About Us
Some early highlights of the Santa Monica Bay Chess Club
1949: the Santa Monica Bay Chess Club won the annual Los Angeles County team championship.
1949: the Santa Monica Bay Chess Club won the California Interclub Championship after defeating the Castle Chess Club.
1965: March, Ed Kennedy and Norman Lessing tied for 1st in the Santa Monica Bay Chess Club Masters & Experts Invitational.
1968: Peter Rhee won the O.H. Wentcher Memorial, formerly the Santa Monica Bay Chess Club Championship.
1969: Ken Morrisey won the Otto Wentcher Memorial (Santa Monica Bay Chess Club championship). Art Spiller took 2nd place.
1977: June, the strongest championship tournament of the Santa Monica Bay Chess Club was held. John Peters, Roy Ervin, Allan Pollard, and Tibor Weinberger all tied for 1st place.
Hosted the American Open for many years.
OUR CHESS CLUB
ST. ANDREW’S CHURCH HALL, 11555 National Blvd. Los Angeles
Probably the oldest chess club still operating in the Los Angeles area, the Santa Monica Bay Chess Club (SMBCC) has survived the fading of the Bobby Fischer boost (following the 1972 World Championship that had spawned the huge renaissance of American chess), the computer chess boom, the on-line chess revolution that continues, the growth of the region’s traffic that made commutes of any great length impractical, the proliferation of new more localized clubs to compete with, and the real estate boom of the Westside leaving most former venues unaffordable. Beyond surviving, the club has continued to steadily grow over the past couple of decades.
The biggest reason apparently is that SMBCC is a rare remaining chess club that conducts rated tournaments that approximate official time controls (Game in 1:55 with 5 second delay), allowing deep analysis and accurate play. It is also located freeway close in a comfortable setting with a parking lot in the quiet residential neighborhood just east of Santa Monica’s Sunset Park area. A very friendly atmosphere of the Club is also a draw, according to its members.
In recent years, the club’s age diversity has expanded to include young players who are too accomplished to be satisfied with school chess programs and seek adult competition. These serious young players are disproportionately represented among the highest echelons of state and national competition (more than a half dozen are in the top ten state or national standings for their age). But the club also hosts a main core of adults including seniors.
Over the years that the club has been in its present location, St. Andrew’s Church Library, it has had such friends and repeat simultaneous exhibition performers as GM Eduard Gufeld, GM Varuzhan Akobian, IM Jack Peters, and IM Tim Taylor. One of these simuls, conducted by GM Akobian, was featured on MTV’s “I’m a Genius” program.
Yearly membership in the Club is $75, Entry fees for the monthly tournaments are $10 to members (Annual Club Championship is an exception and varies). Non-members can enter the monthly tournament for $25.
SMBCC’s illustrious past is the stuff of legend as recounted by long-time member, Tibor Weinberger, in the attached history below:
