Author: markdrury

Twenty-five people played in our impromptu blitz tournament this past Thursday, a G/5+2 affair of five rounds and the slightly longer time control helped to shake up the results in yet another strong field. Gabriel Sanchez took sole first with 4.5 points while Liam Liu and David Zhao shared second at 4, ahead of some very strong master- and expert-level competition. Kunal Modi grabbed sole fourth at 3.5, leaving a raft of players to share fifth with 3 points.

Of particular note, chess expert, author, journalist and friend Frisco Del Rosario was able to visit the club for the first time and it was great to see and play a game with him—hopefully you will join us again soon, Frisco! Full results are in the table below and thank you to everyone who played in this event.

As a reminder, we’ll begin a US Chess dual-rated Swiss-system event over three weeks beginning this Thursday, April 4th, and concluding April 25th (there will be no chess club meeting April 18th). Players will be divided into groups of 6 or 8 based on rating and will play one game at G/45;d5 each week. A few spots remain for this event and more information and a registration link may be found here. As always, please register early if you plan to play in this event.

Just as with the week before, twenty-one people played in our impromptu blitz tournament this past Thursday, another G/3+2 affair of five rounds and, as with the week before, Pranav Jindal claimed sole first with 4.5 points, the lone draw ceded to young Liam Liu. Three others tied for second in this battle of blitz heavyweights, with Andy Applebaum, Kunal Modi and Cesar Tamondong all securing 4 points (I don’t know that Cesar has ever scored less than 4 points in similar events)—well played, all of you! Full results are in the table below and thank you to everyone who joined us for this event.

We’ll hold one more casual evening this week, with another free blitz tournament beginning at 7pm, then will commence a US Chess dual-rated Swiss-system event over three weeks beginning Thursday, April 4th, and concluding April 25th (there will be no chess club meeting April 18th). Players will be divided into groups of 6 or 8 based on rating and will play one game at G/45;d5 each week. A few spots remain for this event and more information and a registration link may be found here.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope to see many of you at the club this Thursday!

Twenty-one people played in our impromptu blitz tournament last Thursday, a G/3+2 affair of five rounds, and Pranav Jindal once again claimed sole first with 4.5 points, a first-round bye notwithstanding. Gabe Sanchez, Ramkumar Jeyaraman and 9-year-old Liam Liu tied for second with 4 points, followed by Kornel Csernai in sole 5th with 3.5—well played, all of you! Full results are in the table below and thank you to everyone who joined us for this event.

We’ll hold two more casual evenings this week and next, with free blitz tournaments occurring in each, then will commence a US Chess dual-rated Swiss-system event over three weeks beginning Thursday, April 4th, and concluding April 25th (there will be no chess club meeting April 18th). Players will be divided into groups of 6 or 8 based on rating and will play one game at G/45;d5 each week. More information and a registration link may be found here.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope to see many of you at the club this Thursday!

We had an excellent turnout for our impromptu blitz tournament last night, with 25 people participating, including a number of first- or second-time visitors—welcome to Munci Inonu, Wyatt Morgan, Pablo Jadzinsky, Evan Sobel, Serena Shinault and Carlos Fuertes and thank you for joining us! Renzo Frigato was able to join us again after a prolonged absence and it was great to see him, as well! This event saw a somewhat unusual 4-way tie for first with four points out of five—congratulations to Munci Inonu, Pranav Jindal, Josen Kalra and David Zhao on their excellent play! The full results for the tournament follow and next week we will play another free, fun-focused tournament using the A4c variant—more details will be on our Events page later today.

Due to the miscommunication between rec. center staff and yours truly we postponed the start of our January quads one week, to January 18th, leaving the evening of the 11th free for yet another impromptu blitz tournament. Last night’s affair was a free 5-round G/5+0 affair, one which included 22 players, three of them new visitors to the club (welcome, Anaida, Sandhya and Venugopal!) and saw Pranav emerge victorious, as is often the case. Below are the full results for this event and we will likely hold another impromptu blitz tournament on February 8th—check our Events page for more details when available. Regards,

Mark Drury

I have an important schedule update which I hope everyone receives before next Thursday, December 21st: there will be no chess that evening. I was informed late last Thursday, after most people had left the club for the night, that the Arrillaga Family Recreation Center will close for the holidays Wednesday, December 20th. Our next meeting will be January 11th, then, and I’ll send more details soon about the 3-week quick-rated tournament which begins on that date.

If you still need a chess fix this coming week fret not, as the Kolty Chess Club will hold a 7-round G/3+2 blitz tournament Wednesday, December 20th, one I hope to attend and I’m also hoping our Menlo Park club has another good showing at a Kolty blitz event. Details follow (from the Kolty CC Facebook group):

Remember to make room in your holiday schedule for the Eric Steger Appreciation Blitz Tournament next Wednesday, December 20th. This will be a 7 round Swiss, G3/2, USCF rated event so USCF membership is required. Entry fee is $15/$20 and will be in one open section.

Please preregister by emailing Wolfgang at the KoltyChessClub@gmail.com address.

If you plan to come play please bring a digital clock since the club has very few.

We had 20 club stalwarts play in our impromptu G/5+0 blitz tournament this past Thursday, with relative newcomer Ramkumar Jeyaraman taking sole first with a perfect 5-0 score, followed closely by Gabriel Sanchez and Cesar Tamondong at 4-1, with Cesar once again beating me in the final round on the black side of another Bird. Full results for this event are available in the table below.

Lastly, this past Thursday was Paul Hartel’s final visit to the club, given he returns to Germany soon, and we will miss him a great deal. Paul has been a helpful member of the club for some time now, showing up early to help set up and participating in many of our tournaments this year. His game has improved a great deal during his time here, culminating in an even score in our recently-concluded club championship, we wish him every success in chess and in life and hope to meet him over the board again soon!