• Aigner and Peckham take first in EBCC Thanksgiving Swiss; Soo Hoo and Belanoff win Reserve section.
  
  
  • NM Michael Aigner and Expert Monty Peckham tied for first in the open section, with identical 4-1 scores. The two top seeds made it through the tournament undefeated. They drew against each other in round 3, and then in a tense last round also gave up draws, Aigner to Dushyanth Reddivari and Peckham to Salar Jahedi. Reddivari and Jahedi tied with Sam Shankland for third with 3-2 scores. Sam’s result could have been even better (though he was tops under 1900), as he had a very good game with Aigner in which he held the advantage through much of the contest. The two winners took home $125 each for their fine play. The tournament drew about 50% of the based on for the prize fund, but director Andy Lee paid out about 65% of the projected prize fund.
  • In the U1700 section, Jonathan Soo Hoo raced out to the sole lead at 3-0, but faced a setback in round 4 when Sreekar Jasthi (winner of the October Reserve section) beat him. However, not losing heart, he won his last round game… and found himself tied for first when Ted Belanoff beat Sreekar on board 1. Belanoff had lost his first round game, but also not lost heart: he scored 4/4 in the 2nd-5th rounds. Finishing right behind them at 3.5-1.5 were Jasthi (1st under 1500) and Ryan Ko, who each lost one game to one of the first placed finishers, but still had great tournaments. As in the open section, 13 competed in the Reserve.
  • The next EBCC weekend Swisses will be Dec 18-19 and Jan 15-17 (a 6 rounder).
• Jahedi wins again in Monday Night Marathon #3
  
  
  • Salar Jahedi is once again in the sole lead of an EBCC Monday Night Marathon. While the top board broadcast saw yet another marathon draw (the round two relayed game between Sam Shankland and expert Larry Snyder also ended in a 63 move draw), Salar won his game on board 2 against improving junior Sam Shankland. Dushyanth Reddivari was held to a draw by Teddy Stenmark (another good result for Teddy), so Salar was the only player to reach 2.5/3. The game between Snyder and Craig Andries was followed by a record crowd on ICC that at times topped 50! The game started with Snyder obtaining a terrific position after Andries lost a little—but critical—time in the Tarrasch French. He missed a couple chances to improve his advantage, and Andries, as usual, refused to give up. He defended bravely for a long, long time, and then suddenly on move 54, Snyder slipped and Andries pounced on his chance to grab the advantage. With both sides in some time pressure in the second sudden death control, Snyder made a great defensive decision, and then found a key textbook endgame tactic to trade off the last queenside pawns. Andries still held some advantage, but with time winding down, he could find no way through the opponent’s correct defense and equality was reached. The game was drawn on move 83!
  • Salar won the tournament in the fourth round with a draw against Larry Snyder on top board, which saw Salar take a huge advantage into the ending but miss a trick to go into a drawn bishops of opposite color endgame. Salar pressed for a long time, but the draw was never in doubt. As in the third round, the game was observed by more than 50 people on the ICC. The saving resource in this game and a few other practical endgame lessons from the Monday Night Marathon are features in the instructional section of this newsletter.
• Hikaru new US Champion
  
  
  • Junior Hikaru Nakamura has had many successful tournaments in the last year, but added an important title on Sunday when he won a playoff match to take the title of US Champion. The tournament featured 64 of the nation’s best chess players, and not surprisingly some fierce competition. In the last round Nakamura and Alex Stripunsky were both half a point ahead of the field, but played absolutely wild chess, and were rewarded when their opponents were not up to the task and they both won! In the playoff on Sunday, Hikaru prevailed against Stripunsky in a two game action match. He is the youngest US Champion since Bobby Fischer.
• Bay Area has a new International Master
  
  
  • The really exciting news for many Bay Area chess fans was the terrific tournament of Dmitry Zilberstein. Dmitry clinched his third and final IM norm with 2 rounds to go, and should soon be awarded the IM title. His run included several good games, including the following, a winner of one of the best games prizes.
  • GM Alexander Ivanov – FM Dmitry Zilberstein
  • 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Bc5 7.a4 Rb8 8.c3 d6 9.d4 Bb6 10.Na3 O-O 11.ab5 ab5 12.Nb5 ed4 13.cd4 Bg4 14.Ra4 Re8 15.Bc2 Qd7 16.Nc3 Bf3 17.gf3 Qh3 18.Be3 Re5! 19.Re1 Rh5 20.Bf4 Rh4! 21.Bg3 Nh5! 22.Re2 Ne5! 23.Rd2 Nf4 24.Bf4 Nf3+ 25.Qf3 Qf3, and Black went on to win without too much difficulty.
  • Congratulations, Dmitry!
• McDiarmid, Ferguson, Palmer, Punjya winners in November Scholastic Quads
  
  
  • Zachary McDiarmid won the top quad with a score of 2.5/3. The second “quad” had 5 players, but was played as a round robin anyway, with all players playing 4 games. In the end, 3 tied for first with identical 3-1 scores: Jack Ferguson, Drake Palmer, and Niraj Punjya. Congratulations to all the winners!
• Berkeley’s Friday Night Tradition moves to the East Bay Chess Club
  
  
  • Tournament chess on Friday nights has long been a tradition in Berkeley. As noted in the previous newsletter, this tradition will be continued at the East Bay Chess Club. And this last Friday, Dec 3rd, it was held at EBCC for the first time.
• Eating Rule
  
  
  • From henceforth, food may only be eaten in the skittles room adjacent to the directors’ room (e.g. not in the other two rooms). Thanks!
• HB Global Challenge group sign-up
  
  
  • If you are interested in playing in the HB Global Chess Challenge in Minneapolis in May, join other EBCC members to sign up in groups of 6 and save. Registering before Dec 31 with at least one other player saves you 50$ and registering 5 players as a group gets the sixth entry for free, saving another 50$ per person. If you would like to register in such a group, let one of our directors know, or put your name down on one of the sheets in the club.
• Lee, Sowell victorious in Wed Night Action
  
  
  • NM Andy Lee and Nelson Sowell tied for first in the Wed Action tournament on 12/8 with scores of 2.5/3. Sowell had a good last round game against Lee, in which the latter admitted to being worse, with 15 seconds left on his clock to boot!

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