Apologies for the short notice (and the long message) but I am out of town today and next Thursday and will not be at the club either evening, regrettably, but we still plan to meet for casual play and Frisco’s lecture beginning at 6:30pm. If some of you are able to arrive early, round 6:15pm or so, to help set up the room that would be great. Having a few people help put away all the chess sets and boards round 8:45pm or earlier is also important, given the desk attendant, Harold, is typically ready to march out the door at 9pm sharp.
The chess equipment (boards and pieces) are in the usual cabinet in the Willow Room–Harold and several members know where it is stored. Note that the club chess clocks won’t be available this evening given they are at my home so please bring your clock or download one of the free apps onto your phone if you would like to play timed games tonight. Next week the club clocks will again be available.
Another scheduling change is that for our dual-rated G/45;d5 event, which will now begin May 8th and not next week. Sriram and I were looking at our calendars and it simply makes more sense to run that event in May, when we wouldn’t need a protracted break between rounds. I’ll follow up with everyone who has registered thus far with more details and will ask about continued interest in participating, bye requests, possible entry fee refunds and the like.
Lastly, we held one of our oddest impromptu blitz tournaments last week with a double-round G/1+5 (game in 1 minute with a 5-second increment) affair and, suffice to say, reviews were mixed on the time control. It was too short for an enjoyable blitz experience yet too long to warrant the double-round format, with sentiment seeming that most were glad to have tried it but don’t wish to do so again. When all eight rounds were finished Hayden Brongersma stood atop the field of 22 with 7 out of 8 points, followed a half point back by perennial wall chart-topper Pranav Jindal. Yash Shah and Liam Liu shared third at 6 points while relative newcomer Di Lin was alone in fifth at 5.0. Full results are in the attached image, thank you to everyone who slogged through this event with us and know that we’ll stick to more conventional blitz formats in the future. Regards,
Mark Drury
