Join Us for Thursday Evening Chess on the San Francisco Peninsula
Below are the tentative round 1 and 2 pairings for our February double-round, quick-rated small Swisses in three sections (by rating). These pairings (or even groups) could change before the start of play Thursday, February 13th, but will be updated here if that is the case.
We enjoyed another full house at the club last Thursday, with 30 people participating in our free, unrated G/3+2 blitz tournament and with several first-time visitors to boot. Yash Shah proved his blitz mettle once again with 6.5 points out of 7 for clear first, followed a half point behind by Zelin Fang in sole second, while three others tied for third with five points: Alex Chin, Pranav Jindal and Venugopal Mani. Full results are in the attached image, congratulations to our winners and thank you to everyone who joined us for this event!
Regarding our rated quads which begin this week, many people let me know that there is no school in some local districts the week of February 17-21, with many players (parents and/or kids) being out of town on the 20th, so I have rescheduled the quads to occur on February 13th, February 27th and March 6th, with the week of the 20th being another casual night with a lecture and informal blitz tournament. If you wish to play in our quads please register asap on the website: https://menloparkchess.club/event/february-double-round-quick-rated-quads-round-one/.
I’m finally getting round to posting the results from last week’s impromptu G/5;d5 blitz tournament, which saw a return to action for Adithya Karavadi, the club’s first champion. Welcome back, Adithya, and congratulations on your perfect 5/5 score in this event. Following Adithya by a single point in a 3-way tie for second were three club stalwarts who frequent the top of our wall charts: Yash Shah, Adam Ferrell and Cesar Tamondong. Well played, all of you, and thank you to everyone who joined us for this tournament (full results are in the attached image).
We’ll hold another casual evening tonight with a lecture beginning at 6:30pm followed by another free, unrated blitz tournament round 7pm. Note that we only have about 10 registrations for our rated quads beginning next week so unless that number picks up considerably we may postpone or cancel the event (the start date doesn’t work for some people, regrettably): https://menloparkchess.club/event/february-double-round-quick-rated-quads-round-one/. Regards,
Mark Drury
I am belatedly posting the results from our 7-round G/3+2 blitz tournament of last week, which saw several of the first-time visitors from the previous week return for another chance at glory and/or revenge. Alex Chin ended up alone in first place with a perfect 7/7, with Hayden Brongersma in sole second a point behind and Pranav Jindal and Josen Kalra sharing T-3 with 5 points. Congratulations to our winners and thank you to everyone who joined us last week!
Apparently, and somewhat humorously, a couple people tried to let me know last Thursday that a first-time visitor was engaging in a running monologue during his games and I thought they were implicating another new person with whom I was playing a casual game. In any case, apologies I didn’t get the message and didn’t hear the person in question but I’ll be certain to keep an eye and an ear out for this behavior Thursday, when we’ll play another free, unrated Swiss of some kind.
Lastly, I will share the details for our next rated event tomorrow or Thursday at the latest, but expect it to be a quick-rated tournament beginning on February 13th. More to come soon!
We had 32 people participate in our free lecture and unrated blitz tournament last week, per the attached results image, including 10 or 12 first-time visitors to the club, which must be a record (there were clearly some play-over-the-board-chess New Year’s resolutions to thank for the big turnout). Congratulations to Triet, Hayden and Raaja on their first-place tie at 5 out of 6 and to Breakwell for his solo fourth performance at 4.5, another excellent showing ahead of a raft of strong players at 4 points! We’ll do the same thing this Thursday (lecture and blitz tournament) and I’ll send more information soon about our upcoming rated event in February.
Attached is the wall chart showing the final results for our 2024 Club Championship as well as the prize amounts and distributions for our different prize groups. Congratulations to our newest club champion, Yoyo He, on his perfect score in this event and on the addition of 100+ points to his regular rating—well played, Yoyo! Pranav Jindal took sole second in the event with four points followed by a number of players at 3.5, and both Thomas Petrillo and Breakwell Loyalka played well above their ratings to be part of that august group. The tournament has already been rated and the US Chess report is available here:
https://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202412125552-12459313
Thank you to everyone who participated in our club championship and if you have any feedback or suggestions for future tournaments please don’t hesitate to share them with me. Regards,
Mark Drury
Last night’s round 4 of our 2024 Menlo Park Chess Club Championship was replete with more upsets and heartbreaking losses, setting up a final-round showdown between Pranav Jindal and Yoyo He for the title and $120 first prize. This has been a great tournament thus far and has likely been more enjoyable as a spectator than a player, given some of the tragicomic events witnessed over the board these past many weeks. We’ll play round 5 next Thursday, hold another free, impromptu blitz tournament December 19th then take a few weeks off for the Holidays. As always, Frisco’s 6:30pm lectures alone are worth a visit to the club, even if you’re not playing in the championship, and I hope to see many of you before the year ends. — Mark Drury
The attached image includes the December 5th round 4 pairings for our club championship and, as always, these could change if we get late bye requests or cancelations due to illness or the like. A number of you have asked about byes so I wanted to reiterate what is stated in the tournament announcement: each player is eligible for one half-point bye in any of rounds 1 through 4. Any additional bye requests (including for round 5) will be zero points, the most equitable thing to do where prizes are concerned. Late bye requests on Thursday may be given zero points (an unrated forfeit loss) if I cannot re-pair the round ahead of the 7pm start. If there are any changes to the pairings below I will email participants the updated wall chart asap. Looking forward to Thursday night!
Upsets were again a theme in round 3 of our club championship, with no fewer than ten games ending in a draw or loss for the higher-rated player. Young Austin Chen in particular showed incredible resolve to hold then win a position while down an exchange (and about 600 rating points vis-à-vis his strong opponent)–his passed c-pawn proved a difficult problem and he eventually capitalized on Wentao’s time trouble late in their game. Tough losses aside, our talented junior players are a joy to watch and I’ve little doubt more than a few of them will be candidate masters or better soon if they keep playing the game with the same enthusiasm seen at the club.
Frisco shared his excellent round 2 bulletin with us last night and if you weren’t able to pick up a copy at the club you can view or download it here, Thank you, Frisco!
As a final reminder, the club will not meet next week due to Thanksgiving, with round 4 of the championship occurring on December 5th. Have a great holiday and I hope to see many of you in December!
Below are the four page’s from Frisco Del Rosario’s round one bulletin for our club championship—a single PDF is also available if you’d like a copy (just send email to the club address, info@menloparkchess.club).
