Winter Blitz, Matthew Tan... again!

Our first open Over the Board event of the year was played on Sunday March 14th at our Sheung Wan Centre. What it was supposed to be a casual afternoon became a quite serious matter with the presence of some strong players and quite intense games, especially with the very short time available for each game (players were starting with 5 minutes only and getting 3 seconds extra per every move)

Already the first round had a very important game for the tournament outcome. Ranking 1, our own Coach IM Matthew Tan was paired against strong but unrated Jay Bidal. The game was extremely complex and could have gone both ways, but in the end Matthew won. Little we knew by then, that this would already be the game between the tournament winner and the 1st runner up

First round, Board 1, could have perfectly been Last Round board 1!

After then, Matthew won all his remaining games until Round 8, when he had already secured the first place, and decided not to play the last round.

Second place was for Jay Bidal, who after losing to Matthew in Round 1 scored 7 points in the 8 remaining games, losing only to Caissa Student Boris Chan, who was the Best U12 but with some very nice results (this victory against Jay Bidal, draw against former National Champion Daniel Lam). Another Caissa Student, Niilo Nissinen, got the 3rd place with 6/9 points.

Top Row: General views

Middle Row: Boris Chan (U12 Champion), Niilo Nissinen (3rd Place), Jay Bidal (2nd Place)

Lower Row: Matthew Tan (Champion)

Full results of the day available in chess-results: Caissa Winter Blitz 2021