Schedule Update, Kolty Blitz, Impromptu Blitz #8 Results

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!

#PlayerRd 1Rd 2Rd 3Rd 4Rd 5Total
1Ram JeyaramanB 13W 4B 3W 2B 5
1.02.03.04.05.05.0
2Gabe SanchezW 18B 10W 5B 1W 6
1.02.03.03.04.04.0
3Cesar TamondongB 19W 7W 1B 12B 9
1.02.02.03.04.04.0
4Charlie MayvilleW 17B 1W 11B 13W 10
1.01.01.52.53.53.5
5Thomas GerberW 8B 12B 2W 7W 1
1.02.02.03.03.03.0
6David ZhaobyeB 18W 9W 16B 2
0.51.52.03.03.03.0
7Josen KalraW 15B 3W 8B 5W 11
1.01.02.02.03.03.0
8Austin ChenB 5W 14B 7W 17W 12
0.01.01.02.03.03.0
9Mark DrurybyeW 11B 6B 10W 3
0.51.52.02.52.52.5
10Rohan KapreB 14W 2B 13W 9B 4
1.01.02.02.52.52.5
11Paul HartelW 20B 9B 4W 19B 7
1.01.01.52.52.52.5
12Hayden BrongersmaB 16W 5B 19W 3B 8
1.01.02.02.02.02.0
13Aditya DhamdhereW 1B 15W 10W 4B 16
0.01.01.01.02.02.0
14Jefferson MateoW 10B 8W 20B 18B 19
0.00.01.01.02.02.0
15Beata Ang-DuttaB 7W 13W 17B 20W 18
0.00.00.01.02.02.0
16Shlok ChowdhuryW 12B 17W 18B 6W 13
0.01.02.02.02.02.0
17Gagan PrakashB 4W 16B 15B 8W 20
0.00.01.01.01.51.5
18Joey LoB 2W 6B 16W 14B 15
0.00.00.01.01.01.0
19Jeff UngarW 3B 20W 12B 11W 14
0.01.01.01.01.01.0
20Maxime GerberB 11W 19B 14W 15B 17
0.00.00.00.00.50.5

Impromptu Blitz #7 Results, Schedule Updates

We enjoyed a record 31 participants in our Impromptu Blitz #7 last night, a 5-round G/3+2 affair which included no less than nine first-time visitors to the club. As is often the case, Pranav Jindal and Alaric Stein sat atop the wall chart when all was said and done, Pranav taking first this time with a perfect 5-0 while Alaric shared joint second at 4-1 with Cesar Tamondong, who nicked me in the final round with his accursed From’s Gambit (between he and Kornél I’m considering a temporary ban at the club on that particular response to my beloved Bird). Full results for the tournament may be viewed in the attached image.

I’ll update the club’s schedule of events this weekend (https://menloparkchess.club/events/) but we’ll meet December 14th and 21st for casual, blitz or variant tournaments then there will be no meetings December 28th and January 4th, due to the Holidays. Beginning January 11th we’ll hold a 2- or 3-week quick-rated event of some kind, likely G/15, perhaps double-round quads again. As always, let me know your preferences and/or dislikes and I hope to see many of you next week.

Second Club Championship Results

Our second club championship concluded Thursday, November 30th, with many exciting games impacting the final prize distributions, as is often the case in a single-section Swiss event such as ours, and we were able to stream the top six boards live thanks to the efforts of Jean-Rudolph Cendejas and Cesar Tamondong—thank you both again for arranging that for our club!

Alex Chin went a perfect 5-0 to claim sole first place, followed by Tobin Bennion and David Zhao in second with 4 points out of five. Prinav Jindal, Nick Matelli, and Anton Bobkov shared 4th-6th places with 3.5 points and five players tied for 7th-11th with 3.0. The US Chess rating report may be found here while the full wall chart and prize group standings follow in the two tables below. Thank you to everyone who played in this event and we’ll look to hold a third club championship same time next year!

NameRatingScorePrize
1600+
CHIN, ALEX20095.0$100
BENNION, TOBIN17084.0$60
MATELLI, NICK16953.5$20
JINDAL, PRANAV20043.5$20
TAMONDONG, CESAR16323.0
KALRA, JOSEN16003.0
WU, JIALIN17032.5
LIU, LIAM16652.0
JEYARAMAN, RAMKUMARunr.2.0
1300-1599
ZHAO, DAVID15024.0$80
WANG, CHASE13283.0$50
LAKIRBAIA, LASHA13043.0$50
GRINKIN, NIKITA14532.5
MCGINNIS, JEFFREY15042.0
KIM, TAEWOO14002.0
SHERRARD, MICHAEL14781.5
AGDAMAG, SAMUEL14621.5
1002-1299
BOBKOV, ANTON12923.5$60
CSERNAI, KORNEL12853.0$40
DHINGRA, ATUL10952.5$7
DESAI, DHRITEE12132.5$7
BENNION, BANKS11402.5$7
RASYID, HAMDANIL12602.0
ARODAKI, FADI10602.0
BRONGERSMA, HAYDEN10641.5
UNGAR, JEFFREY10431.0
UNR-1001
HARTEL, PAUL9182.5$50
RAO, AMOGHunr.2.5$50
PU, HUGOunr.1.5$10
GAUTHIER, GREGORYunr.1.5$10
RASYID, UMAR10011.0
DARR, MICHAEL7981.0
SINGH, PARAMDEEP6721.0
KALRA, SIDDHARTH2530.5

Club Championship Games Streamed Live!

Thanks to the efforts and connections of Juan Cendejas and Cesar Tamondong, the top six boards of the final round of our club championship to be played Thursday, November 30th, at 7pm will be streamed live on both chess.com and DGT’s livechesscloud.com via the following links:

https://www.chess.com/events/2023-menlo-park-chess-club-championship
https://view.livechesscloud.com/#bffa7ace-751d-40a8-bf8f-9a324599ba3f

The pairings for the top six boards remain the same as in our previous post but there were some changes on the lower boards due to illness or withdrawal—the latest pairings are shared below for reference. This is an exciting first for our young club and likely won’t be the last time we dabble in this technology. Thank you, Juan and Cesar!

Second Club Championship Final Round Pairings, Wall Chart, Prize Group Standings

Our round 4 games were no less exciting than previous rounds and we saw a number of upsets, to boot. Below are the final round pairings, wall chart and prize group standings heading into the final round. As always, the pairings could change if someone is unable to play on the 30th, and I’ll update these tables asap if that’s the case.

Recall that the chess club will not meet this Thursday, the 23rd, due to Thanksgiving—please enjoy the holiday, everyone! Regards,

Mark Drury

Second Club Championship Round 4 Pairings, Wall Chart, Prize Group Standings

The round 3 games were every bit as exciting as those in the previous round, with some narrow escapes, some clearly winning attacks which fizzled out and some interesting endgames, including that between Greg and Umar, which had a study-like quality about it given the opposite-color bishops. Again, I’ll try to get some of these games online during the Thanksgiving break next week, perhaps sooner.

Below are the pairings, wall chart and prize group standings for round 4. Anton is half a point clear in his group but fell ill this week and won’t be able to play Thursday, regrettably, though he still has an excellent chance at a prize with a draw or win in the final round. Hugo is also half a point clear in his group and we’ll see if he can keep that going when he plays Nikita this week. Note that a number of players have needed to take a zero-point bye given they’d already used the one half-point bye allowed in this event. That’s always unfortunate but there are a number of reasons why we use this rule–follow up with me Thursday if you have any questions.

Due to the odd number of players this round Umar gets the full-point bye though, as always, things could change in 24 hours if we get another bye request or the like–I’ll redo the pairings if I receive any such requests before 4pm Thursday. I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow! Regards,

Mark Drury

Second Club Championship Round 3 Pairings, Wall Chart, Prize Group Standings

Round 2 of our club championship was another exciting affair with a number of very close games, including several of those on the top boards. I will try to publish some or all of the games in a Lichess study, as with a couple of our previous events, a task which is always made easier if you send me a timely pgn file of your game score (thank you to those who are already doing so). The second and third tables below include the wall chart and the prize group standings, and all prizes remain very much up for grabs in each group. I’ve received the entry fee payment from a smattering of players so please send that along (or pay at the club) at your earliest convenience. Regards,

Mark Drury

Second Club Championship Round 2 Pairings

Below are the pairings for round two of our club championship, which begins promptly at 7pm Thursday, November 2nd, 2023. Please call Mark Drury at 650-400-6393 if you are unable to play for any reason and try to arrive no later than 6:50pm to check in.

The two tables which follow the second round pairings, below, are the wall chart and the prize groups–we have two groups with 9 members and two with 8 and the ratings distributions seen in this event make the groups reasonably equitable (though please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, of course). Regards,

Mark Drury

Second Club Championship Round 1 Results

Below are the results from round 1 of our club championship, which occurred Thursday, October 26th, 2023. Note that, due to my forgetting an email exchange in the aftermath of COVID, I paired someone who had requested a bye for this past Thursday, a lacuna that resulted in a forfeit win for one player and the agreed-upon half-point bye for the other. We also had one no-show which resulted in another forfeit win, but all-in-all it was a decent start to this much-delayed tournament. Regards,

Mark Drury

Second Club Championship Round 1 Pairings

Below are the pairings for round one of our club championship, beginning promptly at 7pm Thursday, October 26th, 2023. Please call Mark Drury at 650-400-6393 if you are unable to play for any reason and try to arrive no later than 6:50pm to check in. Regards,

Mark Drury

Bd#ResWhite#ResBlack
11ALEX CHIN17KORNEL CSERNAI
218HAMDANIL RASYID2PRANAV JINDAL
33RAMKUMAR JEYARAMAN19DHRITEE DESAI
420ANTON BOBKOV4TOBIN BENNION
55JIALIN WU21BANKS BENNION
623HAYDEN SCOTT BRONGERSMA6LIAM LIU
77CESAR TAMONDONG24FADI ARODAKI
825P JEFFREY UNGAR8JOSEN SINGH KALRA
99JEFFREY D MCGINNIS26UMAR RASYID
1027PAUL HARTEL10DAVID ZHAO
1111MICHAEL LESLIE SHERRARD28MICHAEL DARR
1229PARAMDEEP SINGH12SAMUEL AGDAMAG
1313NIKITA GRINKIN30SIDDHARTH KALRA
1432GREGORY GAUTHIER14TAEWOO KIM
1515CHASE WANG33JEFFERSON MATEO
1634HUGO PU16LASHA LAKIRBAIA
 22½ATUL DHINGRA  BYE
 31½AMOGH RAO  BYE