• Daniel Schwarz breaks through in October Swiss
  • 16-year old Daniel Schwarz appears close to earning the National Master title. He certainly took a huge step in that direction as he defeated two masters in succession to come from behind and win the open section of the East Bay Chess Club October Swiss outright with 3.5/4. It was one of the stronger tournaments the club has held, with 5 masters, and a first round rating cut at 2000. But it was expert Schwarz who took the event after defeating the leading (3/3) NM Andy Lee in the last round with Bishop and Knight versus 4 pawns (I have heard of players as strong as IM failing to perform the B+N mate in US tournaments). Considering the strength of the event, the three masters finishing in 2nd-4th at 3/4, Lee, Ben Dean-Kawamura, and Nicholas Yap, can be quite satisfied with their results. The Under-2000 prize was split by Sam Shankland (who scored a nice win versus a master) and Louiza Livschitz, both of whom finished with 2.5/4.
  • In the Under-1750 section, Greg Sarafian had to take a half-point bye, but he made up for it by showing no mercy to the three opponents he faced, allowing him to even grab sole first. Four others had great results, finishing right behind at 3: Carl Woebcke, Alex Lun, Nelson Sowell, and Kenneth Voss. Albert Starr led the tournament before falling in the last round to the winner. His 2.5 was still enough for top Under-1550 prize. Tyler Bard played well above his 1000 rating to score 2 points, tops Under-1350.
• November Open Quads
  • 16 players participated in this month’s quads, but the 16th was only added after the first round when the bottom 7 players had been grouped in a swiss, so the upshot was two quads and one 8-player 3 round swiss. In the top quad, Adarsh Konda prevailed, catching Davis Xu with a last round win to reach 2.5/3. The middle quad was won by Nelson Sowell with a perfect score. In the last round Nelson found a sweet endgame mating combination, to put an exclamation mark on his day. The 8 player swiss was won by Jamie Sawhill and Alan Howe, who drew with each other in round 2 en route to 2.5/3.
• November Scholastic Quads
  • The top quad was won by under-rated and rapidly improving Tyler Bard (winner of the U-1350 prize in the Oct Swiss) with 3/3. In the 6-player section, Alex Zinoman was in good form, winning two games and drawing with Inigo Freed. Right behind him in second with 2/3 were Pranav Gopal and Vishank Jain-Sharma.
• US Chess League
  • The San Francisco Mechanics seemed to get it all together at the end of the season, only to fall tragically in the first round of the playoffs. Four straight match wins in weeks 7-10 allowed the previously mediocre team to rocket into the playoffs and even overtake the Miami Sharks (who had led the division since week 1) with a dramatic last round win against the Sharks themselves. This run was sparked largely by a sudden improvement in results on board 1. This was not just due to the addition of Vinay Bhat (who scored 1 win and 2 draws in 3 games vs. GMs) but also to the improved showing of IM Vince McCambridge, who won two sparkling games during this run, including black versus GM Becerra in the must-win 10th week match to overtake the Sharks. Although the Sharks were a great team this season, the Mechanics had beaten them twice during the regular season and now had draw odds in the first round of the playoffs. Unfortunately, this match proved disastrous for the Mechanics who squandered a winning position on board 1 (Vinay annotates his draw with Becerra in the games section) and draws on boards 2 and 4, to go down 2.5-1.5 and end their season.!

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