• EBCC Thanksgiving Swiss a Success!
  • 103 players came to Berkeley for this year’s EBCC Thanksgiving Swiss. Seventy played in the main tournament, and thirty-three played in the Scholastic Swiss. The Open section was a close affair, finally finishing in a four-way tie between NM Michael Aigner, NM Nic Yap, October Swiss winner Daniel Schwarz, and rising junior Adarsh Konda. Drake Wang, Philipp Perepelitsky, and Sam Shankland also finished in the money with 4/6.
  • The U2000 section also featured a tie for first, this time between two players, Steven Krasnov and Iris Kokish with 5/6. Iris’s performance was particularly impressive, as she was the 18th seeded player in the section at the start of the tournament. Arnav Shah, Sreekar Jasthi, Nelson Sowell, Greg Sarafian, and Isaac Mayhew finished with 4/6 to round out the prize winners in this section.
  • The two-day option was a popular choice among players in the U1600 section, as 19 of the 24 players chose this option. Again, two players tied for first, Arnold Hua, who started in the 3-day, and Tom Boyd, who played in the 2-day. Both scored 5/6. At 4/6 were Vijay Jasthi, Vincent Saguid, Kevin Garbe, and Jerome Sun.
  • The only section with a clear winner was the 4th-8th grade section in the Scholastic Swiss. Here Austin Lloyd scored a perfect 6/6 and saw his rating increase by 200 points! Andrew Chen fought through a tough field to finish with 4.5/6, Henry Eastman finished in clear third with 4/6, and 5 players finished with 3.5/6. Everyone in the section scored at least one win, and some of the players rated well over 1000 had difficultly getting to 3/6!
  • The K-3 section ended in a tie with two players having 5/6. Joshua Chan got 1st place on tiebreaks, winning a trophy almost as big as himself! Anthony Chen finished second, and Steele Langland and Jacqueline Garbe finished tied for 3-4 with 4/6 points.
  • Finally, the side events: the bughouse tournament ended in a tie between the team of Sam Shankland + Ted Belanoff and the team of Vinay Bhat + Aviv Adler. Not many players attended the Vinay Bhat simul, but those who came were treated to multiple games against the EBCC director.
  • Thanks to everyone who came to play, watch, or help out, and we look forward to hosting the tournament again next Thanksgiving.
• The 2005 Berkeley Masters
  • The East Bay Chess Club is hosting its second high profile FIDE rated tournament this year between December 17-23. Very few tournaments of this kind are held in the United States every year, so this is a great opportunity for club members to come and watch some of America’s best players battle it out with players from seven other countries! Among the notables are former U.S. Champion Alex Yermolinsky, Estonia’s #1 Jaan Ehlvest, GM John Fedorowicz, and IMs Vinay Bhat, Ricardo De Guzman, Jesse Kraai, Josh Friedel, and many more. The games are at 10:00 and 4:30pm Saturday and Sunday, then at 1:00pm Monday-Thursday, and finally at 11:00am on Friday. The top two boards will be as be broadcast live over the ICC if you can’t show up in person, by EBCC director Jamie Sawhill.
• Club's Schedule in December
  • The EBCC will still be open for most of its normal evening events until December 23rd, as the FIDE tournament will be over by 7pm each day. The Monday Night Marathon begins as normal at 7, although the lecture will be cancelled. Tuesday night’s lesson is also cancelled, but the Wednesday Night Action tournament and the Friday night event will run as normal.
  • The club will be closed between December 24th-January 1st, reopening for the new year on Monday, January 2nd. Don’t forget to add our next weekend tournament, the six day New Year’s Swiss, January 14th-16th, to your calendar!

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