unrated Archives - Page 5 of 13 - Menlo Park Chess Club

April 10, 2025May 6, 2025

More Schedule Changes & Impromptu Blitz #35 Results

Apologies for the short notice (and the long message) but I am out of town today and next Thursday and will not be at the club either evening, regrettably, but we still plan to meet for casual play and Frisco’s lecture beginning at 6:30pm. If some of you are able to arrive early, round 6:15pm or so, to help set up the room that would be great. Having a few people help put away all the chess sets and boards round 8:45pm or earlier is also important, given the desk attendant, Harold, is typically ready to march out the door at 9pm sharp.

The chess equipment (boards and pieces) are in the usual cabinet in the Willow Room–Harold and several members know where it is stored. Note that the club chess clocks won’t be available this evening given they are at my home so please bring your clock or download one of the free apps onto your phone if you would like to play timed games tonight. Next week the club clocks will again be available.

Another scheduling change is that for our dual-rated G/45;d5 event, which will now begin May 8th and not next week. Sriram and I were looking at our calendars and it simply makes more sense to run that event in May, when we wouldn’t need a protracted break between rounds. I’ll follow up with everyone who has registered thus far with more details and will ask about continued interest in participating, bye requests, possible entry fee refunds and the like.

Lastly, we held one of our oddest impromptu blitz tournaments last week with a double-round G/1+5 (game in 1 minute with a 5-second increment) affair and, suffice to say, reviews were mixed on the time control. It was too short for an enjoyable blitz experience yet too long to warrant the double-round format, with sentiment seeming that most were glad to have tried it but don’t wish to do so again. When all eight rounds were finished Hayden Brongersma stood atop the field of 22 with 7 out of 8 points, followed a half point back by perennial wall chart-topper Pranav Jindal. Yash Shah and Liam Liu shared third at 6 points while relative newcomer Di Lin was alone in fifth at 5.0. Full results are in the attached image, thank you to everyone who slogged through this event with us and know that we’ll stick to more conventional blitz formats in the future. 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 weekly lecture begins at 6:30pm and it remains one of the highlights of club attendance.

Casual, Blitz, Lecture, Ladder Chess Evening

Freestyle Chess (Chess960) Draft Tournament

A number of people have requested that we revisit Chess960 or, as it’s now styled, Freestyle Chess in another casual tournament so that’s exactly what we’ll do in this event, again using a piece placement draft with the following format and rules:

There will likely be 4 or 5 Swiss rounds at G/5;d3 in one or two sections
Registration will occur onsite–please try to arrive by 6:45pm
The games will be played with the normal Freestyle/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 third 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 Freestyle/Chess960
More information about castling may be found in chess.com tutorials here and here
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

Casual, Blitz, Lecture, Ladder Chess Evening

February 11, 2025February 11, 2025

Impromptu Blitz #32 Results

We enjoyed another full house at the club last Thursday, with 30 people participating in our free, unrated G/3+2 blitz tournament and with several first-time visitors to boot. Yash Shah proved his blitz mettle once again with 6.5 points out of 7 for clear first, followed a half point behind by Zelin Fang in sole second, while three others tied for third with five points: Alex Chin, Pranav Jindal and Venugopal Mani. Full results are in the attached image, congratulations to our winners and thank you to everyone who joined us for this event!

Regarding our rated quads which begin this week, many people let me know that there is no school in some local districts the week of February 17-21, with many players (parents and/or kids) being out of town on the 20th, so I have rescheduled the quads to occur on February 13th, February 27th and March 6th, with the week of the 20th being another casual night with a lecture and informal blitz tournament. If you wish to play in our quads please register asap on the website: https://menloparkchess.club/event/february-double-round-quick-rated-quads-round-one/.