Pizza & Prizes at the G/60! (CCC News)

(A small team photo after the G/60. Left to right: Anthony Thompson, Jason Barton, Yuun Kim, Lenden Rhodes, and Daniel Munoz)

*Quick note: At the G/60, I lost our club’s black bag of chess sets! I apologize for this, but if anyone finds it or has any info, please feel free to reach out! The bag does have “City Creek Chess” labeling on the boards and most of the supplies inside. Thank you!

City Creek Chess had a busy Saturday this past weekend. Thanks to the generosity of the Utah Chess Association (UCA) and PowerChess, we were able to get seats for two City Creek Chess players to play against Chess.com’s co-founder, International Master Danny Rensch!  We also had five players from City Creek Chess compete in the Reserve section of the G/60 Championship, played the final four boards, and even took BOTH first and second place, along with the top U1299 class prize!

While our club players were playing round one of the G/60 championship, City Creek Chess players Isaac Brown and Trey Opp were sponsored to play in a 1 vs. 10 Simul against Chess.com’s co-founder, IM Danny Rensch! In the Simul, Danny Rensch walked to each board and played with the white pieces. Once Danny came to the board, the players were required to make their move, then wait patiently for Danny to go around and come back to play their next move.

(Isaac Brown (right) “mean mugging” Danny Rensch (left), practically daring him to move.)

(Trey Opp (right) patiently waiting for Danny Rensch to step up.)

(Isaac anotates their move, while Trey plays their move against Danny.)

Even though Isaac or Trey didn’t win against the International Master, they were grateful for getting the opportunity to begin with. Because of this, again we’d like to say thank you to the donors of the UCA, the UCA itself, and PowerChess for giving us the opportunity to help our players!

About 10 minutes away at the University of Utah, we had Yuun Kim, Jason Barton, Lenden Rhodes, Anthony Thompson, and I (Daniel Munoz) compete in the Reserve (800-1700) section of the G/60 Championship against a field of 34 tough competitors. Because of this, we decided to get a team room, some bagels, and two giant pizzas to ease the pressure!

(City Creek Chess sitting in the team room with the winner of the 2025 Utah Open (U1700 section), Daniel Thomson, analyzing a game with Yuun Kim, and a surprise visit from Trey Opp!)

After four rounds of hard fighting, Yuun Kim came out undefeated with a perfect score of 4/4 points, thus finishing in 1st place (and $125 richer😉)! This includes wins against Kellan Hadfield, who tied with Yuun for 2nd place in the 2026 Utah Middle School Championship, and the 2nd place winner of the 2025 Utah Open (U1700 section), Alejandro Gonzalez Gomez!

In second place, after applying USCF’s tiebreak system to determine who had the toughest competition, Jason Barton finished 2nd overall with 3.5/4 points, tying him with one Mark MacHarris, with a rating of 1442! This comes after drawing with Anthony Thompson in round three, then defeating Daniel T. Carpenter, who was the other player to tie for 2nd in the 2025 Utah Open (1700 section), alongside Alejandro Gonzalez Gomez!

Jason picked his 2nd round game as one of his best games from the tournament:

Lenden Rhodes placed 8th overall with 3/4 points, after a key upset win against Grant B. Hodson in the last round, tying Lenden with one other player for the top U1299 prize! Lenden played UCA’s Grant Hodson, a seasoned chess player with 30 years of experience and an icon of Utah’s chess community, who really put Lenden in tough positions. Lenden was quick enough to defend and counterattack just about everything thrown at them, forcing Grant to think for long periods of time, and giving the win to Lenden on time (game included below).

On tiebreaks, Anthony Thompson barely breaks into the Top 10 with a final score of 2.5/4 points; however, he did need to play against Jason Barton in round three for the chance to play for 1st place, but both players ended the game in a Rook & Pawn drawn endgame. Unfortunately, Anthony lost their final game against Mark MacHarris, who tied for 2nd place with Jason Barton on points, after winning against Anthony Thompson.

As for myself, we don’t talk about that 😊 If we did, I’d let you know that I played three rounds and took a bye in round one to attend the Simul with Isaac and Trey. Luckily, I arrived in time to start round two! My games were good, but my lack of focus led me to lose winning positions in each. In round one, I blundered myself into a mate in two, set my rook and queen to get forked in round two, and should have played for a draw in round three against a higher-rated player, but got too ambitious playing in time-pressure. Luckily, I found some good tactics and shenanigans to pull out a single win, ending in 1.5/3 points, and ending in 25th overall.

My best game was also one of my worse games, so I thought I'd put it out to showcase what lucky tactics can do for a win:

What a weekend for City Creek Chess! Don't forget to join us for a casual meetup this Friday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. for some friendly games to end this week.