Round 1 saw some tough fights. John Wright’s annotations can be found here:
Here are the parings for round 2:
Decisive Results in Euwe Open
Round 1 combatants gave no quarter to their fellow SGVCC members—all five matches were decisive and three ended in checkmate. Newcomer Jason Nicholson had a strong debut, Larry played a nice endgame, and Artem and Arturo showed off their tactics. Your humble author got s break from Russel, who had the better game. Check out the games and comments below.
Larry Stevens Wins Capa Open
Congrats to NM Larry Stevens who only gave up a draw in his march to first place in the Capablanca Open. “Mr. e4” scores a nice win over top seed NM Axel Müller along the way. The event only had 8 participants and we are hoping more of you will join us for the 5 round Euwe Open that starts on September 17th. It will be played at our usual LiChess SGVCC Site. You need to join SGVCC at that site and let us know if you need any assistance.
Sign up here:
https://caissachess.net/online-registration/index/1174
We will also hold The Cardano Open, a 6 minute +1 Arena Blitz event on September 10th. Join the fun!
Join us here: https://lichess.org/tournament/gZDPksxW. The password is:
sgv
Sierra Madre YMCA Update
We had hoped to return to the YMCA in August for in-person chess but the site is not yet available. After a shutdown during much of the last year, the YMCA is currently only open until 8:00 p.m. Also , the space we were using is only being used for summer camps at present. We have been in contact with YMCA management and they are certainly open to having us return when circumstances allow. Like many organizations they lost revenue and staff during the pandemic. We are still hopeful we will be able to return in the Fall and will keep everyone informed .
But we also think it wise to have a back-up plan. So we are in the process of looking for another site, even if it is just a temporary one until we can get back to the YMCA. Unfortunately the new rise in COVID cases due to the Delta variant might complicate things. If any member has a specific site they think may be interested in working with us please let us know. In the meantime all memberships that we’re paid last year remain valid and will be extended for whatever period you signed up for. So were we to be able to start in-person meetings again in September of this year, that membership would now be valid until September 2022.
We truly appreciate the patience and support you have all shown. We are continuing to host online events so check the SGVCC Website for details. Hoping to have everyone back together soon!
Club League Rd. 5 Match Moved to Sunday
Our match will now be played on July 18, Sunday evening. Rapid starts at 6:00 pm and Blitz at 7:15 pm. Sorry for the many changes!
Club League Round 5
Our upcoming match against Borba Gato Chess Club of Brazil is tentatively set for Friday, July 16, at 7:00 p.m. The match is played on Chess.com and you can find updated info on Season 3 of Club League at our Chess.com San Gabriel Valley CC site. Just click on the Club link and then “ News.”
Louis Pasteur Memorial Round 3: Openings gone wrong
In this round we were treated to some very good games. Randy and Artem worked together to create this beautiful cluster of knights in the center.
You can find the pairings for the last round here:
https://caissachess.net/live/1027
The pairings will be finalized on Tuesday evening, so for the moment these pairings you find there are preliminary.
The winner and the top <1800 player will get prizes. Since we might resume over the board chess games soon again we probably won’t have time for a tiebreaker this time.
Some of the players joining our online tournaments live too far away to join us for OTB tournaments and some players might not be ready yet for indoor meetings. If there is some demand I am more than happy to continue to offer online tournaments. We might have to opt for another time though. Please let me know what you think and send an email to: sgv.chessclub@gmail.com
Here are the annotated games of round 3:
Clubs League Season 3 Returns June 12!
We are pleased to announce that SGVCC will once again participate in Club match play on the Chess.com site. This is your chance to show your club pride and share in the thrill of team match play.
Each match consist of two segments: a Rapid game at 15 plus 2 second increment followed by a Blitz game at 3/2. All games count the same and you can play in both segments or just one if you prefer.
The event will consist of seven matches played over seven Saturdays starting June 12 thru July 31. July 10 is set aside for a makeup day if necessary. The match starts at 10:00 a.m. PST and generally ends by 11:30. Registration is open 1 hour before the start time and you can play as few or many matches as you like. We are asked to let the other team know how many players we expect each week and you can send that message to Team Administrator John Wright at JRWright on the Chess.com site. Again, it is fine if you can’t play at the last minute and this is just a way to let the team captains organize things so everyone hopefully gets a game.
Our first two seasons in Club League have been great fun and it is one of Chess.com’s most popular events. We have played clubs from all across the U.S., Mexico and South America. We hope to see many of you there!
Louis Pasteur Memorial: The first two rounds
The first two rounds of the Louis Pasteur Memorial saw some exciting chess and some upsets. In round 1 David Faulkner narrowly missed a win and allowed Kevin Zhang to escape with a draw. In round 2 Kevin’s brother Arthur Zhang played a beautiful Italian and beat me quite convincingly.
Things obviously went wrong for me. How did Arthur finish the game in style?
Artem Aleksenko showed some good fighting spirit in both of his games. In his game against John Wright Artem kept pushing in a drawn rook ending and John, under time pressure, went wrong. In the second round Artem defended with a minute left against Gerald Ruiz assault and the game ended in a draw. Earlier Gerald, true to his name, sacrificed his queen and got very close to winning the game. Artem’s active defense muddied the waters enough to escape with a draw.
Larry Stevens is faithfully sticking to the Queen’s Gambit Accepted. Manu Prasad went for 3. Nc3
This is an inaccuracy. Larry treats us to a masterclass on how to exploit this.
The pairings for round three will be published on Tuesday evening at the usual place:
https://caissachess.net/live/1027
Round 1 games:
Round 2 games:
Louis Pasteur Open Starts Friday, May 21st
This will be a 4-round Swiss, G60+10. All games will be played on Lichess. Sign up here: