Category: general

I’m sharing the results from a couple of our recent impromptu blitz tournaments (attached images) and wanted to pass along that we’ll hold another free, unrated blitz tournament tomorrow evening beginning promptly at 7pm. Depending upon entries we may have one single section, as below, or we may break players into groups of 6, 8 or more to create more equitable sections. Please plan to arrive at the club by 6:30 to partake of Frisco’s excellent lecture before the tournament (last week’s explication of the mating pattern with king, bishop and knight versus king was a revelation to me and may be worth repeating soon).

Also, Chris Torres and I are trying to nail down the next rated club tournament, which could begin as early as August 1st, and I’ll share details here as soon as I have them. I hope to see many of you tomorrow, Thursday, evening! Regards,

Mark Drury

Yet another late update for the previous week: we enjoyed an excellent lecture from Frisco Del Rosario then assayed a longer time control in our first impromptu slightly-longer-than-blitz event, a G/7;d2 affair with 18 people joining the fray, and with yours truly being treated most shamefully over the board, it must be said. Andy Applebaum once again claimed first with a perfect 4-0, while Pranav Jindal, Adam Ferrell and Venugopal Mani tied for second a full point behind (3-0); full results for this event are in the attached image. People appeared to approve of the time control but the general thinking is that G/5 or less with some small delay affords more rounds and less waiting between rounds, so we’ll likely return to the faster time controls for our impromptu tournaments.

Frisco will give another lecture this Thursday evening beginning at 6:30pm sharp then we’ll play another free, unrated blitz event beginning shortly after 7pm. As a reminder, there will be no club meeting July 4th, given it’s a national holiday and I believe the Arrillaga Center will be closed, and I will be out of town July 11th but Frisco offered to host the club that evening for a lecture, casual play and/or a thematic tournament. Thank you once again for all you are doing for the club, Frisco!

Just a quick note to share the results from our previous two informal tournaments, with the unrated quick event taking place on the 6th (congratulations to Andy Applebaum, Breakwell Loyalka, and Austin Chen for meting out perfect scores in their respective sections) and our impromptu blitz #18 occurring last week, with first-time visitor Ashwin Hebbar claiming sole first ahead of a stacked if smaller field (four masters and several near-masters), while Adam Ferrell sat alone in second, enjoying his best showing yet in one of these blitz affairs. We’ll hold another imformal blitz tournament tomorrow evening and the first couple people to arrive at the club will choose the time control. In other news, Olivia Smith ran away with the most recent Tuesday Night Marathon at the Mechanics Institute, landing 1.5 points clear of second-place finisher IM Elliot Winslow. Great result, Olivia! The full results and all the games may be found via the following links:

https://www.milibrary.org/chess-tournaments/2024-summer-tuesday-night-marathon#standings

https://www.chess.com/events/2024-summer-tuesday-night-marathon

I hope to see many of you at the club tomorrow evening and, as always, please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Mark Drury

Twenty-six worthies competed in our Impromptu Blitz #17 last Thursday, including two first-time visitors and one returning member (great to see you again, Nicholas!). When all five rounds of G/5;d2 action were said and done Andy Applebaum and Frisco Del Rosario unsurprisingly shared equal first at 4.5 points—well done to both players! It is passing strange how Frisco rails against blitz on occasion (to be fair, in a learning context) yet never manages worse than first place in these events. Hayden Brongersma nabbed sole third with 4.0, another excellent result and clearly a harbinger of first place finishes to come. Full results are in the attached image, thank you to everyone who participated in this tournament and our next impromptu blitz will occur June 27th, per the club schedule found here: https://menloparkchess.club/events/.

Speaking of the schedule, please register in advance for the free, unrated A4c Variant tournament if you plan to play this Thursday—details and a registration link are here: https://menloparkchess.club/event/a4c-variant-tournament-2/.

And beginning June 6th we will commence another double-round quick-rated event of three rounds/weeks in sections of 4, 6 or 8 players, depending upon ratings distributions. Two games against the same opponent will be played each evening, one as white and one as black using the G/15;d5 time control. There is a $10 entry fee for this US Chess-rated event and the entire amount will be returned in the prize fund. More details and a registration link may be found here: https://menloparkchess.club/event/june-double-round-quick-rated-quads-round-1/.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions and I hope to see you at the A4c variant tournament this Thursday!