Attached are two views of the final results of our Fourth Menlo Park Chess Club Championship, one showing the usual wall chart and another the standings, in case some of you prefer either or both. Congratulations to Breakwell Loyalka, who went undefeated to claim sole first and the title of club champion, and that despite a wild endgame with Frisco in the final round which could have gone either way. I believe Breakwell is our youngest champion to date and his victory is none too surprising given the way he has performed in other recent events. Frisco was also undefeated with three wins and two draws for four points out of five, tying with Vedant Verma for overall second place—congratulations to both of you! Andrew Yu and Steven Swick also deserve mention for claiming sole first and $80 in their prize groups, while Josen Kalra, Di Lin and I tied for first in the second prize group to split the three prizes therein.
Kabir Jain won our cumulative upset prize, despite late surges by Vinayak Vikram and Caleb Leong, and will claim the Pixel Earbuds donated by the Pu family — congratulations to Kabir and thank you once again, Dennis, Helena and Hugo Pu for your generous donation to our club. I also wanted to thank Hugo Pu for ably directing this tournament, which allowed me to play without interruption — I very much appreciate your help, Hugo!
Thank you again to everyone who played in or spectated our final tournament of the year and we’ll do something similar in February or early March of next year. Regards,
Mark Drury
