Dragonboat Tournament 2018

135 participants from 16 chess federations competed in 5 categories during SCA’s 2018 Dragon Boat Tournament yesterday, at Yew Chung International School Shanghai Hongqiao campus.

This year the games took place under tournament conditions in the sports hall, with sponsors tables, face painting, practice area and live Grand Master commentary of the 1st board downstairs in the parent’s area.

Opening Ceremony

8 rounds for U18, G18, U10 and U8 categories and 5 rounds for U6 were played throughout the course of the day. Trophies, medals and certificates were awarded for the top 5 individuals in each category.

Individual Championship – Under 6

1. Isaac Shen

2. Owen Teong Tristan

3. Marvin Xi

4. Smith Rory Ethan Zhang

5. Erin Zhang

Individual Championship – Under 8

1. Chingsui Hu

2. Sebastian Lee

3. Jason Wang

4. Dorfner Maximilian

5. Lisio Michael

Individual Championship – Under 10

1. Ryan Weng

2. Victor Liu

3. Jason Wang

4. Pandora Zhou

5. Morakot Zhang

Female Individual Championship – Under 18

1. Natasha Cao

2. Ye Lyla Quinn

3. Emily He

4. Aurora Song

5. Zihan Chen

Individual Championship – Under 18

1. Joydeep Laha

2. Kaipeng Chen

3. Yuxuan Xu

4. Kaineng Chen

5. Glasson Joseph

School Teams

1. Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong

2. JinCai Experimental Primary School

3. Nord Anglia International School

SIMUL

At the lunchbreak 6 parents participated in a simultaneous exhibition with SCA’s Grandmaster coach, Vladimir Rogovskyi with 2 achieving draws (Tao Han & Tong Wei)

Standings

Final standings are decided by points then tie break points in the order below:

Tie Break1: Direct Encounter (If tied players met, the result of their game decides)
Tie Break2: The greater number of victories(variable)
Tie Break3: Buchholz (the sum of the scores of each of the opponents of a player)

Schools Results

Some moments captured on the Day

During the Games

Pairings, results, ratings, and broadcast of the 1stboard were available live online at SCA’s official WeChat account.

Close games took place between 4-time SCA Tournament champion Joydeep Laha and twin brothers Kaipeng Chen, and Oscar Yasunaga, but Joydeep prevailed reclaiming his title with a 5th SCA tournament victory

Arbiters

Awards Ceremony

During the awards ceremony, prizes, medals, certificates, and trophies were awarded for the top 5 in each category and the youngest participant.

U18 Winners

U10 Winners

U8 Winners

U6 Winners

G18 Winners

Best Schools

Tournament Review

Under 18

Joydeep Laha and Chen Kaineng

The game between Joydeep Laha and Chen Kaineng was a real thriller. Chen played very well in the opening phase, obtaining a small positional advantage which he converted into material advantage with a nice tactical blow, which left him an exchange up in the endgame. But when it seemed like he would cruise to victory, Joydeep counterattacked, demonstrated great coordination of his pieces, and checkmated the white king in the middle of the board making a great come back and a dramatic twist!

Joydeep Laha and Oscar Yasunaga

The penultimate round of U18 group was the last chance for the peloton to catch up, and it was up to Oscar Yasunaga to challenge the leader. Before the round Joydeep had calculated that he only needed a draw to secure the championship; but the draw was not what Oscar was after! “We knew that Oscar would have to defeat Joydeep if he wanted to become a champion, so we prepared”, Grand Master Vladimir Rogovskyi shared with us. They are learning chess in the SCA’s Elite Class at Jing’an centre. Oscar chose the opening wisely and obtained the position he’d prepared in class, where he was familiar with plans and motifs. In a very sharp game white had a couple of nice tactical tricks that could have won the game in a brilliant fashion; however, Joydeep played fast and confident moves, and Oscar didn’t find the most precise moves when he had too. Oscar’s heroic sacrifices were scary, but black defended very well and soon prevailed, securing tournament victory with one round to go.

Girls Under 18

The girls group played a round-robin tournament, meaning everyone played with everyone. Natasha Cao has been very close to winning this group several times before, but it was the 2018 Dragon Boat Tournament that she succeeded for the first time! Nevertheless, it was fascinating competition between her, Lyla Quinn Ye and Emily He, and it seems only fair that a direct encounter among them decided the final standings.

Under 10

The top seed in Under 10 years old group finished only 5th, which shows what a tough group this is. With 40 participants there are at least 10 players capable of winning this group, but the winner can only be one and his name is Ryan Weng! This was Ryan’s first SCA tournament, and a dream debut, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing. In the 3rd round Ryan suffered a defeat from Ivan Wei, another student of Grand Master Vladimir. Ryan pulled himself together quickly and managed to win all the remaining games in fine fashion for a well-deserved championship! We should also mention Eva Han, she is just 8 years old and could have played in Under 8 or girls group, but she decided to play in the Under 10 group to challenge herself and learn from strong opponents. Eva finished 6th, but from an experience perspective, she was a winner.

Under 8

The most numerous group was Under 8 years old. 45 participants representing 9 different chess federations makes the competition here the fiercest! The trophy was won by Hu Ching Sui who practices chess with SCA’s coach Turan. Hu Ching Sui is a new talent we discovered just recently, and he shows true passion towards chess. It’s difficult to say what was the decisive factor leading to his victory, but regular games and practice on ChessKid.com certainly helped, since he is one of the most active students there. Suffice to say, in preparation for this tournament he had won 9 online tournaments! The champion from SCA’s previous tournament, Sebastian Lee, finished 2nd and certainly will seek to reclaim his title next time. Top seed Jason Wang scored the same number of points as Sebastian but lost to him in the direct encounter in round 4, where Sebastian developed a very strong attack on Jason’s king, therefore finished 3rd in the final standings.

Under 6

The youngest group, also known as The Future group, featured undefeated champion Isaac Shen who defended his title from the Easter Tournament in April. All the players deserve special recognition, it takes a lot of courage to participate in such competition at just 5 years old. The youngest participant, Olivia Ou, just turned 5 a few days before the tournament and she performed very well scoring 2.5 points!

Title Sponsor

CreditEase 宜信财富
中国互联网金融行业的支柱之
宜信公司创立于2006年，作为从事普惠金融和财富管理事业的金融科技知名上市企业，以不断创新在留学，移民，投资等各个领域行业领先。
Website: http://caifu.yixin.com

Host Venue

Yew Chung International School of Shanghai – Puxi

Hongqiao Campus

Partners

1. JingKids – Media Partner: Official Account: Jingkids_Shanghai

2. 功夫小飞龙 – Kung Fu Partner: Official Account: gongfuxiaofeilong

3. Active Kidz Shanghai – Partner: ActiveKidzShanghai website: www.activekidz.org

4. Chartwells: F&B Partner: www.chartwellsschools.com

5. Melrose Pizza: F&B Partner: www.melrosepizza.com

Prize Sponsors

1. www.dragonfly.net.cn

2. www.fieldschina.com

3. www.columbia-china.com

4. www.citic-prudential.com.cn

Face Painting Artist

Lena Cao, Tel: +8618601995510, Instagram: cao.lena, Wechat: caocao8627