The highlight of our summer was the observance of our 100th First Friday G/10 tournament this August. The first ever First Friday was directed by Michael Gosselin back in 1996, making our 100th a long-awaited watershed to reach. Everyone who came brought lots of munchies to nosh on and made the event a great success.

Our attendance numbers this summer have stayed consistently high, between 16 and 20 players, with occasional dips when players were away on vacation. We expect our numbers to return to full strength from September onward.

Some highlights from the last few months:

• Denys Shmelov has continued to march throughtournament after tournament in winning style. Perfect 7-point scores at the June and July First Fridays, a perfect 4-point score at the June G/20 – congratulations to Denys!
• The Hot and Steamy G/60 in July featured a remarkable four-way 2-point tie for first among Denys, Todd Chase, Edward Astrachan, and Andrew Liu.
• Frank Sisto, Todd Chase, and Geoffrey Collins tied three ways for first place with 3 points out of 4 each in the Open Section. Vitaliy Ryabinin took sole first place in the Under-1400 Section with a perfect score of 4 points.
• Erik Siggelkoe took sole first place at the August First Friday with a score of 6.5 out of 7 points.
• Brandon Wu took sole first place in the Under 1500 Section at the Aloha G/60 in August with a perfect score of 2 points. Way to go, Brandon!

The Waltham Chess Club meets every Friday evening at 7 PM. For more information see our web site at www.walthamchessclub.org.