This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center: 6/10-6/16/2024

Welcome to This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center! This weekly recap will include all tournaments hosted by the CCC at both the North and South locations from June 10 to June 16, 2024.

To find a specific tournament recap, navigate using the headings below:

Tuesday Night Action (CCC Main/South)

The Charlotte Chess Center's Tuesday Night Action is a weekly event on Tuesday evenings at our Main/South location. The evening begins with a lecture by CCC founder and Fide Master Peter Giannatos, after which players are paired into long time control USCF-rated games. TNA is played over the course of the whole month, with one round per week. The top-scoring adult and junior players in a given month each win a $25 gift card to USCF sales.

The following players won their games this past Tuesday:

Top: Patrick Sciacca, Shawn Bale, Trishona Kumar, Arjun Malik, Nathan Heck, and Ian MacNair

U1600: Benjamin Raz, Sattwik Dutta, Shreyas Karki, Diya Balamurugan, Jason Bailey, Jeremy Huffman, Eldar Gabidoff, and Ritvik Kumar

U1300: Moses Collins, Druv Balamurugan, Zachary Grossman, Ori Raz, Aadhav Nr, Imhotep Collins, Henry Yoo, Jared Poe, Christopher-Lee Marsh, and Priya Keskar

Full TNA results can be viewed at the standings page on our website.

Our next Tuesday Night Action will be held at CCC's Main/South location on June 18.

Wednesday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

Our Wednesday Action Quads tournament is a weekly g20+10 USCF-rated quads event held every Wednesday at the CCC's Main/South location. Players of all ages and strengths may participate, with a whopping 57 entrants in this past week's tournament! Some of the participants came from other states or even other regions of the country, as several members of our Elite Camp chose to play.

Our quad winners this week were:

Quad A: IM Tianqi Wang (3 points)

Quad B: Jayden Wu (2.5 points)

Quad C: Four-way tie! (see below)

Quad D: Smayan Ammasani and Naitik Rathi (2 points)

Quad E: Eshwar Kothapalli and Dhanush Kondabathini (2 points)

Quad F: Andrew Horton and Akshay Rajagopal (2 points)

Quad G: Diksha Jaikumar (3 points)

Quad H: Brent Jenkins and Diya Balamurugan (2 points)

Quad I: Satvick Kumar (2.5 points)

Quad J: Reyansh Mayank (3 points)

Quad K: Errol Restelli (2.5 points)

Quad L: Bryan Muraya, B.D. Bailey, and Druv Balamurugan (2 points)

Quad M: Prathyun Ramnath (3 points)

Quad N (small swiss): Vincent Lewis (2.5 points)

IM Tianqi Wang has scored 3/3 in Quad A every Wednesday in the past month, while Farid Aslanov, Arjun Malik, Matthew Tikhomirov, and Musa Naushad each scored 1.5/3 and created the rare four-way tie in Quad C. Full results of the most recent WAQ can be found in the USCF rating report. 

Our next Wednesday Action Quads tournament is scheduled for June 19.

Friday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

CCC hosts two scholastic quads events on Friday evenings, one taking place at each location. Our Friday Action Quads tournament was held at the Main/South location and played host to 24 players across six quads.

The following players won their quads this week at FAQ:

Quad A: Diksha Jaikumar (2.5 points)

Quad B: Shreyas Karki (3 points)

Quad C: Aadhav Nr (2.5 points)

Quad D: Bryan Muraya (3 points)

Quad E: Nolan Symons (3 points)

Quad F: Laura Gu (3 points)

View detailed results of the most recent FAQ tournament here.

The next Friday Action Quads will be held on June 21.

NEW Friday Pizza Quads (CCC North)

Our newest weekly tournament is the Friday Pizza Quads, which has been running for just over a month now with a steadily growing number of participants! FPQ attracted a new record of 29 players this past week, forming seven quads including a five player Quad G.

Congratulations to the following quad winners:

Quad A: Moses and Mekhai Collins (2 points)

Quad B: Ishaanvii Ashwin (2.5 points)

Quad C: Ankush Dey (3 points)

Quad D: Sanchit Haripradeep (3 points)

Quad E: Aaryan Nagolu and Vaibhav Dhulipala (2 points)

Quad F: Karthi Palanichamy (3 points)

Quad G (five players): Michael Aresco, Krishna Agarwal, Henry Makas, and Ram Mohan (2 points)

View full rating results of this week's FPQ here. The next Friday Pizza Quads will take place at the CCC North location on June 21.

Scholastic Practice Tournaments!

On Saturday, both the CCC North and Main/South locations hosted unrated practice tournaments for scholastic players. These events are designed to get chess students comfortable in tournament settings. 

In our CCC North location practice tournament, Srikrishna Chelluri finished with a perfect 3/3 score in the grades 3-8 section, while George Willsey posted a perfect score in the K-2. 

At the CCC Main/South, there were no clear winners, with each section finishing with a three-way tie! In the K-2, Abigail Gause, Matt Busbee, and Sradda Vishwaant all scored two points to tie for first. Viyaan Gupta, Mahathi Radeev, and Hiyanti Balamurali scored two points to tie for first place in the 3-8 section. 

Congratulations to our Practice Tournament winners! 

Sunday Afternoon Classical (CCC North)

Sunday Afternoon Classical is a weekly tournament at the CCC North location, open to players of any age or strength. SAC is rated at the end of each month, and the top adult and junior player in each section at the end of the month will win a $25 gift card to USCF sales.

Our winners this week in the Top section were Shlok Kaushik, Matthew Sedlock, Kishore Perumal, Sasmita Mohanty, Rachel Whitehouse, and William Jindal. Our U1300 section winners were Hugh Conwell, Nichol Garrison, Alex Sedlock, Carlene Pyne, Shreyas Srinivasan, Gaurav Satwalkar, Arnav Anugandula, Jameson Mah, and Shrinika Musuluri. Most notably, Srinivasan, Satwalker, and Mah were playing their first ever USCF-rated games this week - congratulations!

Full SAC standings can be viewed at this link. Next week's SAC will take place on June 23 at the CCC North location.

Sunday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

Our Sunday Action Quads event takes place at the CCC Main/South location every Sunday evening. SAQ is a scholastic tournament featuring three rounds of g20+10 USCF-rated chess.

Congratulations to the following players for winning their quads this weekend:

Quad A: Benjamin Raz and Ashwathama Sathish (2 points)

Quad B: Aadhav Nr (2.5 points)

Quad C: Shrehit Dhiman (3 points)

Quad D: Anirudh Prasanna (3 points)

Quad E: Anvay Mishra (2.5 points)

Quad F: Vaid Naidu (3 points)

For detailed results, view the USCF crosstables. Our next SAQ will be held at the CCC Main/South location on June 23.

Online Blitz Arena!

The CCC hosts a weekly online blitz arena right here on chess.com! This week's tournament featured a total of 26 participants, with user sj200902 finishing in clear first, scoring 20 wins and two draws without ever losing a game. Some of the victories included sparkling attacks against the opponent's king:

User chessnerdbird (David Blackwelder) finished in second place, winning 17 games against two draws and three losses. Here's David's victory against third-place finisher TachyonicKnight:

One fun puzzle to wrap things up!

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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 Charlotte Summer Open.

Not a member of the CCC? Join over 1000 members today!

NM Dennis Norman

Chess Coach - Club Journalist