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 as well as a lecture are in the offing and we will also play another free, unrated blitz tournament beginning round 7pm, given there appears to be a continuing appetite for same. Note that our free weekly lecture begins at 6:30pm and it remains one of the highlights of club attendance.
Impromptu Blitz #53 Results
Continuing last week’s free, unrated blitz tournament with a focus on establishing relative club member ratings, we held six rounds of the slightly slower G4;d4 this week and Hayden Brongersma prevailed over 24 other players with 5 points out of six, followed by three very strong players in a tie for second: Pranav Jindal, Breakwell Loyalka and Lauren Goodkind. Full results for the tournament and the updated club ratings follow in the attached images.
We’re still contemplating what we plan to do with this ratings experiment and perhaps that will become more clear as the weeks progress though, again, if you have any bright ideas about what we should be doing please let me know. Regards,
Mark Drury
Impromptu Blitz #52 Results
We tried something a little different beginning with this week’s free, unrated blitz tournament — we gave all thirty players the same beginning rating with the thought that, over the course of 4-5 such blitz events, we’d come to better understand the relative strengths of club members’ blitz play. That, and there’s still some vague idea floating around that we’ll create a ladder, tournament and/or related prize structure based on ratings accrual and other factors over that time. More information will be shared as the idea crystalizes and please let me know if you have any opinions or ideas, of course.
Triet Vo had an excellent result in this large first event with a perfect 7 out of 7 score, while Hayden Brongersma sat alone in second a point behind. Pranav Jindal and Caleb Leong shared third with 5 points, Austin Chen was sole fifth at 4.5 and a swarm of strong players settled for T6 honors at 4 points. Full results are in the attached image and the SwissSys ratings report is also attached (it includes a couple anomalies that I’ll need to investigate). We will continue the blitz ratings folly in the coming weeks and hopefully it will be modestly entertaining as we figure out what we’re actually doing with this experiment. Regards,
Mark Drury
Impromptu Blitz #51 Results
We had a smaller turnout for last week’s lecture and blitz tournament but there was no lack of appetite for the usual seven rounds of G/4;d2 chess. There were quite a few upsets over those seven rounds but Pranav Jindal still prevailed with 5.5 points and sole first place. Jason Wright and young Austin Chen tied for second with 5.0 out of 7 while Hayden Brongersma was alone in fourth with 4.5 points. Full results are in the attached image, congratulations to our winners and thanks to everyone who played in this free, unrated event.
Tonight will be much the same as last week, with a lecture beginning at 6:30pm followed by another free, unrated blitz tournament round 7pm, this time with a G/3+2 time control. I hope to see many of you then! Regards,
Mark Drury
Casual, Blitz, Lecture, 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 as well as a lecture are in the offing and we will also play another free, unrated blitz tournament beginning round 7pm, given there appears to be a continuing appetite for same. Note that our free weekly lecture begins at 6:30pm and it remains one of the highlights of club attendance.
Casual, Blitz, Lecture, 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 as well as a lecture are in the offing and we will also play another free, unrated blitz tournament beginning round 7pm, given there appears to be a continuing appetite for same. Note that our free weekly lecture begins at 6:30pm and it remains one of the highlights of club attendance.
Impromptu Blitz #50 Results
Our first meeting of 2026 was a success with 24 players partaking of seven rounds of G/5+0 blitz action, including many first-time visitors to the club. A hearty welcome to Scott Stoll, Billy and Ketch Allen, Tushar Janefalkar and Nicholas Zhu and thank you again for joining us at the club!
Breakwell Loyalka added an exclamation point to his club championship win last month with a convincing 7/7 score in this event, a full point and a half ahead of second place finisher Hayden Brongersma. NM Gabe Sanchez claimed sole third at 5.0 out of 7 while young Austin Chen was alone in fourth at 4.5 points. There followed a raft of strong players at 4.0 who were left wondering what might have been, though mention should be made of Lua Loyalka’s performance in that group–she is quietly making her way up these wall charts week after week and I won’t be surprised to find her nearer the top by year’s end.
The full results for this blitz tournament are in the attached image and we will do the same thing this coming Thursday, though perhaps with a G/4;d2 time control this time around–I hope to see many of you then. Regards,
Mark Drury
Casual, Blitz, Lecture, 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 as well as a lecture are in the offing and we will also play another free, unrated blitz tournament beginning round 7pm, given there appears to be a continuing appetite for same. Note that our free weekly lecture begins at 6:30pm and it remains one of the highlights of club attendance.
Casual, Blitz, Lecture, 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 as well as a lecture are in the offing and we will also play another free, unrated blitz tournament beginning round 7pm, given there appears to be a continuing appetite for same. Note that our free weekly lecture begins at 6:30pm and it remains one of the highlights of club attendance.
Recent Tournament Results & Club Championship
Last Thursday we dabbled yet again in the A4c variant with four rounds of G/10+0 action and it was surprising this time around how many matches went to the third game, even in the earlier rounds. I had given some thought to trying G/7+0 given a faster time control was suggested by the creator of this variant yet, given how poorly I performed with ten minutes on my clock, I’m perhaps fortunate we stuck with the longer time control (though it made little difference in my results). A few others bemoaned the seeming quickness of G/10+0 in this format but I don’t know that it would make sense to use anything longer. In any case, congratulations to Pranav Jindal for sole first place and for his perfect score in this event and to Hayden, Breakwell, Austin and newcomer Brice Huang for their T-2nd result with 3.0 out of 4 (full results are in the attached image).
Somewhat embarrassingly, in my second-round match with Kornél Csernai, we reached game three with me up 1.5-0.5 and I promptly ran out of time in the third game, laboring under the delusion that the worst I could do was draw the match, never mind the result of that last game. We recorded the draw and moved on to the next round but it finally dawned on us after the tournament that Kornel should have received the full point — I needed to resign the third game with time still on my clock to secure the half point, it seems (something we’ll need to run by Alaric the next time we see him). Apologies again for cheating you out of that half point, Kornel! 🙂
Our Autumn Double-Round Quick-Rated Quads also wrapped up last week and the full results can be found on the associated tournament page. Congratulations to Hayden Brongersma, Breakwell Loyalka, Austin Chen, Caleb Leong and Saveen Sahni for the excellent performances in their respective groups and I hope to submit the quads for rating as soon as we resolve one expired US Chess membership. On a personal note I learned that, as bad as I am at time management in A4c chess, I’m even worse in these G/15;d5 games and was lucky to scrape the lone half point from Hugo Pu in our second game (it occurred to me that he may have gifted me that draw given it was all he needed to secure second place in our quad). Poorly as I did the chess was still enjoyable and I’m glad to have played, never mind that my Quick rating is quickly heading to three digits.
Note that our Club Championship begins tomorrow evening and runs through December 11th, something which will supplant the free, unrated blitz tournaments normally run on casual evenings. We may still have a skittles room set up for casual play but that won’t be certain until the night of each round. Please feel free to stop by the club to spectate the club championship games if you are not playing, of course, and have a great Holiday season if we won’t see you until next year! Regards,
Mark Drury
