fun Archives - Page 2 of 9 - Menlo Park Chess Club

February 23, 2024February 27, 2024

Chess960 Draft Tournament

Our club dabbled in yet another interesting chess variant Thursday with the Chess960 Draft Tournament and, poorly as I did this time around, I think I speak for everyone in stating that the event was a lot of fun, with unusual positions seen in every round. In one of my games I made the cardinal mistake of failing to take stock of immediate threats on my first move and, as a result, lost a pawn and the exchange to a marauding bishop on move 2 or 3, which was mildly embarrassing. The timed draft aspect of this variant really adds something new and different to the game, especially with a relatively short time control like G/7;d3, but players got the hang of it quickly and there were few if any illegal setups that I’m aware of.

Eighteen participants turned out to be perfect for the four rounds we were able to play and congratulations are once again due to Pranav Jindal for another perfect score, his 4-0 result half a point better than Gabe Sanchez’s 3.5 for sole second. David Zhao and Josen Kalra enjoyed another excellent showing with their shared third place finish at 3 points, ahead of some very strong expert-level competition. Thank you to everyone who played in this event, please let me know if you have any feedback and we’ll give it another go later this year. Regards,

Mark Drury

#	Player	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Rd 4	Total
1	Pranav Jindal	W 9	B 11	W 7	B 5
		1.0	2.0	3.0	4.0	4.0
2	Gabriel Sanchez	W 3	B 8	W 5	B 7
		1.0	2.0	2.5	3.5	3.5
3	David Zhao	B 2	W 16	B 17	W 9
		0.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
4	Josen Kalra	W 6	B 7	W 12	B 11
		1.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
5	Alaric Stein	B 10	W 14	B 2	W 1
		1.0	2.0	2.5	2.5	2.5
6	Kunal Modi	B 4	W 17	B 9	W 10
		0.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
7	Wentao Wu	B 16	W 4	B 1	W 2
		1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
8	Alex Wu	W 12	W 2	B 10	W 17
		1.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
9	Michael Byun	B 1	W 18	W 6	B 3
		0.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
10	Hayden Brongersma	W 5	B 15	W 8	B 6
		0.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
11	Austin Chen	B 13	W 1	B 14	W 4
		1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
12	Hugo Pu	B 8	W 13	B 4	B 15
		0.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
13	Richard Wang	W 11	B 12	W 16	B 14
		0.0	0.0	1.0	1.5	1.5
14	Renzo Frigato	W 18	B 5	W 11	W 13
		1.0	1.0	1.0	1.5	1.5
15	Jeremy Arthur	B 17	W 10	B 18	W 12
		0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
16	Mark Drury	W 7	B 3	B 13	W 18
		0.0	0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0
17	Aditya Dhamdhere	W 15	B 6	W 3	B 8
		1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
18	Carlos Fuertes	B 14	B 9	W 15	B 16
		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

Casual, Blitz, Bughouse, Ladder Chess Evening

Our regular weekly club meeting occurs Thursday evenings from 6:00-9:00pm in the Oak Room of the Arrillaga Family Recreation Center. Casual, blitz, bughouse and ladder chess games are in the offing and we will also play another impromptu blitz tournament (free, no prizes), given there appears to be an appetite for same.

Chess960 Draft Tournament

On the heels of our very successful A4c Variant Tournament, we’ll hold another Chess960 variant tournament, this time using a piece placement draft with the following format and rules:

There will likely be 4 or 5 Swiss rounds at G/7;d3 in one or two sections
The games will be played with the normal Chess960 rules except for the use of a draft, wherein white starts black’s clock then black places the first piece on the back rank and starts white’s clock, white copies that move then places another piece of their own, black copies that placement then places a second piece, etc., until black places a final piece and white makes the first chess move of the game
It’s important to note that the draft phase covered above occurs while players’ clocks are running, just as in normal moves for the game
The king must be placed between the two rooks as in normal Chess960
The bishops must be placed on opposite-colored squares
We will use clock move rather than touch move, as in our blitz tournaments
An illegal move pointed out by an opponent (no one else) immediately ends the game as a loss for the player who made the illegal move

February 16, 2024February 19, 2024

A4c Variant Tournament

We enjoyed an excellent turnout this past Thursday for our first foray into A4c Chess, as we’re styling it (though the variant’s creator may yet object). As a reminder, this variant is best-of-three games against each opponent with ten total minutes on one’s clock, so time management across the two or three games in each match is critical. Indeed, we saw a number of matches in each round where time was used, how shall we say, less than optimally, which led to severe time crunches in the third game and to much clock slapping (sometimes in a vain attempt to stave off the inevitable loss on time)—it definitely made for interesting spectacle and was fun to watch. More information about the variant and the tournament details may be found here.

Twenty-eight people participated in three sections, which worked well for the three rounds we were able to squeeze in during the evening. Below are the results for each section and congratulations are due to winners Kunal (group one), David (group two) and Hayden and Austin (group three). Thank you to everyone who played in this event and the feedback was universally positive, even with the late start, so we’ll definitely play A4c Chess again soon.

Group One

#	Player	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Total
1	Kunal Modi	B 8	W 5	B 3
		1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
2	Pranav Jindal	W 7	B 3	W 6
		1.0	1.5	2.5	2.5
3	Gabriel Sanchez	B 4	W 2	W 1
		1.0	1.5	1.5	1.5
4	Karim Seada	W 3	B 7	B 5
		0.0	1.0	1.5	1.5
5	Wentao Wu	B 6	B 1	W 4
		1.0	1.0	1.5	1.5
6	Alaric Stein	W 5	B 8	B 2
		0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
7	Josen Kalra	B 2	W 4	W 8
		0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0
8	Renzo Frigato	W 1	W 6	B 7
		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

Group Two

#	Player	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Total
1	David Zhao	W 6	B 4	B 2
		1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
2	Paul Tanenbaum	W 8	B 5	W 1
		1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
3	Pablo Jadzinsky	B 4	W 6	B 7
		0.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
4	Michael Byun	W 3	W 1	B 5
		1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
5	Samuel Agdamag	B 7	W 2	W 4
		1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
6	Amogh Rao	B 1	B 3	W 8
		0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0
7	Charles Mayville	W 5	B 8	W 3
		0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
8	Evan Sobel	B 2	W 7	B 6
		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

Group Three

#	Player	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Total
1	Hayden Brongersma	W 10	B 8	B 3
		1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
2	Austin Chen	W 7	B 4	W 6
		1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
3	Atul Dhingra	W 9	B 5	W 1
		1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
4	Fadi Arodaki	B 12	W 2	W 8
		1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
5	Hugo Pu	W 11	W 3	B 7
		1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
6	George Purtell	B 8	W 10	B 2
		0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
7	Kumaravel Mohamkumar	B 2	W 12	W 5
		0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
8	Aditya Dhamdhere	W 6	W 1	B 4
		1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
9	Will Kesselman	B 3	W 11	—-
		0.0	1.0	U1.0	1.0
10	Shlok Chowdhury	B 1	B 6	W 12
		0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0
11	Victor Chen	B 5	B 9	bye
		0.0	0.0	0.5	0.5
12	Bud Woll	W 4	B 7	B 10
		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

A4c Variant Tournament

“A4c” or “The Clock (Almost) Never Stops” Variant

Background: One of the strongest blitz players in our club came up with this variant and, after hearing it described, we couldn’t resist holding an informal tournament to give it a try. It involves a good deal of fast chess plus a game within a game (a metagame) centered around how best to manage one’s fixed time allotment over several games.

Concept: Players will play best of 3 games against the same opponent in each round with 10 minutes on their clocks, with no increment or delay. When a game ends, players pause the clock but do not reset the time. They reset the pieces then restart the clock for the next game with the times remaining from the prior game(s). If a player runs out of time they lose the match. If a player wins the majority of the points possible in the 3 games, they win the match (so if a player wins two games and still has time remaining on their clock they win the match). One player gets two games with the white pieces (first and third games) and the other gets preferred clock side for all games.

Oddities: Clock location does not change so one player always keeps it on their preferred side. Typically the players start the game by drawing for colors then whomever wins the draw chooses White or Clockside, but given we’ll be holding a Swiss system tournament the player assigned White in any round gets two whites and the player assigned Black gets to choose clockside. (We could also allow the player who is assigned White by the pairing software to choose color preference or clockside to further complicate the metagame).

Comments: I like the metagame aspect of this format because it incentivizes players to manage their clock across multiple games with tactical decisions (whether it is burning down an opponent’s time when they are ahead on time or resigning quickly to preserve more time for subsequent games). It also allows a stronger slower player to manage their time differently and take more time to win the majority of games (though this is risky if they go into a third game after budgeting time poorly).

Format: As mentioned above, we will play 3 games at Gs/10 over three or possibly four rounds, depending upon when we get started, and we may split players into groups of 8-12 by rating if the tournament doesn’t start very near 7pm (leaving time for just three rounds), so please arrive a little earlier if at all possible.

February 9, 2024February 9, 2024

Impromptu Blitz #10 Results

We had an excellent turnout for our impromptu blitz tournament last night, with 25 people participating, including a number of first- or second-time visitors—welcome to Munci Inonu, Wyatt Morgan, Pablo Jadzinsky, Evan Sobel, Serena Shinault and Carlos Fuertes and thank you for joining us! Renzo Frigato was able to join us again after a prolonged absence and it was great to see him, as well! This event saw a somewhat unusual 4-way tie for first with four points out of five—congratulations to Munci Inonu, Pranav Jindal, Josen Kalra and David Zhao on their excellent play! The full results for the tournament follow and next week we will play another free, fun-focused tournament using the A4c variant—more details will be on our Events page later today.

#	Player	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Rd 4	Rd 5	Total
1	Munci Inonu	B 16	W 9	B 7	W 13	W 2
		1.0	2.0	2.0	3.0	4.0	4.0
2	Pranav Jindal	W 17	B 4	W 15	W 7	B 1
		1.0	2.0	3.0	4.0	4.0	4.0
3	Josen Kalra	B 12	W 18	B 16	W 6	B 7
		0.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	4.0	4.0
4	David Zhao	W 21	W 2	B 11	B 8	W 9
		1.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	4.0	4.0
5	Renzo Frigato	bye	W 25	B 6	B 12	W 13
		0.5	1.5	1.5	2.5	3.5	3.5
6	Wyatt Morgan	bye	bye	W 5	B 3	B 16
		0.5	1.0	2.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
7	Olivia Smith	B 11	W 10	W 1	B 2	W 3
		1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0	3.0	3.0
8	Pablo Jadzinsky	B 18	W 12	B 10	W 4	B 17
		1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
9	Alex Wu	W 24	B 1	W 17	B 15	B 4
		1.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0	3.0
10	Evan Sobel	W 22	B 7	W 8	B 20	W 19
		1.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
11	Michael Byun	W 7	B 22	W 4	B 24	W 15
		0.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
12	Austin Chen	W 3	B 8	B 13	W 5	W 20
		1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
13	Alex Su	bye	B 20	W 12	B 1	B 5
		0.5	1.5	2.5	2.5	2.5	2.5
14	Mark Drury	W 23	B 15	bye	bye	bye
		1.0	1.0	1.5	2.0	2.5	2.5
15	Jeff McGinnis	B 19	W 14	B 2	W 9	B 11
		1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
16	Samuel Agdamag	W 1	B 24	W 3	B 23	W 6
		0.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
17	Charles Mayville	B 2	W 21	B 9	B 18	W 8
		0.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
18	Hayden Brongersma	W 8	B 3	B 21	W 17	W 23
		0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
19	Serena Shinault	W 15	B 23	W 20	B 25	B 10
		0.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
20	Hugo Pu	bye	W 13	B 19	W 10	B 12
		0.5	0.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5
21	Aditya Dhamdhere	B 4	B 17	W 18	W 22	B 24
		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.5	1.5	1.5
22	Shlok Chowdhury	B 10	W 11	W 24	B 21	W 25
		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.5	1.5	1.5
23	Brian Chen	B 14	W 19	B 25	W 16	B 18
		0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
24	Jeff Ungar	B 9	W 16	B 22	W 11	W 21
		0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
25	Carlos Fuertes	bye	B 5	W 23	W 19	B 22
		0.5	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.5

Casual, Blitz, Bughouse, Ladder Chess Evening

Our regular weekly club meeting occurs Thursday evenings from 6:00-9:00pm in the Oak Room of the Arrillaga Family Recreation Center. Casual, blitz, bughouse and ladder chess games are in the offing and we may also play another impromptu blitz tournament (free, no prizes), given there appears to be an appetite for same.

January 12, 2024January 19, 2024

Impromptu Blitz #9 Results

Due to the miscommunication between rec. center staff and yours truly we postponed the start of our January quads one week, to January 18th, leaving the evening of the 11th free for yet another impromptu blitz tournament. Last night’s affair was a free 5-round G/5+0 affair, one which included 22 players, three of them new visitors to the club (welcome, Anaida, Sandhya and Venugopal!) and saw Pranav emerge victorious, as is often the case. Below are the full results for this event and we will likely hold another impromptu blitz tournament on February 8th—check our Events page for more details when available. Regards,

Mark Drury

#	Player	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Rd 4	Rd 5	Total
1	Pranav Jindal	B 10	W 5	B 3	W 2	B 8
		1.0	2.0	3.0	4.0	5.0	5.0
2	Cesar Tamondong	B 15	W 7	B 6	B 1	W 5
		1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0	4.0	4.0
3	Josen Kalra	B 16	W 9	W 1	B 8	W 10
		1.0	2.0	2.0	3.0	4.0	4.0
4	Chris Murphy	W 14	B 6	W 8	B 12	B 9
		1.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
5	Charles Mayville	W 20	B 1	W 14	B 13	B 2
		1.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0	3.0
6	David Zhao	B 21	W 4	W 2	B 10	W 14
		1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
7	Kornel Csernai	W 12	B 2	W 11	B 16	W 15
		1.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
8	Venugopal Mani	B 17	W 19	B 4	W 3	W 1
		1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0	3.0	3.0
9	Nicholas Tan	W 18	B 3	W 16	B 11	W 4
		1.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0	3.0
10	Hayden Brongersma	W 1	B 13	B 19	W 6	B 3
		0.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0	3.0
11	Austin Chen	B 19	W 17	B 7	W 9	W 13
		0.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
12	Shlok Chowdhury	B 7	W 15	B 21	W 4	B 19
		0.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
13	Ashwin Ganesh	B 22	W 10	B 20	W 5	B 11
		1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
14	Michael Darr	B 4	W 21	B 5	W 20	B 6
		0.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
15	Aditya Dhamdhere	W 2	B 12	W 18	W 19	B 7
		0.0	0.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
16	Joey Lo	W 3	B 18	B 9	W 7	B 21
		0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
17	Brian Chen	W 8	B 11	W 22	B 18	W 20
		0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
18	Alan Chen	B 9	W 16	B 15	W 17	B 22
		0.0	0.0	0.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
19	Mark / Esther	W 11	B 8	W 10	B 15	W 12
		1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
20	Bud Woll	B 5	W 22	W 13	B 14	B 17
		0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
21	Sandhya C	W 6	B 14	W 12	B 22	W 16
		0.0	0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
22	Anaida Stepanyan	W 13	B 20	B 17	W 21	W 18
		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

Casual, Blitz, Bughouse, Ladder Chess Evening

Our regular weekly club meeting occurs Thursday evenings from 6:00-9:00pm in the Oak Room of the Arrillaga Family Recreation Center. Casual, blitz, bughouse and ladder chess games are in the offing and we may also play another impromptu blitz tournament (free, no prizes), given there appears to be an appetite for same.

December 18, 2023December 18, 2023

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!

#	Player	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Rd 4	Rd 5	Total
1	Ram Jeyaraman	B 13	W 4	B 3	W 2	B 5
		1.0	2.0	3.0	4.0	5.0	5.0
2	Gabe Sanchez	W 18	B 10	W 5	B 1	W 6
		1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0	4.0	4.0
3	Cesar Tamondong	B 19	W 7	W 1	B 12	B 9
		1.0	2.0	2.0	3.0	4.0	4.0
4	Charlie Mayville	W 17	B 1	W 11	B 13	W 10
		1.0	1.0	1.5	2.5	3.5	3.5
5	Thomas Gerber	W 8	B 12	B 2	W 7	W 1
		1.0	2.0	2.0	3.0	3.0	3.0
6	David Zhao	bye	B 18	W 9	W 16	B 2
		0.5	1.5	2.0	3.0	3.0	3.0
7	Josen Kalra	W 15	B 3	W 8	B 5	W 11
		1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
8	Austin Chen	B 5	W 14	B 7	W 17	W 12
		0.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	3.0
9	Mark Drury	bye	W 11	B 6	B 10	W 3
		0.5	1.5	2.0	2.5	2.5	2.5
10	Rohan Kapre	B 14	W 2	B 13	W 9	B 4
		1.0	1.0	2.0	2.5	2.5	2.5
11	Paul Hartel	W 20	B 9	B 4	W 19	B 7
		1.0	1.0	1.5	2.5	2.5	2.5
12	Hayden Brongersma	B 16	W 5	B 19	W 3	B 8
		1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
13	Aditya Dhamdhere	W 1	B 15	W 10	W 4	B 16
		0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
14	Jefferson Mateo	W 10	B 8	W 20	B 18	B 19
		0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
15	Beata Ang-Dutta	B 7	W 13	W 17	B 20	W 18
		0.0	0.0	0.0	1.0	2.0	2.0
16	Shlok Chowdhury	W 12	B 17	W 18	B 6	W 13
		0.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
17	Gagan Prakash	B 4	W 16	B 15	B 8	W 20
		0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	1.5	1.5
18	Joey Lo	B 2	W 6	B 16	W 14	B 15
		0.0	0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
19	Jeff Ungar	W 3	B 20	W 12	B 11	W 14
		0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
20	Maxime Gerber	B 11	W 19	B 14	W 15	B 17
		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.5	0.5