Last night we held another single-section Swiss-system blitz tournament, a G/3+2 affair with 24 players and, as with last week, Kunal Modi mowed through the field for another perfect 5 of 5 result. Adam Stevens and Aaron Cho tied for second with 4 points and all three received $25 Kepler’s Books gift certificates for their exertions. Congratulations to our winners and thank you to everyone who participated in this event, our last of the year!
It’s hard to believe the club will observe its one year anniversary when we next meet January 5th and it has been far more successful than I would have imagined in January or February of this year. For my part, the greatest reward is meeting so many of you fine people, both at the club and online. Thank you for your participation and support over the course of the year, have a great Holiday season and a safe New Year and here’s hoping next year will be even better! Regards,
Our final meeting and tournament of 2022, we’ll play 5 or 6 rounds of G/3+2 blitz in a single Swiss section or, depending upon turnout, we may hold 4- or 6-person round robins based on rating (or some estimation thereof). We’ll begin promptly at 7:15pm so please register ahead of time via the button on this page or arrive no later than 7:00pm Wednesday if you plan to play in this event. Registration is free, the tournament will be limited to 36 players and prizes include Kepler’s Books gift certificates.
Twenty people joined us last night for a Swiss G/3+2 blitz tournament of five rounds, including several first-time visitors, among them first-place finisher Kunal Modi, who was a perfect 5 for 5 even though he faced stiff competition in Shahin Aghevli (2nd), Karim Seada (3rd) and a host of strong players tied for 4th at 3 points. Congratulations to Kunal, Shahin and Karim and thank you to everyone who played in this event!
We’ll hold another blitz event next week to close out the year (the club won’t meet December 21st or 28th), either another single-section Swiss tourney or 4- or 6-player round robins, depending upon turnout, with Kepler’s Books gift certificates serving as prizes. I’ll send an event invite for that tournament later today. Regards,
We’ll hold a casual 5-round G/3+2 blitz tournament as something of a warmup for our club’s blitz championship, to occur the following Wednesday, December 14th. Tomorrow’s event will either be one single Swiss section or, depending upon turnout, we may hold 6-person round robins based on rating (or some estimation thereof). We’ll begin “promptly” at 7:15pm so please show up no later than 7:00 if you plan to play in this event. There should also be people on hand for informal or other non-tournament games.
Yesterday evening we held a four-round double blitz G/3+2 tournament and twenty-nine people participated. In this particular event two games were contested in each round, one as white and one as black with the same opponent, which is relatively uncommon in Swiss system tournaments.
After three rounds no less than nine players had a reasonable chance at a prize, but after the dramatic fourth round concluded WFM Olivia Smith claimed sole first place with seven out of eight points and took home the $30 Kepler’s Books gift certificate.
The tie for second between blitz mavens Pranav Jindal, Alaric Stein and Andy Shih, each with 6.5 points, resulted in not one but two G/3+0 round robin playoffs for the remaining prizes, given the first ended in yet another three-way tie. Would that we had recorded these games as there was some very interesting chess, no matter the time control, including wild swings of fortune in a single game. Pranav proved victorious in the second playoff and collected the $20 gift certificate while Alaric pocketed $10 (Andy received a firm consolation handshake).
Blitz tournaments clearly bring the crowds to our club so we’ll continue holding at least one of these each month as our schedule and interest allow. As always, please let me know if you have suggestions for other chess activities and I hope to see you at the club soon!
Eighteen brave souls took part in our four-round Fischer Random/Chess960 tournament this past Wednesday, with Alaric Stein cooly claiming yet another first place in club events and taking the $20 Feldman’s Books gift certificate with a perfect score. Pranav Jindal, Adam Stevens, Alexander Su and Adithya Karavadi tied for second with three points apiece and, after a tense G/3+0 blitz playoff, Adam won the $15 second prize gift certificate and Adithya the $10 third.
Everyone appeared to enjoy this event, even with pieces hanging left and right, so we may try the variant again soon if people wish to do so. The starting positions for each round are listed in the image, below, please let me know if you have any questions about this tournament and a hearty “thank you!” to everyone who participated.
One way to summarize Wednesday’s final installment of our Surfeit of Blitz Marathon, the 5-round G/3+0 tournament, is simply: Bada venit, Bada vidit, Bada vicit! Badamkhand Norovsambuu scored 4.5 out of 5 points for clear first place, ceding a single draw to her friend Saikhanchimeg Tsogtsaikhan, another very strong expert-level player and a first-time visitor to the club (and by “strong” we’re talking clear first with a perfect 5-0 score in the 2018 US Women’s Open, over a number of titled players—Badamkhand won the same event this year!). Alaric, Pranav, Kathan and Shahin shared 2nd place with 4 points, while Shawnak and Josh shared Under-17 1st place with 3 points.
Alaric outlasted all others in our Surfeit of Blitz Marathon, taking first place with 15 out of 18 points over four tournaments. Pranav had the only perfect score after four rounds in the G/3+0 last night and could have joined Alaric atop the marathon with a last-round win, but Badamkhand wasn’t having it, so he and Shahin shared 2nd place with 14 points, while Kathan took sole 4th with 13. The Under-17 marathon saw a tie for 1st place, with Ethan and Josh both scoring 8 points after playing in just three of the four events. The final results for the G/3+0 event and the overall marathon are in the attached images, while the marathon prizes are given below—I’ll follow up individually to ask how people wish to be paid. Congratulations to all our winners and a hearty thank you to everyone who played in this fun if eccentric event!
Blitz chess is clearly very popular with the club, given we had 63 people participate in the marathon, so we’ll do something similar again before the end of the year. I may miss the coming two Wednesdays but the club will still meet for casual and blitz chess August 3rd and 10th, and we’ll consider holding another USCF-rated event in September. As always, if you have suggestions for club activities or tournaments please let me know.
Our Surfeit of Blitz G/3+2 event was contested last night with quite a few new people joining the fray, including FM-elect Shawnak Shivakumar, who went 5-0 to take sole first place and the $25 prize. Five people were one point back, including newcomer Badamkhand Norovsambuu, a strong expert-level player, and Ethan Mei, who took home the U17 $15 first prize and a commanding lead in the U17 marathon standings. Cameron Rampell and Sahil Shivakumar shared second U17 honors with excellent 3-2 scores (Shawnak is U17, as well, but no longer needs trifle with age group prizes).
The attached images give the full results for last night’s event as well as the current marathon standings. I pulled these together rather quickly late last night so please let me know if you see any errors. Given second-place ties in the Open and U17 groups, $25 and $10 will be added to the respective marathon prizes as follows:
Next week is the final G/3+0 event of our Surfeit of Blitz Marathon and, given Alaric’s stated affinity for the time control, odds are he’ll share in the top prize (if not win it outright). But if we’re graced with a few more strong wildcards like Shawnak and Badamkhand the final result may be far less clear. Should be entertaining, regardless, and please register online asap if you plan to play next week.
Well, there is clearly demand for blitz at the club, at least for the “slower” G/5+3 time control used last night. Forty-one people turned out for the first installment of our Surfeit of Blitz Marathon, which is perhaps twenty-one more than we were expecting, and we filled both playing rooms plus had one board in our skittles room. It was great to have so many players join us and the fact that ~90% registered online before the event made things that much easier and smoother–thank you all for taking the few seconds to do that!
Per the wall chart below, Richard, Pranav and Sean tied for first place with perfect scores, while eight others were close behind with 3 points out of 4. Joshua Garrow took the Under-17 first prize ($15) with 3 points and Raajas Dixit took second ($10) with 2.5. Given there were no ties for prizes in the U17 division last night no prize money will roll over to the U17 marathon fund this week (the blue cells in the wall chart show juniors vying for marathon prizes).
The three-way tie for first in our Open division, however, means all $50 of last night’s prizes ($25, $15, $10) will be rolled into the marathon prize fund, as promised/hoped for. At present we have ten people vying for marathon prizes (gold cells in the wall chart), so at $5/person the initial marathon prizes would have been $25, $15 and $10, but with last night’s $50 infusion we now have $35, $25, $20, $15, $5 (somewhat arbitrary, I realize). I expect the same infusion to happen next week, given it’s another 4-round event.
Note that if you thought you entered the marathon and don’t see your name highlighted in gold or blue, below, please let me know. We will also give people one more opportunity to enter the marathon before the start of next week’s first round. Again, thank you all for playing last night and I hope you enjoyed the evening as much as I did!
The Menlo Park Chess Club seeks to answer a simple question: How much blitz chess is too much? Over four consecutive Wednesday evenings in July we will hold four separate unrated blitz tournaments of ever-shortening time controls (5+3, 5+0, 3+2, 3+0), each with free entry and modest cash prizes. Where this event differs from most, however, is that players may optionally contribute $5 to an overall prize fund, to be awarded based on one’s performance through all four individual blitz tournaments (the marathon).
Every dollar contributed to the overall prize fund will be returned in marathon prizes. Additionally, any ties for cash prizes in the individual tournaments will see that money placed in the overall/marathon prize fund, to bolster existing and add new place prizes. For example, if two people score a perfect 4-0 to tie for first in the 3+0 event and one person takes sole third with 3.5-0.5, $40 will be added to the overall prize fund (the 1st-2nd tie, $25 + $15) while the person in 3rd place would take home $10 (see Prizes, below). If three or more people tie for first place then the entire $50 (1st-3rd prizes) will be added to the overall/marathon prize fund. The same applies to the under-17 prizes.
Note that each individual tournament is a standalone event and you may play in 1, 2, 3 or 4 of these tourneys as you please, with no obligation to chip in $5 unless you wish to take part in the marathon. Details follow:
Format: Four separate Swiss-system tournaments in one section over four consecutive Wednesday evenings
Dates: July 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th — games begin at 7:00pm
Control: July 6th, 5+3; July 13th, 5+0; July 20th, 3+2; July 27th, 3+0
Rounds (#): July 6th, 4; July 13th, 4; July 20th, 5; July 27th, 5
Entry Fee: $0 (MPCC will sponsor the prizes)
Prizes: Each event will offer 1st, $25; 2nd, $15; 3rd, $10; Under-17 1st, $15, 2nd, $10
Ties: If there is a tie for any cash prize the associated funds will be rolled into the overall purse mentioned above (yes, this is unusual but we think it may prove interesting and, given the entry fee is $0, there should be little complaint)
Byes: Zero-point byes available any round
Register: Click the Register button, above
Boards, sets and clocks will be provided by the Menlo Park Chess Club (bring a clock if you own one)
