This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center: 5/27-6/2/2024
Welcome to This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center! This post will recap all the tournaments we hosted at both the North and South locations from May 27 to June 2, 2024.
During this past Memorial Day weekend, the CCC's Main/South location hosted our Club Championships in standard, rapid, and blitz! For a complete summary of those events, check out our recap post in the CCC blog.
To find a specific event, navigate using the headings below:
Monday Action Quads (CCC North)
On Memorial Day Monday, while the CCC Rapid & Blitz Championship was being held at the Main/South Center, our North location hosted the weekly Monday Action Quads tournament. MAQ is a three-round g20+10 quads event open to scholastic players.
Congratulations to the following players for winning their quads:
Quad A: Sanchit Haripradeep (3 points)
Quad B: Hari Suram (3 points)
For complete results from the May 27 MAQ, check out the USCF crosstables.
The next Monday Action Quads event is scheduled for June 3.
Tuesday Night Action (CCC Main/South)
Every Tuesday night, the CCC's Main/South location hosts our weekly Tuesday Night Action tournament. Participants are paired into one USCF standard-rated chess game per week, following a lecture by FM and CCC founder Peter Giannatos. TNA is rated at the end of each month, and since June is now here, it's time to announce our section champions for the month of May!
Firstly, here are the winners from this past Tuesday:
Top: Kishan Karthigeyan, Nirav Natha, Patrick McCartney, Vihaan Purohit, Jared Crawford, and Sattwik Dutta
U1600: Shlok Kaushik, Sidney Petersen, Jason Bailey, Mike Day, and Eldar Gabidoff
U1300: Bhargava Meda, Kelly Centrelli, Reyansh Mayank, Douglas Samson, Michael Bernard, and Jodie Bishop
At the end of each month, the top adult and junior players in each TNA section receive a $25 gift card to USCF sales. Congratulations to the following players for receiving our monthly prizes!
Top: Kishan Karthigeyan and Patrick McCartney
U1600: Shlok Kaushik and Charles Cameron
U1300: Bhargava Meda and Kelly Centrelli
The full rating report for the May Tuesday Night Action can be viewed at this link.
Our final Tuesday Night Action of June will be held at the Main/South location on June 4.
Wednesday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)
Wednesday Action Quads is a g20+10 USCF-rated quads tournament held on Wednesdays at the CCC's Main/South location. Players of all ages and strengths are eligible to participate!
Our quad winners this week were:
Quad A: IM Tianqi Wang (3 points)
Quad B: Ibraheem Naushad (2 points)
Quad C: Viraj Phadke (2.5 points)
Quad D: Brent Jenkins and Neil Harit (2 points)
Quad E: Kody Crouch and William Lobig (2 points)
Quad F: Reyansh Mayank (2.5 points)
Quad G: Michael Bernard (3 points)
This makes three weeks in a row that IM Tianqi Wang has won Quad A with a perfect score! With a lot of draws in the other quads, Michael Bernard was the only other player in the event to score 3/3, increasing his rating to a new peak of 1015.
For detailed results of this week's WAQ tournament, view the USCF rating report.
Our next Wednesday Action Quads tournament will be held at the CCC Main/South location on June 5.
Friday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)
On Friday nights, each CCC location hosts a scholastic quads tournament with a time control of g20+10. Our CCC Main/South quads tournament had a big turnout this week, with nine quads and 38 total players.
Congratulations to our FAQ quad winners this week:
Quad A: Celine Atassi and Kishan Karthigeyan (2.5 points)
Quad B: Neil Harit and Samanyu Ammasani (2 points)
Quad C: Temir Alimov and Shiva Silaparasetty (2 points)
Quad D: Cole Putnam and Mekhai Collins (2 points)
Quad E: Druv Balamurugan (3 points)
Quad F: Zahar Shuvalov and Harish Chandramohan (2 points)
Quad G: Major Collins (3 points)
Quad H: Cole Baker (2.5 points)
Quad I: Campbell Fawcett (3 points)
Full rating results of the May 31 FAQ tournament can be viewed here.
The next Friday Action Quads will be held on June 7.
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! This week's tournament had 12 participants across three quads, with the following players finishing in first place:
Quad A: Alex Sedlock and Shivin Ashwin (2 points)
Quad B: Sanchit Haripradeep (3 points)
Quad C: Kayal Senthil and Vedanth Viswanath (2.5 points)
View the full results of this week's FPQ here. Our next Friday Pizza Quads will be held on June 7.
Rated Scholastic! (CCC North)
On Saturday, June 1, the CCC's North location played host to our monthly Rated Scholastic tournament, open to players in grades K-8 with a rating under 1000. Players were split into two sections (U1000 and U500) to play four rounds of g20+10 USCF-rated chess.
In the U1000 section, Ayaan Geda finished in clear first with 3.5/4, achieving a new peak USCF rating in the process! The only player he drew, Saketh Mamidipally, tied for second with Shivin Ashwin with 3/4, while Imhotep Collins also finished with a plus score with 2.5 points.
Our U500 champion was Ishaan Babu, scoring 3.5/4 and only ceding a draw to third-place finisher James Newton. Shivvan Danddu placed second with 3/4. Congratulations to all the top scorers!
Full results of our Rated Scholastic tournament can be found at this link. Our next Rated Scholastic will be held at the North location on June 22.
Sunday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)
Sunday Action Quads is a scholastic g20+10 quads event that takes place every Sunday evening at the CCC's Main/South location. A total of 30 players participated this week across 7 quads, with the following quad winners:
Quad A: Steven Hook (2 points)
Quad B: Jack Cassidy (2 points)
Quad C: Caiden Deadwyler (3 points)
Quad D: Sudeeksha Shashidhar (3 points)
Quad E: Margaret Barr (2.5 points)
Quad F: Rana Tipirneni (3 points)
Quad G: Hetansh Gandhi (3 points)
Caiden Deadwyler, Sudeeksha Shashidar, and Rana Tipirneni each achieved perfect 3/3 scores while also reaching new peak USCF ratings! Full results of the most recent SAQ can be found here. Our next Sunday Action Quads will be held at the CCC's Main/South location on June 9.
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. SAC is rated monthly, with prizes awarded to the highest-scoring adult and junior players in each section over the course of each month.
Our winners this week were:
Top: Naitik Rathi, Shlok Kaushik, Luke Johnson, and Srivatsa Gundumalla
U1300: Moses Collins, Mekhai Collins, Alex Sedlock, Sean Smith, Imhotep Collins, Sibani Balaji, Ankush Dey, Josh Alex, Sanchit Haripradeep, Major Collins, Nichol Garrison, Axiao Yao, and Christopher Stott
Current SAC standings can be viewed at this link. Our next SAC will be held on June 9 at the CCC North location.
Online Blitz Arena!
The CCC hosts a weekly online blitz arena every Sunday evening right here on chess.com! This week's edition had 91 participants, including several of CCC's strongest players. WGM Dina Belenkaya streamed her games on her Twitch channel, while NMs Mike Sailer and Dominique Myers also both participated in the tournament.
It was CCC founder and FM Peter Giannatos who won clear first place in the tournament! Peter scored a perfect 21/21 for a total of 81 points in the Sunday Blitz Arena.
While Peter won games in many different ways, it was often his strategic play that shone brightest. In this game against Sidney Petersen, Peter gave his opponent a stable weakness on the c-file, using this as a focal point for his middlegame and endgame play. Eventually, both of black's c-pawns fell, and white played g4-g5 to freeze black's queenside, steadily converting the advantage into a victory:
Our second-place finisher played some very nice positional games too! User sj200902 finished with 22 wins, two draws, and two losses, scoring 78 points in the arena standings:
Before wrapping up, I'd like to share two puzzles from this week's blitz arena. First is a puzzle from third-place finisher matthf21, who sacrificed material to achieve a winning attack:
Finally, here's a puzzle from a crazy game, with NM Dominique Myers as white against sj200902. In the game, black had little time and played 41...Qc6. Can you find something better?
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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 upcoming Carolinas Classic.
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NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
