes for best players U8, U10 and U12 went to respectively Yiheng, Julian and Boris.

Thank you all players for your sportsmanship and positive contributions to the event.

Results of the Blitz are here below:​