Your very own chess club recently hosted another successful Fremont Open, attracting over 60 chess enthusiasts, including reputed IM Emory Tate! Despite the economic downturn, players still flocked to the event either to play or to watch. The tournament was hosted at local fitness center ,Club Sport, much to the liking of the players! The venue boasted a cafeteria as well as multiple sporting facilities including tennis and basketball courts, and swimming pools. As if the air-conditioned rooms and sleek lighting wasn’t enough, all of the players in the event were entitled to use all of Club Sport’s facilities – including the Wifi – at no cost!
The event was divided into three sections: Reserve (u1600), AB (1600-2000), and Master/Expert (2000+); all sections followed a 30/90 G/60 four-round format spanning two days. Although the turnout was less than projected 70 players, the Fremont Chess Club still doled over $2,000 in prize money! The prize money winners are:
Open Emory Tate 305.00 Edward Perepelitsky $176.67 Phillip Perepelitsky $176.67 Paul Richter $176.67
A/B W. Craig Andries $157.50 Rohan Sathe $157.50 Richard Yi $157.50 Udit Iyengar $157.50
Reserve Justin Wang $157.50 Raymond Drummer $157.50 Rahul Swaminathan $210.00 Charles Tang $26.25 Evan Wong $26.25 Vignesh Varadarajan $26.25 Swaminatha Sankar $26.25
Click here to download a .pgn file of Hayk Manvelyan vs. Edward Perepilitsky annotated by Aditya Kumar. Results for this tournament have been rated and you can see the standings at the USCF website. Photos of this event, taken by Richard Shorman, can be found here. The tournament directors were Kenneth Zowal, Richard Koepcke and Aditya Kumar.
Yury Shulman Interview
The Fremont Chess Club has hosted many reputed players in the past, notably GM Gregory Kaidanov, IM Emory Tate, and IM Andranik Matikozyan. During the past week (July 19th to the 23rd) it was GM Yury Shulman’s turn to do the honors. Shulman conducted a grueling five-day chess camp for up-and-coming Bay area scholastic chess players at the Fremont Chess Club.
Aditya Kumar was privileged to interview the prolific player and chess coach! Click on this link for a transcript of the interview:
Haiti Relief Donation
As you may recollect, the Fremont Chess Club hosted a "2010 Spring Relief for Haiti" tournament several months ago, raising around $200 to help Haiti earthquake victims! Just recently, club director, Kenneth Zowal, and co-organizer, Aditya Kumar donated the proceeds to the Red Cross at its site in Oakland. John Ruiz, the assistant director of disaster services at Red Cross, accepted the donation graciously and thanked the club for its efforts to help the victims of the devastating disaster.
Stay tuned for similar philanthropic events hosted by your local chess club!
Lecture on young Anand & Simul by IM K Visweswaran
Recently, the New Fremont Chess Club proudly hosted a Lecture (on World Chess Champion Vishy Anand) and a Simul by the well-known IM Visweswaran. Over 30 people attended the lecture and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it! From the moment he arrived, IM Visweswaran was eager to present his large collection games of Anand in his formative years, complete with recent newspaper articles/magazines about him through a compelling PowerPoint presentation. At the end of the lecture, the audience was smiling, filled with little-known facts and gems played by the great Indian chess-player.
After the hour long lecture concluded, IM Visweswaran had a grueling 14 board simul with some of the avid players from bay area. The cost of the simul and lecture was very affordable at $15 dollars for most, and $10 for Fremont Chess Club annual members: a great perk of being a member! Eventually, only one person was able to win, David Trestor (see game below) and only one was able to draw, Armaan Kalyanpur; the score was 12.5 – 1.5 in favor of IM Visweswaran. The night ended at roughly midnight, everyone exhausted and pleased with a great session of chess!
Your club director Ken Zowal and his budding assistant Aditya Kumar organized a mini tournament on February 26th in aid of the recent earthquake tragedy in Haiti. The proceeds from the tournament will be donated to the American Red Cross towards Haiti Relief effort. The three round G30 unrated tournament attracted 10 local players and 5-6 spectators (parents).
Samyukta Bhat ended as the winner, closely followed by John Haig & Aditya Kumar. Here are some pictures of the tournament.
Fremont Chess Club Vs. Burlingame Chess Club
What happens when two strong bay area chess club compete in a rated tournament? Check out the pictures below to find out for yourself:
While our club has welcomed several prolific players in the past, notably IM Andranik and IM Tate, we recently opened our doors to the arguably best chess teacher in America, GM Gregory Kaidanov. Mr. Kaidanov hosted a 4 day invitational “all chess” camp held at our club on Dec 19-22, 2009, featuring nine strong Bay Area juniors, rated 1600 - 2000. Each day was rigorous with 8 hours of analyzing games and solving positional and tactical puzzles. Although the work was intense, the future chess stars stood up to the challenge and enjoyed every minute of it!
Fremont Open - October 2009
The thrid Fremont Open tournament was a huge success with 62 players participating. The Open section was won by John Smail of Berkeley, when the Open and A players were combined into one group -- resulting in several surprises and upsets! The tournament's final game was a High Drama Cliff-hanger and came down to the last 16 seconds! Nelson Sowell won the B section outright, and Raymond Drummer was first in the Reserve section, half a point ahead of the pack. Jeffery Chan won the Best Unrated Trophy. See the full results on USCF cross tables
IM Andranik Matikozhyan Simul
Southern CA IM Andranik played a simul with Fremont Chess club patrons on October 02, 2009. Please click the link for pictures of the event here.
Fremont Friday August Swiss 2009
The New Fremont Chess Club recently concluded a G 90 swiss tournament that ran for 4 Fridays starting from August 14- Sept 11, 2009 (except for August 21). Please see a short report on this tournament in Aditya's new chess blog, including an annotation of an interesting game between Bay area master Richard Koepcke and Hovik Manveleyan.
Emory Tate Simul
Our recent FCC simul with IM Emory Tate on June 26th, 2009 had a turn out of 12 players and 8 spectators. The simul started at 8 PM and ended at around 10.30 PM and Emory scored a impressive 11 wins and 1 loss (to Francisco). Many of the players hung around a little later to hear Emory's riveting lecture on one his recent tournament games. The simul was a resounding success and we hope to have more simuls with IM/GM's in the near future. Suggestions from club patrons are welcome for future simuls.
Picture below from Emory Tate Simul @ the New Fremont Chess Club
USCF Rated Tournament
We are pleased to announce that our second 4-round G/90 Swiss tournament (rated) was a success, attracting 13 strong players, with an average rating of approximately 1650. The winner was the Expert Hayk Manvelyan, a regular player at the club. For full standings, click here. We hope to have another club tourney soon!
Games Collection
Club Games (Hans Poschman Memorial Tournament - March 2009); Downloads as .PGN