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.
Club Championship Final Results & Prizes
Attached are two views of the final results of our Fourth Menlo Park Chess Club Championship, one showing the usual wall chart and another the standings, in case some of you prefer either or both. Congratulations to Breakwell Loyalka, who went undefeated to claim sole first and the title of club champion, and that despite a wild endgame with Frisco in the final round which could have gone either way. I believe Breakwell is our youngest champion to date and his victory is none too surprising given the way he has performed in other recent events. Frisco was also undefeated with three wins and two draws for four points out of five, tying with Vedant Verma for overall second place—congratulations to both of you! Andrew Yu and Steven Swick also deserve mention for claiming sole first and $80 in their prize groups, while Josen Kalra, Di Lin and I tied for first in the second prize group to split the three prizes therein.
Kabir Jain won our cumulative upset prize, despite late surges by Vinayak Vikram and Caleb Leong, and will claim the Pixel Earbuds donated by the Pu family — congratulations to Kabir and thank you once again, Dennis, Helena and Hugo Pu for your generous donation to our club. I also wanted to thank Hugo Pu for ably directing this tournament, which allowed me to play without interruption — I very much appreciate your help, Hugo!
Thank you again to everyone who played in or spectated our final tournament of the year and we’ll do something similar in February or early March of next year. Regards,
Mark Drury
Club Championship Round 4 Wall Chart & Round 3 Bulletin
Below are the current standings and round 4 pairings for our club championship, which continues after the Thanksgiving Holiday with round 4 on December 4th, 2025. We also have Frisco’s round 2 and round 3 bulletins available at the following links — many thanks once again to Frisco for producing this for our club!
Round Two Bulletin
Round Three Bulletin
Club Championship Round 3 Wall Chart & Round One Bulletin
I wanted to post a quick update reminding people that we’ll be playing round 3 of our club championship this Thursday at 7pm, per the attached wall chart image. Please feel free to join us for Frisco’s 6:30pm lecture and to spectate the tournament games thereafter but we won’t be holding the typical free, unrated blitz tournament this week. We will have a skittles room available for those who wish to pick up a game or two and that room becomes reasonably active as the tournament games finish round 8pm.
Frisco is also creating an excellent tournament bulletin for each round and that for the first may be viewed here.
Please let me know if you have any questions about the club championship or about club events for the remainder of the year (https://menloparkchess.club/events/) and I hope to see you at the Arrillaga Center soon! Regards,
Mark Drury
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
Fourth Menlo Park Chess Club Championship, Round Five
The Menlo Park Chess Club will hold our fourth annual club championship beginning Thursday, November 6th, at 7pm, a five-round USCF-rated Swiss system event using the dual-rated G/45;d5 time control over five weeks (there will be no round on November 27th, Thanksgiving). Our championship is aimed at players with at least some tournament experience (one or two rated events, say) and may not be suitable for children under the age of 10, given games could last until almost 9pm on a school night. Details follow:
- Format: Five-round Swiss-system tournament in one section, one game per evening
- Rounds: November 6th, 13th, 20th and December 4th and 11th (there is no round November 27th, Thanksgiving)—games begin promptly at 7:00pm
- Control: G/45;d5 (dual-rated game of 45 minutes for each player plus a 5-second delay per move)
- Entry Fee: $20 (the entire entry fee will be returned in prizes)
- Payment: PayPal: mark@drury.com; Venmo: @Mark-Drury-12, Zelle: 6504006393
- Prizes: Four prize groups based upon November US Chess regular ratings with roughly 8 players per prize group (Group 1: $120, $60, $40; Group 2: $100, $60, $40; Group 3: $80, $40, $20; Group 4: $80, $40, $20, with adjustments as needed based on tournament/group size)
- Byes: One half-point bye is available for any round save the last, but the bye must be requested at least two days in advance of the day of play
- Boards, sets, clocks, score sheets and pens will be provided by the Menlo Park Chess Club (bring a clock if you prefer your own)
- All tournament participants must be current US Chess members
- Our tournament chess rules summary is worth perusing if you’re new to tournament play
- For more information please send email to info@menloparkchess.club
- Join our Facebook group to stay abreast of future club tournaments and events
Fourth Menlo Park Chess Club Championship, Round Four
The Menlo Park Chess Club will hold our fourth annual club championship beginning Thursday, November 6th, at 7pm, a five-round USCF-rated Swiss system event using the dual-rated G/45;d5 time control over five weeks (there will be no round on November 27th, Thanksgiving). Our championship is aimed at players with at least some tournament experience (one or two rated events, say) and may not be suitable for children under the age of 10, given games could last until almost 9pm on a school night. Details follow:
- Format: Five-round Swiss-system tournament in one section, one game per evening
- Rounds: November 6th, 13th, 20th and December 4th and 11th (there is no round November 27th, Thanksgiving)—games begin promptly at 7:00pm
- Control: G/45;d5 (dual-rated game of 45 minutes for each player plus a 5-second delay per move)
- Entry Fee: $20 (the entire entry fee will be returned in prizes)
- Payment: PayPal: mark@drury.com; Venmo: @Mark-Drury-12, Zelle: 6504006393
- Prizes: Four prize groups based upon November US Chess regular ratings with roughly 8 players per prize group (Group 1: $120, $60, $40; Group 2: $100, $60, $40; Group 3: $80, $40, $20; Group 4: $80, $40, $20, with adjustments as needed based on tournament/group size)
- Byes: One half-point bye is available for any round save the last, but the bye must be requested at least two days in advance of the day of play
- Boards, sets, clocks, score sheets and pens will be provided by the Menlo Park Chess Club (bring a clock if you prefer your own)
- All tournament participants must be current US Chess members
- Our tournament chess rules summary is worth perusing if you’re new to tournament play
- For more information please send email to info@menloparkchess.club
- Join our Facebook group to stay abreast of future club tournaments and events
Fourth Menlo Park Chess Club Championship, Round Three
The Menlo Park Chess Club will hold our fourth annual club championship beginning Thursday, November 6th, at 7pm, a five-round USCF-rated Swiss system event using the dual-rated G/45;d5 time control over five weeks (there will be no round on November 27th, Thanksgiving). Our championship is aimed at players with at least some tournament experience (one or two rated events, say) and may not be suitable for children under the age of 10, given games could last until almost 9pm on a school night. Details follow:
- Format: Five-round Swiss-system tournament in one section, one game per evening
- Rounds: November 6th, 13th, 20th and December 4th and 11th (there is no round November 27th, Thanksgiving)—games begin promptly at 7:00pm
- Control: G/45;d5 (dual-rated game of 45 minutes for each player plus a 5-second delay per move)
- Entry Fee: $20 (the entire entry fee will be returned in prizes)
- Payment: PayPal: mark@drury.com; Venmo: @Mark-Drury-12, Zelle: 6504006393
- Prizes: Four prize groups based upon November US Chess regular ratings with roughly 8 players per prize group (Group 1: $120, $60, $40; Group 2: $100, $60, $40; Group 3: $80, $40, $20; Group 4: $80, $40, $20, with adjustments as needed based on tournament/group size)
- Byes: One half-point bye is available for any round save the last, but the bye must be requested at least two days in advance of the day of play
- Boards, sets, clocks, score sheets and pens will be provided by the Menlo Park Chess Club (bring a clock if you prefer your own)
- All tournament participants must be current US Chess members
- Our tournament chess rules summary is worth perusing if you’re new to tournament play
- For more information please send email to info@menloparkchess.club
- Join our Facebook group to stay abreast of future club tournaments and events
Fourth Menlo Park Chess Club Championship, Round Two
The Menlo Park Chess Club will hold our fourth annual club championship beginning Thursday, November 6th, at 7pm, a five-round USCF-rated Swiss system event using the dual-rated G/45;d5 time control over five weeks (there will be no round on November 27th, Thanksgiving). Our championship is aimed at players with at least some tournament experience (one or two rated events, say) and may not be suitable for children under the age of 10, given games could last until almost 9pm on a school night. Details follow:
- Format: Five-round Swiss-system tournament in one section, one game per evening
- Rounds: November 6th, 13th, 20th and December 4th and 11th (there is no round November 27th, Thanksgiving)—games begin promptly at 7:00pm
- Control: G/45;d5 (dual-rated game of 45 minutes for each player plus a 5-second delay per move)
- Entry Fee: $20 (the entire entry fee will be returned in prizes)
- Payment: PayPal: mark@drury.com; Venmo: @Mark-Drury-12, Zelle: 6504006393
- Prizes: Four prize groups based upon November US Chess regular ratings with roughly 8 players per prize group (Group 1: $120, $60, $40; Group 2: $100, $60, $40; Group 3: $80, $40, $20; Group 4: $80, $40, $20, with adjustments as needed based on tournament/group size)
- Byes: One half-point bye is available for any round save the last, but the bye must be requested at least two days in advance of the day of play
- Boards, sets, clocks, score sheets and pens will be provided by the Menlo Park Chess Club (bring a clock if you prefer your own)
- All tournament participants must be current US Chess members
- Our tournament chess rules summary is worth perusing if you’re new to tournament play
- For more information please send email to info@menloparkchess.club
- Join our Facebook group to stay abreast of future club tournaments and events