Our regular weekly club meeting occurs Thursday evenings from 6:00-9:45pm 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.
Impromptu Blitz #7 Results, Schedule Updates
We enjoyed a record 31 participants in our Impromptu Blitz #7 last night, a 5-round G/3+2 affair which included no less than nine first-time visitors to the club. As is often the case, Pranav Jindal and Alaric Stein sat atop the wall chart when all was said and done, Pranav taking first this time with a perfect 5-0 while Alaric shared joint second at 4-1 with Cesar Tamondong, who nicked me in the final round with his accursed From’s Gambit (between he and Kornél I’m considering a temporary ban at the club on that particular response to my beloved Bird). Full results for the tournament may be viewed in the attached image.
I’ll update the club’s schedule of events this weekend (https://menloparkchess.club/events/) but we’ll meet December 14th and 21st for casual, blitz or variant tournaments then there will be no meetings December 28th and January 4th, due to the Holidays. Beginning January 11th we’ll hold a 2- or 3-week quick-rated event of some kind, likely G/15, perhaps double-round quads again. As always, let me know your preferences and/or dislikes and I hope to see many of you next week.
Second Club Championship Results
Our second club championship concluded Thursday, November 30th, with many exciting games impacting the final prize distributions, as is often the case in a single-section Swiss event such as ours, and we were able to stream the top six boards live thanks to the efforts of Jean-Rudolph Cendejas and Cesar Tamondong—thank you both again for arranging that for our club!
Alex Chin went a perfect 5-0 to claim sole first place, followed by Tobin Bennion and David Zhao in second with 4 points out of five. Prinav Jindal, Nick Matelli, and Anton Bobkov shared 4th-6th places with 3.5 points and five players tied for 7th-11th with 3.0. The US Chess rating report may be found here while the full wall chart and prize group standings follow in the two tables below. Thank you to everyone who played in this event and we’ll look to hold a third club championship same time next year!
Name | Rating | Score | Prize |
---|---|---|---|
1600+ | |||
CHIN, ALEX | 2009 | 5.0 | $100 |
BENNION, TOBIN | 1708 | 4.0 | $60 |
MATELLI, NICK | 1695 | 3.5 | $20 |
JINDAL, PRANAV | 2004 | 3.5 | $20 |
TAMONDONG, CESAR | 1632 | 3.0 | |
KALRA, JOSEN | 1600 | 3.0 | |
WU, JIALIN | 1703 | 2.5 | |
LIU, LIAM | 1665 | 2.0 | |
JEYARAMAN, RAMKUMAR | unr. | 2.0 | |
1300-1599 | |||
ZHAO, DAVID | 1502 | 4.0 | $80 |
WANG, CHASE | 1328 | 3.0 | $50 |
LAKIRBAIA, LASHA | 1304 | 3.0 | $50 |
GRINKIN, NIKITA | 1453 | 2.5 | |
MCGINNIS, JEFFREY | 1504 | 2.0 | |
KIM, TAEWOO | 1400 | 2.0 | |
SHERRARD, MICHAEL | 1478 | 1.5 | |
AGDAMAG, SAMUEL | 1462 | 1.5 | |
1002-1299 | |||
BOBKOV, ANTON | 1292 | 3.5 | $60 |
CSERNAI, KORNEL | 1285 | 3.0 | $40 |
DHINGRA, ATUL | 1095 | 2.5 | $7 |
DESAI, DHRITEE | 1213 | 2.5 | $7 |
BENNION, BANKS | 1140 | 2.5 | $7 |
RASYID, HAMDANIL | 1260 | 2.0 | |
ARODAKI, FADI | 1060 | 2.0 | |
BRONGERSMA, HAYDEN | 1064 | 1.5 | |
UNGAR, JEFFREY | 1043 | 1.0 | |
UNR-1001 | |||
HARTEL, PAUL | 918 | 2.5 | $50 |
RAO, AMOGH | unr. | 2.5 | $50 |
PU, HUGO | unr. | 1.5 | $10 |
GAUTHIER, GREGORY | unr. | 1.5 | $10 |
RASYID, UMAR | 1001 | 1.0 | |
DARR, MICHAEL | 798 | 1.0 | |
SINGH, PARAMDEEP | 672 | 1.0 | |
KALRA, SIDDHARTH | 253 | 0.5 |


Club Championship Games Streamed Live!
Thanks to the efforts and connections of Juan Cendejas and Cesar Tamondong, the top six boards of the final round of our club championship to be played Thursday, November 30th, at 7pm will be streamed live on both chess.com and DGT’s livechesscloud.com via the following links:
https://www.chess.com/events/2023-menlo-park-chess-club-championship
https://view.livechesscloud.com/#bffa7ace-751d-40a8-bf8f-9a324599ba3f
The pairings for the top six boards remain the same as in our previous post but there were some changes on the lower boards due to illness or withdrawal—the latest pairings are shared below for reference. This is an exciting first for our young club and likely won’t be the last time we dabble in this technology. Thank you, Juan and Cesar!
Second Club Championship Final Round Pairings, Wall Chart, Prize Group Standings
Our round 4 games were no less exciting than previous rounds and we saw a number of upsets, to boot. Below are the final round pairings, wall chart and prize group standings heading into the final round. As always, the pairings could change if someone is unable to play on the 30th, and I’ll update these tables asap if that’s the case.
Recall that the chess club will not meet this Thursday, the 23rd, due to Thanksgiving—please enjoy the holiday, everyone! Regards,
Mark Drury
Second Club Championship Round 4 Pairings, Wall Chart, Prize Group Standings
The round 3 games were every bit as exciting as those in the previous round, with some narrow escapes, some clearly winning attacks which fizzled out and some interesting endgames, including that between Greg and Umar, which had a study-like quality about it given the opposite-color bishops. Again, I’ll try to get some of these games online during the Thanksgiving break next week, perhaps sooner.
Below are the pairings, wall chart and prize group standings for round 4. Anton is half a point clear in his group but fell ill this week and won’t be able to play Thursday, regrettably, though he still has an excellent chance at a prize with a draw or win in the final round. Hugo is also half a point clear in his group and we’ll see if he can keep that going when he plays Nikita this week. Note that a number of players have needed to take a zero-point bye given they’d already used the one half-point bye allowed in this event. That’s always unfortunate but there are a number of reasons why we use this rule–follow up with me Thursday if you have any questions.
Due to the odd number of players this round Umar gets the full-point bye though, as always, things could change in 24 hours if we get another bye request or the like–I’ll redo the pairings if I receive any such requests before 4pm Thursday. I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow! Regards,
Mark Drury
Second Club Championship Round 3 Pairings, Wall Chart, Prize Group Standings
Round 2 of our club championship was another exciting affair with a number of very close games, including several of those on the top boards. I will try to publish some or all of the games in a Lichess study, as with a couple of our previous events, a task which is always made easier if you send me a timely pgn file of your game score (thank you to those who are already doing so). The second and third tables below include the wall chart and the prize group standings, and all prizes remain very much up for grabs in each group. I’ve received the entry fee payment from a smattering of players so please send that along (or pay at the club) at your earliest convenience. Regards,
Mark Drury
Second Club Championship Round 2 Pairings
Below are the pairings for round two of our club championship, which begins promptly at 7pm Thursday, November 2nd, 2023. Please call Mark Drury at 650-400-6393 if you are unable to play for any reason and try to arrive no later than 6:50pm to check in.
The two tables which follow the second round pairings, below, are the wall chart and the prize groups–we have two groups with 9 members and two with 8 and the ratings distributions seen in this event make the groups reasonably equitable (though please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, of course). Regards,
Mark Drury
Second Club Championship Round 1 Results
Below are the results from round 1 of our club championship, which occurred Thursday, October 26th, 2023. Note that, due to my forgetting an email exchange in the aftermath of COVID, I paired someone who had requested a bye for this past Thursday, a lacuna that resulted in a forfeit win for one player and the agreed-upon half-point bye for the other. We also had one no-show which resulted in another forfeit win, but all-in-all it was a decent start to this much-delayed tournament. Regards,
Mark Drury
Second Club Championship Round 1 Pairings
Below are the pairings for round one of our club championship, beginning promptly at 7pm Thursday, October 26th, 2023. Please call Mark Drury at 650-400-6393 if you are unable to play for any reason and try to arrive no later than 6:50pm to check in. Regards,
Mark Drury
Bd | # | Res | White | # | Res | Black |
1 | 1 | ALEX CHIN | 17 | KORNEL CSERNAI | ||
2 | 18 | HAMDANIL RASYID | 2 | PRANAV JINDAL | ||
3 | 3 | RAMKUMAR JEYARAMAN | 19 | DHRITEE DESAI | ||
4 | 20 | ANTON BOBKOV | 4 | TOBIN BENNION | ||
5 | 5 | JIALIN WU | 21 | BANKS BENNION | ||
6 | 23 | HAYDEN SCOTT BRONGERSMA | 6 | LIAM LIU | ||
7 | 7 | CESAR TAMONDONG | 24 | FADI ARODAKI | ||
8 | 25 | P JEFFREY UNGAR | 8 | JOSEN SINGH KALRA | ||
9 | 9 | JEFFREY D MCGINNIS | 26 | UMAR RASYID | ||
10 | 27 | PAUL HARTEL | 10 | DAVID ZHAO | ||
11 | 11 | MICHAEL LESLIE SHERRARD | 28 | MICHAEL DARR | ||
12 | 29 | PARAMDEEP SINGH | 12 | SAMUEL AGDAMAG | ||
13 | 13 | NIKITA GRINKIN | 30 | SIDDHARTH KALRA | ||
14 | 32 | GREGORY GAUTHIER | 14 | TAEWOO KIM | ||
15 | 15 | CHASE WANG | 33 | JEFFERSON MATEO | ||
16 | 34 | HUGO PU | 16 | LASHA LAKIRBAIA | ||
22 | ½ | ATUL DHINGRA | BYE | |||
31 | ½ | AMOGH RAO | BYE |