Tag: fun

Following Frisco’s excellent lecture Thursday, thirty-one players participated in our Impromptu Blitz #28, another 7-round affair in one section but with a G/5+0 time control this time around. There were upsets, there were illegal moves (yours truly pushed a pawn 3 squares in one move to squander a winning attack), there were embarrassing mates (yours truly was mated by a pawn in an otherwise won endgame) and there were time forfeitures galore, just what one might expect when there’s no increment or delay. Congratulations to Andy Applebaum and Pranav Jindal for outlasting many other strong players and tying for first with 5.5. points, and thank you to everyone who participated in this event (full results are attached).

Thursday was also our good friend Taewoo Kim’s last evening at the club, given he and his family (Minsoo, Jung and Taein) return to Korea this week–we wish them all the best and look forward to following Taewoo’s chess journey online.

This week we’ll hold what is tentatively planned to be a rated G/5+0 blitz tournament of seven rounds but if we don’t get at least 20-24 entries by Tuesday we may instead make it an unrated event, though still with a $5 entry fee and cash prizes. If you have a preference for rated versus unrated please let me know and please register asap if you plan to play in this event: https://menloparkchess.club/event/club-blitz-championship-tournament-1-g-50/. Regards,

Mark Drury

Adding the wall charts for our Impromptu Blitz Tourney numbers 26 and 27, which took place September 26th and October 3rd and were well attended, with perhaps seven first-time visitors to the club last night alone.

Andy Applebaum, Mikhail Molodyk and Yoyo He took 1st-3rd places, respectively, in the G/4;d2 #26 last week while Alex Chin and Cesar Tamondong tied for first in the G/3+2 #27 last night, with Pranav Jindal and Hayden Brongersma tying for third in that event (one which saw a surprising number of upsets). The full results for both tournaments may be seen in the attached images and thank you again to everyone who participated!

Of special note, after last night’s tournament ended seven of us walked over to Barebottle Brewing Co., a mere three blocks from the club, hoping to find Viktor Grigoriev and the Silicon Valley Chess gang already playing there, but they may not have begun hosting at that venue just yet. Viktor, is that still in the works? In any case, we played some bughouse (with John Vitlacil holding court, per the attached image) and blitz and analyzed a game or two until 10:30pm or so (that’s when I left, at least). It’s a great place for casual chess (people were playing Magic: The Gathering, as well) and I hope to do this again on any given Thursday.

I wanted to share a few quick updates with the club, given it’s been a while since I posted here. First and foremost, a hearty congratulations are due to WFM Olivia Smith, who played board one for Wales at the recently-concluded Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary. Olivia finished with an excellent score of 6/9 and one can only imagine what an amazing experience this must have been for her and her entire team (https://results.fide.com/olymp2024/olymp.php?ev_code=68&team=80). Well done, Olivia!

Second, attached are the results from our last three impromptu blitz tournaments at the club, all of which used the same G/4;d2 time control. Tomorrow, Thursday, we’ll continue with another excellent lecture from Frisco Del Rosario at 6:30pm then will hold Impromptu Blitz #26 round 7pm, as usual.

Third, I’m trying to decide upon our next tournament format, whether it should be rated or unrated, blitz or a longer time control, how many weeks it should run–all the usual questions rolling around in a TD’s head. If you have an opinion about the format for our next event please let me know and it may begin as soon as the second week of October.