Last Thursday saw no less than nine first-time visitors at the club as well as a few members who returned after a considerable absence, which made for some interesting results in our Impromptu Blitz #64. Young Cameron Troy looked like he was headed for a 7-0 sweep after five rounds of crushing G/3+2 chess before running afoul of eventual winners Vedant Verma and Hayden Brongersma in rounds six and seven, respectively, both of whom amassed 6.0 points against a strong field. Pranav Jindal and Alexander Su shared third place with Cameron a point back while Lauren Goodkind sat alone in sixth place with 4.5 points. Full results are in the attached image and thank you to everyone who joined us for this casual tournament.
Relatedly, our club blitz rating and blitz points standing lists have been updated with the latest results and Hayden Brongersma has unsurprisingly taken over the top ratings spot while Pranav Jindal maintains his slim lead over Austin Chen in the points race:
https://menloparkchess.club/ladders/club-unofficial-blitz-ratings/
https://menloparkchess.club/ladders/club-blitz-points-standings/
Note that I will not be at the club this coming Thursday (I’ll be in Santa Barbara attending my daughter’s college graduation) but I will know in a day or two if others will run the club in my absence and will update https://menloparkchess.club/events/ no later than Wednesday afternoon with the status for this week. I will be at the club June 18th, of course, hosting another casual evening with a lecture and blitz tournament.
Finally for now, our “Copa Del Menlo” rated tournament remains scheduled for the first three Thursdays in July and one change we’re considering for this event is the time control, playing a single G/45;d5 instead of two G/20;d3 games each evening, given our club members appear to favor the longer time control. Let me know if you have a preference and please register asap if you plan to play in this event. Regards,
Mark Drury
