There will be no chess club meeting September 3rd but we will meet September 10th, when our rated Copa del Menlo tournament begins (see the Events page to register now).

Category: dual-rated

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After another of Frisco’s excellent lectures last week we played the first round of our Copa del Menlo dual-rated Swiss tournament, one which includes three sections of eight players each and an additional teams component. Attached are the first round results, second round pairings and team standings and we’ll play the second round tomorrow evening beginning promptly at 7pm. Note that we should have a skittles room open so those of you not playing in the tournament should feel free to visit and perhaps play some casual chess–several people did so last week.

On the scheduling front, we’ll play the third and final round of our Copa del Menlo September 24th and then on October 1st from 7-8pm Lauren Goodkind has offered to give a free lecture covering one or two of her recent tournament games, a lecture aimed at encouraging more women and girls to play chess and one suitable for beginners as well as more advanced players. Please plan to attend Lauren’s lecture in October and help spread the word, especially among your female friends who are or may be interested in getting more involved in the game we all share. More information may be found here.

Regards,

Mark Drury

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Lecture & Blitz Tournament Tomorrow Evening, Copa del Menlo Registration

I wanted to thank Jeff McGinnis once again for running the club in my absence last week, along with everyone who helped him—I truly appreciate your support! Seems we had at least seven first- or second-time visitors during the evening, which is in keeping with the current trend of lots of new people joining us—here’s hoping the burgeoning interest continues.

Tomorrow night will be another casual evening with a lecture followed by a free, unrated blitz tournament beginning round 7pm. I’ll be gone the following week, June 25th, riding my bicycle on the Oregon coast, but am hoping the club will still meet with the help of additional volunteer organizers—more about that a few days hence.

Finally for now, I updated our rated July tournament to be a G/45;d5 affair given that appears to be the club preference where time control is concerned, so we will play just one dual-rated game each of the three weeks, rather than two quick-rated games. Signups are still light so please register asap if you plan to play, something which makes planning for the tournament far easier:

https://menloparkchess.club/event/copa-del-menlo-round-one/.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions and I hope to see many of you tomorrow evening. Regards,

Mark Drury

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“March Quadness” Registration Opens

With apologies to fans of NCAA Basketball, our next dual-rated quads tournament begins March 5th and runs three consecutive weeks, with a possible makeup round scheduled for March 26th if needed. More details and a registration link may be found here — please register asap if you wish to play in this event as we’re limiting the field to 28 players this time around (7 quads).

Relatedly, the results of our recently-concluded club survey may be seen below and made clear people prefer that our next rated event have a longer time control, so the quads will be played at G/45;d5, one game per evening. In addition to the data shared below we received a large number of helpful comments and suggestions so we’ll try to incorporate all that we can in upcoming events — thank you to those who took the time to complete the survey! Regards,

Mark Drury