This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center: 6/24-6/30/2024
Welcome to This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center! This is our weekly recap of all tournaments hosted by the Charlotte Chess Center the week of June 24 to June 30, 2024.
This post will include every weekly tournament at both the North and South location, as well as our Sunday night online blitz arena and the Rated Scholastic event at the CCC South location.
To find a specific tournament recap, navigate using the headings below:
Monday Action Quads (CCC North)
Monday Action Quads is a weekly scholastic quads tournament at our CCC North location. Players are sorted into quads of four and play three rounds of g20+10 USCF-rated chess. Since this week's edition had nine players, we had five players in Quad B, making a "small swiss" section.
Our Quad A champion was Ishaanvii Ashwin, who scored 2.5/3, ceding only a draw to second-place Charan Sunkara. In Quad B, Sanchit Haripradeep scored a perfect 3/3 to win clear first place. Both quad winners reached new peak USCF ratings in the process!
View detailed results at the USCF crosstables page.
Our next Monday Action Quads will take place at the CCC North location on July 1.
Tuesday Night Action (CCC Main/South)
CCC's Tuesday Night Action tournament is a weekly event at our Main/South location held on Tuesday evenings. After a lecture by CCC founder and FM Peter Giannatos, players are paired into one USCF-rated game per week.
The following players won their games this past Tuesday:
Top: Patrick McCartney, Arsh Sharda, IM Tianqi Wang, and Raghav Arun
U1600: Chalpati Gundumalla, Jason Bailey, Brent Jenkins, Eldar Gabidoff, Satvick Kumar, Aadhav Nr, Rishaank Channad, Zachary Grossman, and Sampath Kumar
U1300: Brian Lara, Ritvik Kumar, Kalp Shah, Shobhankumar Subramanian, Michael Bernard, and Neal Woodruff
At the end of every month, we award a $25 gift card to USCF sales to the top scoring adult and junior player in each section. This past Tuesday was the last of June, meaning that it's time to announce this month's top finishers:
Top: Shawn Bale and Trishona Kumar
U1600: Diya Balamurugan and Chalpati Gundumalla
U1300: Druv Balamurugan and Brian Lara
Congratulations to June's TNA prizewinners! Full TNA results with rating changes can be viewed at the USCF crosstable page.
The first Tuesday Night Action of July will be held at CCC's Main/South location on July 2.
Wednesday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)
Our Wednesday Action Quads tournament is a g20+10 USCF-rated quads event held weekly on Wednesday evenings at the CCC's Main/South location. Players of all ages and strengths may participate. We had a whopping 56 attendees at this week's event, forming a total of 14 quads!
Our quad winners this week were:
Quad A: IM Tianqi Wang (3 points)
Quad B: Smayan Ammasani (2.5 points)
Quad C: Naitik Rathi (2.5 points)
Quad D: Diksha Jaikumar and Kyle Cameron (2 points)
Quad E: Matthew Khariouk and Sujan Maddipati (2 points)
Quad F: Andrew Horton (2.5 points)
Quad G: Diya Balamurugan and Otto Restelli (2 points)
Quad H: Mukund Neema (2.5 points)
Quad I: Srivatsa Gundumalla (2.5 points)
Quad J: Samanyu Ammasani (3 points)
Quad K: Shanmukhi Malireddy (3 points)
Quad L: Bryan Muraya and Kalp Shah (2 points)
Quad M: Druv Balamurugan and Viaan Bahl (2 points)
Quad N: Pranika Bahl (3 points)
A number of players reached new peak ratings in this week's WAQ, including quad winners Mukund Neema, Bryan Muraya, Viaan Bahl, and Pranika Bahl, as well as Quad A's second-place finisher Alex Kaelin. View detailed results of the most recent WAQ in the USCF rating report.
Our next Wednesday Action Quads tournament is scheduled for July 3.
Friday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)
Friday Action Quads is a weekly scholastic quads tournament held every evening at CCC's Main/South location. This week's FAQ saw 19 players across four quads, with a seven player "small swiss" in Quad D.
The following players won their quads at this week's FAQ:
Quad A: Steven Hook (2.5 points)
Quad B: Eric Li and Advik Rastogi (2 points)
Quad C: Harish Chandramohan (2 points)
"Small Swiss:" Sumeet Eaga (3 points)
View the complete standings of the most recent FAQ by checking out the USCF crosstables. The next Friday Action Quads will be held on July 5.
NEW Friday Pizza Quads (CCC North)
Friday Pizza Quads is our newest weekly tournament, with the same format as FAQ but instead held at the CCC North location. After their first game, the kids can help themselves to a slice of pizza! A total of 26 players participated in FPQ this past week, forming six sections including a "small swiss" Quad F.
Quad A: three-way tie between Arjun Raja, Aryan Sharma, and Vihaan Dhulipala (2 points)
Quad B: Shaurya Nannapaneni and Shrinika Musuluri (2 points)
Quad C: Ishan Ghosh (3 points)
Quad D: Shravan Srinivasan and Keerthan Gajulapalli (2 points)
Quad E: Vedanth Viswanath (3 points)
"Small Swiss:" Gehrig Rowlands (3 points)
A number of players achieved new peak ratings this past FPQ, including Aryan Sharma, Shrinika Musuluri, and Ishan Ghosh. Full rating results of this week's FPQ can be found here. The next Friday Pizza Quads will take place at the CCC North location on July 5.
Rated Scholastic (CCC Main/South)
The CCC's Main/South location hosted our Rated Scholastic event on Saturday, featuring a total of 34 players split into three sections for four rounds of g20+10 USCF-rated chess. The tournament was open to players in grades K-8 who are rated below 1500 USCF, and players finishing in the top five of each section received medals!
Our top finisher in the U1500 section was Aadhav Nr, scoring 3.5/4 and ceding only a last round "grandmaster draw" to Veera Mutturu which clinched first place. Veera Mutturu, Rishaank Channad, and Cole Putnam each tied for second-through-fourth place with 3/4.
In the U1000 section, Jaden Kang scored 3.5/4 and won clear first place, gaining well over 200 points of USCF rating in the process! Also finishing with plus scores were Gabriel Williams and Ishan Ghosh on 3/4, and Imhotep Collins and Murali Kongot who scored 2.5/4.
The only perfect score in the tournament belonged to Henry Chandler in the U500 section, whose rating rocketed to 591 at the event's conclusion. Quinten McNear and Daanya Akkim were the two other players finishing with plus scores, each earning 3 points.
View detailed results of this week's Rated Scholastic at the USCF crosstable page.
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. The following players won their games in the most recent SAC:
Top: Shlok Kaushik, Patrick McCartney, Philip Miller, Aaron Vargas, and Mario Michaels
U1300: Sanchit Haripradeep, Gaurav Satwalkar, Christopher-Lee Marsh, Santhosh Manikandan, Arjun Raja, Harsith Haris, Josh Alex, Anjali Clapp, and Gavin Burton
Just like TNA, 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. Congratulations to Shlok Kaushik and Matthew Sedlock for finishing atop the standings of the Top section, and to Sanchit Haripradeep and Hugh Conwell for being our top finishers in the U1300!
SAC standings with rating results can be viewed at this link. The first SAC of July will be held on July 7 at the CCC North location.
Sunday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)
Our Sunday Action Quads tournament is a weekly scholastic quads event held at the CCC Main/South location every Sunday evening. Like our other quad events, SAQ runs at a time control of g20+10 and is USCF-rated. We had 26 players participate in this week's SAQ across six sections, including a six player Quad F.
Congratulations to the following players for winning their quads this weekend:
Quad A: Shrehit Dhiman (3 points)
Quad B: Adrian Malmgren (3 points)
Quad C: Margaret Barr (3 points)
Quad D: Major Collins (2.5 points)
Quad E: Charles Barr (2.5 points)
Quad F/"Small Swiss:" Mahathi Radeev (3 points)
The rating report for this week's SAQ can be found here.
Our next SAQ will be held at the CCC Main/South location on July 7.
Online Blitz Arena!
The CCC hosts a weekly online blitz arena every Sunday evening, right here on chess.com. This week's tournament attracted 29 players, with user matthf21 scoring 21.5 out of a possible 23 points and running away with first place! Here's his victory against another recent arena winner, HugoOnTilt...
...and here's a victory against another top finisher, Rafael_Oliveira_Dias:
Rafael_Oliveira_Dias and NM MikeSailer each scored 58 points and split second place, with each player scoring some nice wins:
To wrap up, here are two little puzzles from the games of the two players tying for second. Both of these puzzles involve exploiting an uncastled king to win material, or perhaps even to deliver checkmate!
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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.
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NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
