Category: championship

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).

There was more exciting chess in round 2 of our club championship this past Thursday, with perhaps two games ending in what may be considered upsets along with quite a few time scrambles up and down the wall chart. Below are the current standings after two rounds as well as the tentative round 3 pairings—these could change if there are late bye requests or withdrawals. Many of you have asked me about getting a copy of Frisco’s round 1 bulletin, which includes analysis of three games from the first round, and I think he plans to make that available digitally at some point (but won’t hold him to it).

As a reminder, we’ll play round 3 of the tournament next week then will take a week off November 28th for Thanksgiving. We’ll resume the championship after the holiday with round 4 on December 5th. Regards,

Mark Drury