Dear Good People,

The Bay Area Chess team and I wish you a happy thanksgiving and joyous holiday season. Some of you may remember me from a few years ago, but for others I may be a new name and face. I have returned as the Executive Director. I founded Bay Area Chess when my son moved from Weibel to Granada. It now grew into one of the most prolific Chess Club in the world due to the community feeling developed by our initial supporters. As we grow, I would like to preserve that community feeling by asking our loyalists to welcome the newcomers into our community.

We just passed 200 tournaments this year, and are working hard to bring you over 300 tournaments in 2020 to accommodate the growing interest and minimize sellouts. We are also upgrading some sites to offer you classy places at affordable prices. As we invest in the future and grow, we invite you to continue to support us by playing at our tournaments and volunteering at our larger events.

We have a slate of great tournaments over the next few months.

1. For children, we have the following tournaments (all at Santa Clara Convention Center):
   1. November 29: Thanksgiving Scholastic Class Championship (https://bayareachess.com/my/tg)
   2. January 11 and/or 12: 2020 US National Chess Congress (https://bayareachess.com/my/usjr)
   3. March 14 and/or 15: 2020 CalChess Super States Championship (https://bayareachess.com/my/states)
2. For adults and advance children (playing strength 1000+), we have the following tournaments (all at Santa Clara Convention Center):
   1. November 29 or 30 to December 1: Thanksgiving Scholastic Class Championship (https://bayareachess.com/my/tg)
   2. January 3 or 4 to 5, 2020: New Year Open (registration open soon)
   3. The first or second weekend of every month starting February: Championships with 5SS x G/90 +30.

I also have some general updates for our chess community.

1. We are adding the following sites to our tournament sites:
   1. Pleasanton Four Points is conveniently located off I-580 & I-680. We will hold 1 to 2 regular and kids tournaments there every month.
   2. San Jose Fairfield is centrally located near SJC airport. We will hold 1 to 2 regular and kids tournaments there every month as well.
2. We will move to Cupertino Juniper, about 0.3 miles south on De Anza from the Cupertino Aloft. Juniper is much larger and an upgrade from Cupertino Aloft where we were running out of space.
3. We have to raise our fees by 10% to cover about 20% higher rents and about 11-20% raise for our underpaid TDs. This will add $3 to Kids Swiss ($39), $2 to Kids Quads ($33), $5 to 1-day tourneys ($55 but econ entry remains at $40). We continue to streamline the tournament processes to minimize the increase. Most of you may not have noticed the increase but I want us to be authentic and transparent with the community.
4. We will add lower cost tournaments at our San Jose office and at Sacramento Courtyard (in Rancho Cordova) with Kids Swiss for $33, Kids Quads for $27, and 1-day regular tournaments for $43 (econ $33) which is lower than our entry fees last year.
5. Members enjoy 25% discount of tournaments we organize (without other co-organizers). Registering for multiple tournaments also will give you discounts/
6. We will start moving to guaranteed prize funds for our large long-weekend tournaments. For example, the CalChess State Championship will be $20,000 guaranteed prize fund.

As always, I am open to comments and feedback. You may email me at salman@bayareachess.com. Also, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/salmanazhar/) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/sazhar).

Much love to all members of our community,

Salman