• October Open Quads
  • Playing in his first tournament on U.S. soil, Jachym Kolar of the Czech Republic won the top quad, giving up only one draw to Adarsh Konda, who finished second. The second, third, and fourth quads each saw a perfect performance, as Davis Xu, Carl Woebcke, and Vishal Dasari won all their games to take undisputed first. A total of 16 players participated in the one-day event, which has a time control of G/90 minutes. The next open quads will be held November 12th.
• October Scholastic Quads
  • Unfortunately, the October Scholastic Quads fell one short of the perfect 16 players seen at the open quads, leaving two quads and one 7-person section. With some games finishing early (as is common in these scholastic quads), director Jamie Sawhill was able to re-pair some of the players in that section, allowing them to play despite the odd number. It did however stand out that some of the players were using their time much better in the past: one game saw both players under 1 min at the conclusion! Congratulations to all the players who gave their best in this way, and to the winners: Alex Grossman (with a perfect 3-0 in a quad where every player was over 1200!), Alex Zinoman, Mason Eastman, and Vishank Jain-Sharma (all three tied at 2-1 in the second quad), and Henry Eastman (who won the seven-player section with 3-0).
• Monday Night Marathon
  • Larry Snyder took clear first in the 9th Monday Night Marathon after a dramatic last round. Entering the round, he stood tied with Salar Jahedi, half a point ahead of Brendan Purcell. By ratings Larry seemed to have the easier last round pairing as he was paired with White against Mark Limont (1449), while Salar and Brendan had to play each other. However, after losing an early pawn, Mark settled down and put up a tough fight, giving Larry a real test for his title. Larry did however prevail, and Salar and Brendan’s game continued with Brendan clearly holding the upper hand. Eventually, Brendan’s courage failed him, and he settled for a repetition in a position, which still seemed quite promising for him. These players finished 1-2-3 in the final standings: Snyder with 5/6, Jahedi with 4.5/6, and Purcell with 4/6.
• US Chess League
  • After a poor start, the San Francisco area team, San Francisco Mechanics, has put together a couple of good matches to improve their standing in the US Chess League. They now stand at 4-4, second in the Western Division, with the top two teams qualifying for the playoffs. Three East Bay Chess Club directors are on the Mechanics’ roster: FM David Pruess, NM Andy Lee, and IM Vinay Bhat. Bhat has only appeared in one match, but it was to score a crushing win with White against Grandmaster Marcin Kaminski on first board, a result which inspired the rest of the team. This past week, Pruess’s game versus the leading contender for the league MVP won the league’s game of the week award. It is featured with his notes in the instructional section of this newsletter. This coming week the team’s lineup will include all three for the first time; we’ll hope for good things!
• Bayareasliga
  • If you are interested in playing in a fun, friendly, and competitive league yourself, your chance is here! The Bayareasliga will soon begin its 2nd season (first match is November 20th). This will be an 8-month competition in which teams field 4-player rosters once a month to play a match against one of the other teams in the league. Players of all strengths will find a place in this league, as there are rating restrictions on the different boards. For more info, see http://www.eastbaychess.com/liga/Liga2.html. If interested in leading a team or being placed on a team, please contact us at liga@eastbaychess.com!
• Western States Open
  • Several East Bay Chess Club members made it out to Reno for the Western States Open last weekend. I don’t know every single member’s result, but excellent scores of 4.5/6 were turned in the B-section by Nelson Sowell and Jason Cruz. EBCC Director David Pruess also reached 4.5 with some luck in the Open section. Michael Pearson annotates an interesting struggle of his from the Open section in the instructional section of the present newsletter. The team finished third in a club competition based on the scores of 10 club members from various clubs.

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