In September, Waltham Chess Club collaborated with Howard Goldowsky and Back Pages Bookstore to host an event at the bookstore (on Waltham’s Moody St.) on the 11th. The event was designed to promote the book Masters of Technique, edited by Goldowsky and published by Mongoose Press. Included was a simultaneous exhibition by Senior Master Denys Shmelov, followed by a blitz tournament run by Michael Gosselin and Todd Chase. All of the proceeds were donated to charity. I’d like to thank Howard and Back Pages for organizing this event and inviting us to participate, and Denys, Michael and Todd for running the simul and blitz tournament. The participating players enjoyed themselves, and a few copies of Masters were sold. We hope the bookstore will host another such event in the future and that, with more effective promotion, more players will come.
Waltham Chess Club had a slight dip in attendance in September, but came back strong in October, and in November we had our highest turnout in my tenure, 20 players. I’m especially pleased with the high influx of new players, an average of one per week.
Check out our newly designed website at http://walthamchessclub.org. Vitaliy Ryabinin worked really hard to get it published for us, and we thank him for the high-class upgrade.
Some highlights from the last few months:
• SM Denys Shmelov marches on! Among several victories, he had a perfect score of 7 points at the November First Friday, taking clear first place over the next contender (with 5.5 points).
• Evan Rabin split first prize with Denys Shmelov with scores of 3.5 out of 4 points in the November G/20. The two players drew in the prize round. We were pleased to welcome Evan from Brandeis University, and we thank him for his blog entry (http://adventuresofrabin.blogspot .com/2010/11/excursion-to-other-side-of-waltham.html) about his experience at our Club.
• Todd Chase split first prize with Denys Shmelov in the Open Section of the Day of Thanks G/60, with 2 points. Jesse Klimov took the Under- 1600 prize with a score of 2 points. • With 6.5 points out of 7, Todd Chase edged Denys Shmelov (with 6 points) to win the October First Friday. It was Todd’s night!
• At the November First Friday, Brandon Wu and Allen Wang split first prize in the Under-1300 section with scores of 6.5 out of 7 points.
• Leonardo Lopez won the Under-1500 section with 2 points at the Sukkot G/60 in September.
• Brandon Wu and Peter Teodorescu split first prize in the Under -1300 section with 2 points at the Fright Night G/60. |