This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center: 5/13-5/19/2024
Welcome to This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center! This is our weekly recap for all chess tournaments hosted by the CCC in the past week, spanning from Monday, May 12th to Sunday, May 19th, 2024.
This summary will include all the weekly events at both the North and South locations, including our Rated Scholastic event at the Main/South Center and our Sunday online blitz arena!
To find a specific event, navigate using the headings below:
Monday Action Quads (CCC North)
MAQ is a scholastic quads tournament held every Monday evening at the CCC's North location. Participants are placed into quads of four and play three rounds of g20+10 USCF-rated chess. This week's tournament had a total of 13 players split into three quads, including a five player Quad C.
Congratulations to this week's quad winners:
Quad A: Caleb Kidd (3 points)
Quad B: Avyaan Prasad and Aaryan Nagolu (2 points)
Quad C (five players): Sanveer Kadaru and Shivvan Danddu (2.5 points)
Our biggest gainer this week was Avyaan Prasad, who tacked on 186 points! For detailed results from the May 13 MAQ, click here for the USCF crosstables.
The next Monday Action Quads event is scheduled for May 20.
Tuesday Night Action (CCC Main/South)
On Tuesday evenings, the Charlotte Chess Center hosts Tuesday Night Action at the Main/South location. TNA is a rated event in which participants play one game of USCF standard-rated chess per week, following a lecture by FM and CCC founder Peter Giannatos.
The following players won this past Tuesday:
Top: Kishan Karthigeyan, Patrick Sciacca, Nirav Natha, Namish Kondabathini, and Rohit Jagga
U1600: Shreyas Karki, Shlok Kaushik, Chales Cameron, Spencer Singleton, Nandhan Gummi, and Namish Mayank
U1300: Vivan Ghule, Ritvik Kumar, Eduardo Palmeira, Avery Bradley, Douglas Samson, Michael Turner, Moses Collins, Bryan Muraya, Joshua Rubanenko, Michael Bernard, Neal Woodruff, and Daniel Rubanenko
The top scoring adult and junior player in each section at the end of the month will receive a $25 gift card to USCF sales. The only player in the Top section currently on 2/2 is Kishan Karthigeyan, while both the U1600 section and U1300 section have three players tied on 2/2 atop the standings. View full TNA standings here.
Our next Tuesday Night Action will be held at the Main/South location on May 21.
Wednesday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)
Wednesday Action Quads is a g20+10 quads event held every Wednesday evening at the CCC Main/South location. Players of all ages and strengths can come by to participate in three rounds of USCF-rated chess. 27 total players participated this week, forming six quads (including a seven player Quad F).
Our quad winners this week were:
Quad A: IM Tianqi Wang (3 points)
Quad B: Malachi Davis (3 points)
Quad C: Tamaghna Roy (3 points)
Quad D: Trishona Kumar (3 points)
Quad E: Kody Crouch (2.5 points)
Quad F (seven players): Ritvik Kumar (3 points)
IM Tianqi Wang entered Quad A rated over 500 points above the field and took care of business to score a perfect 3/3. With a USCF rating well over 2400, a perfect score only gained him one rating point! That's in contrast to the big gains some of the other quad winners made, including Malachi Davis (1818 -> 1871), Tamaghna Roy (1570 -> 1679), and Trishona Kumar (1442 -> 1549). Davis and Roy both reached new peak ratings, as well as Quad E winner Kody Crouch.
For full results, view the USCF rating report.
Our next Wednesday Action Quads tournament will be held at the CCC Main/South location on May 22.
Friday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)
Our Friday Action Quads tournament is a rated event that takes place at the CCC Main/South location every Friday evening for scholastic players. A total of 20 players participated in this week's FAQ, evenly split into five quads.
Congratulations to our quad winners:
Quad A: four-way tie! (see below)
Quad B: Temir Alimov and Aadhav Nr (2 points)
Quad C: Reyansh Mayank (3 points)
Quad D: Mihail Zolotuhin (2.5 points)
Quad E: Davis Williams (3 points)
We had the rare four-way tie in Quad A this week, with Samanyu Ammasani, Benjamin Raz, Shreyas Karki, and Shlok Kaushik each scoring 1.5/3. Reyansh Mayank and Mihail Zolotuhin were two of our top risers, each gaining 70+ points of USCF rating.
Detailed results of the May 17 FAQ tournament can be viewed here. The next Friday Action Quads will be held on May 24.
NEW Friday Pizza Quads (CCC North)
The Charlotte Chess Center has recently inaugurated a new scholastic tournament: the Friday Pizza Quads! This tournament is held at the CCC North location every Sunday evening, open to scholastic chess players. After the first round, participants may help themselves to a slice of pizza!
There were two sections this week, with Shaurya Nannapaneni winning clear first place in Quad A and Shivvan Danddu taking clear first in Quad B. With his 3/3 performance, Shaurya Nannapaneni broke 1000 USCF for the first time!
View detailed results of FPQ here. Our next Friday Pizza Quads will be held on May 24.
Rated Scholastic (CCC Main/South)
This past Saturday, the CCC hosted our Rated Scholastic tournament at the Main/South location. Rated Scholastic is a four-round event with over two dozen awards at stake! The event is open to all K-8 players under 1500 and is USCF-rated, with a time control of g20+10.
In the U1500 section, Moses Collins and Jayan Medvin tied for first place with 3/4, while our only perfect score of the event came from Benjamin Xu in the U1000 section (who entered as the lowest-rated player!). Our top finisher in U500 was Duy Khoi Nguyen with 3.5/4.
Congratulations to all top finishers! View full results in the rating report. Our next Rated Scholastic at the Main/South location will be on June 29, while our next Rated Scholastic at the North location will take place on June 1.
Sunday Afternoon Classical (CCC North)
Sunday Afternoon Classical is a weekly tournament at the CCC North location, open to players of all ages and strengths. Charlotte Chess Center members are paired into one round of standard USCF-rated chess per week, with a time control of g60+10.
The following players won their games this Sunday:
Top: Matthew Sedlock, Sujan Maddipati, Naitik Rathi, and Celine Atassi
U1300: Kenny Campbell, Daniel Wojszczyk, Mario Michaels, Sean Smith, Harsith Haris, Josh Alex, Nicholas Sabin, Henry Yoo
In each section of SAC, the top scoring adult and junior player across a given month receives a $25 gift card to USCF sales. Next week's recap will announce the final prize winners!
I'd also like to thank Matthew Sedlock for sending in his game from this past SAC, where he had the white pieces against Jared Crawford. It was a fascinating game, provoking a huge analysis session in the skittles area after the tournament!
View the May SAC standings at this link.
Sunday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)
Our Sunday Action Quads tournament is a USCF-rated quads event held every Sunday evening at the Main/South location, open to all players in grades K-12. 34 players participated in SAQ this weekend, split into eight quads (with a six player Quad H).
The following players took first place in their respective quads this week:
Quad A: Diya Balamurugan (2 points)
Quad B: Siddhant Gutgutia (2.5 points)
Quad C: Gabriel Williams (2 points)
Quad D: Davis Deadwyler (3 points)
Quad E: Ashwanth Premkumar and Jayanth Premkumar (2 points)
Quad F: Thomas McKenzie (3 points)
Quad G: Janaka Karthikeyan (3 points)
Quad H (six players): Jay Parmar (3 points)
Gabriel Williams broke 1000 USCF for the first time, while Siddhant Gutgutia, Thomas McKenzie, and Carter Hahn (second place in Quad D) also had big rating gains. Full results from May 19 can be viewed here.
Our next Sunday Action Quads tournament will be held on June 2 at the Main/South Center.
Online Blitz Arena!
A total of 41 players participated in our Sunday online blitz arena, held right here on chess.com! The top finisher was NM Lucas Melillo, who hails from Texas but has played in multiple CCC events, including our CCC Spring IM Norm Invitational. Here's one of his best games from the tournament (username A4RookA3):
Also finishing on the podium were user Piolhadas and CCC regular Celine Atassi (last week's winner). Here's one of Piolhadas' best wins from the event:
To wrap up, here are a couple puzzles from NM Lucas Melillo's games in this tournament. In this first puzzle, black has to find the only winning move in a complicated endgame:
Finally, NM Han Schut (who teaches an adult improvers class at the CCC Main/South location on Thursday evenings!) played a fantastic move to help press for a win against Melillo. Can you spot it?
Results of the blitz arena can be viewed here.
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For upcoming tournaments, bookmark our Events Schedule. The CCC hosts nearly 8 events a week at our facilities in North and South Charlotte, along with bi-monthly major events such as the CCC Club Championship and the Carolinas Classic.
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NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
