This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center: 7/29-8/4/2024

Welcome to This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center, our weekly summary of all the CCC chess tournaments held from July 29 to August 4, 2024!

This post will cover all our weekly events as well as the Rapid & Blitz tournament on Saturday at the CCC Main/South location and the Blitz Arena on Sunday evening. To find a specific tournament, navigate using the headings below!

Monday Action Quads (CCC North)

Monday Action Quads is a weekly scholastic tournament at the CCC North location with a time control of g20+10. This week's MAQ hosted a total of 26 players, split into six quads with a six player "Small Swiss" Quad F section!

Our MAQ winners this week were:

Quad A: Rishaank Channad (2.5 points)

Quad B: Atharv Dubey (2.5 points)

Quad C: Sanchit Haripradeep and Ankush Dey (2 points)

Quad D: Shivin Ashwin (3 points)

Quad E: Bhargav Raghavendra (2.5 points)

Quad F: George Willsey (2.5 points)

The most impressive performance at this week's MAQ came from Shivin Ashwin, who finished as the event's only perfect scorer and gained over 100 rating points. Atharv Dubey also shot up to a new peak of 1247, while Quad D's second place finisher Jack Crowell also achieved a new all-time high. Congratulations to all of our MAQ winners!

For full results of this week's Monday Action Quads, check out the USCF crosstables at this link. Our next Monday Action Quads will take place tonight at the CCC North location.

Tuesday Night Action (CCC Main/South)

The last Tuesday Night Action of July 2024 took place at the Main/South location this past week! TNA is our standard one-game-a-week tournament held every Tuesday evening, with the following players winning their games this round:

Top section: Anagha Sinkar, IM Tianqi Wang, Karthikeya Malireddy, Trishona Kumar, Krishna Rallabandi, Eshwar Kothapalli, Viraj Phadke, and Sahasra Rallabandi

U1600: Sampath Kumar, Ilgin Birsan, Shlok Kaushik, Jeremy Huffman, Moses Collins, Sattwik Dutta, Sathvik Chatta, Cedar Cline, and Siddhant Gutgutia

U1300: Cole Putnam, Akshith Chintalacheruvu, Avery Bradely, Viaan Bahl, Reyansh Mayank, Anthony Gentile, Douglas Samson, Nichol Garrison, Shaurya Nannapaneni, and Major Collins

At the end of every month, the CCC awards a $25 USCF Sales gift card to the top-scoring adult and junior player in each section. Congratulations to our prize winners for the month of July:

Top: Anagha Sinkar and IM Tianqi Wang

U1600: Satvick Kumar and Sampath Kumar

U1300: Cole Putnam and Avery Bradley

The full rating report of July's TNA can be viewed here. The next Tuesday Night Action will be held at CCC's Main/South location on August 6.

Wednesday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

Wednesday Action Quads is a weekly quads tournament at the Main/South location, open to players of all ages and strengths. WAQ is consistently one of our biggest events, with 58 players coming to play in this week's tournament. Congratulations to this week's quad winners:

Quad A: IM Tianqi Wang (3 points)

Quad B: Antonio Padron (2 points)

Quad C: Luke Zimmer (2 points)

Quad D: Harshil Jagga (2.5 points)

Quad E: Raghav Arun (2.5 points)

Quad F: Vihaan Purohit (3 points)

Quad G: Srivatsa Gundumalla (2.5 points)

Quad H: William Lobig and William Jindal (2 points)

Quad I: Kody Crouch (2.5 points)

Quad J: Samanyu Ammasani and Aadhav Nr (2 points)

Quad K: Reyansh Mayank (2 points)

Quad L: Mekhai Collins (3 points)

Quad M: Druv Balamurugan and Ryan Brock (2 points)

Quad N: Saketh Mamidipally (3 points)

A couple times when inputting the list of winners above, I had to double-check to make sure I was looking at the right crosstables! That's because IM Tianqi Wang, William Lobig, and Kody Crouch not only repeated as quad winners from the previous week, but actually won the same quads as they did last week too!

Some of this week's stars included Harshil Jagga (1734 -> 1788), Vihaan Purohit (1631 -> 1709), Srivatsa Gundumalla (1533 -> 1585), Kody Crouch (1434 -> 1494), and Mekhai Collins (1219 -> 1332). Additionally, Saketh Mamidipally broke 1000 USCF for the first time with a perfect score in Quad N. Congratulations to all quad winners, and for detailed results, find the USCF crosstables here.

Our next Wednesday Action Quads is scheduled for August 7.

Friday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

On Friday evenings, the Charlotte Chess Center hosts two scholastic quads tournaments with one at the Main/South location and another at CCC North. Like our other quads events, the tournaments each run at a time control of g20+10 with three rounds of USCF-rated chess!

Our FAQ winners this week were:

Quad A: Jason Marshal (3 points)

Quad B: Aadhav Nr and Temir Alimov (2 points)

Quad C: Reyansh Mayank (2 points)

Quad D: Jayan Medvin (2 points)

Quad E: Adrian Malmgren (3 points)

Quad F: Harish Chandramohan (2.5 points)

Quad G: Kaden Moe (2 points)

Quad H: Maya Naik (3 points)

Maya Naik has won Quad H at FAQ two weeks in a row! Other top performers included Adrian Malmgren and Harish Chandramohan, both of whom achieved new peak ratings in the process.

For full results of the most recent Friday Action Quads, view the USCF crosstables.

The next Friday Action Quads will be held at the CCC Main/South location on August 9.

Friday Pizza Quads (CCC North)

Our Friday Pizza Quads tournament this week hosted a total of 26 players across six quads, the same exact turnout as this week's MAQ! The following players finished in first place in their respective quads this week:

Quad A: Arin Samanta (3 points)

Quad B: Nischay Peela (3 points)

Quad C: Three-way tie between Deniz Galitsky, Krish Sakthivel, and Aaryan Nagolu (2 points)

Quad D: Rohit Mohan and Pradnesh Biswal (2.5 points)

Quad E: Three-way tie between Arya Harsha, Karthi Palanichamy, and Avyukt Vinoth (2 points)

Quad F: Vedanth Viswanath (3 points)

There were two three-way ties this week, but still no shortage of impressive performances. Quad winners Arin Samanta, Nischay Peela, Deniz Galitsky, and Pradnesh Biswal all gained a lot of points and achieved new peak ratings, while Vedanth Viswanath jumped all the way from 375 to 489 USCF for a perfect score in Quad F! Find the full results of this past FPQ here.

The next Friday Action Quads will be held at the CCC North location on August 9.

Rapid and Blitz! (CCC Main/South)

This past Saturday, the CCC Main/South location hosted our monthly Rapid & Blitz event! Players of all strengths and all ages participated in a day of quick chess, starting with a five round rapid tournament and finishing with nine rounds of blitz.

Two players tied for first place in the rapid tournament: IM Tianqi Wang and expert Steve Alappatt, both of whom are CCC regulars with the latter also a frequent participant in our Sunday Blitz Arenas! IM Wang drew against Christopher Williams in round two and then won his remaining games, while Steve's draw was to Alex Chu in the fourth round. The two top finishers never played each other, each taking home $100 for shared first place.

Other prize winners were:

In what's become a bit of a Charlotte Chess Center tradition, the blitz tournament was dominated by Grandmasters Daniel Naroditsky and Olexandr Bortnyk, who drew each other and swept the rest of the field! The two GMs each scored an impressive 8.5/9, winning $150 each.

The top non-GM was Sri Bondalapati with 7/9, winning every game except against the aforementioned Grandmasters. Sri earned $60 for clear third place, while the fourth place prize went to Nirav Natha ($40).

Class prizes:

Congratulations to all prize winners! Full standings with blitz and rapid rating changes can be found at the USCF rating report.

Sunday Afternoon Classical (CCC North)

Our Sunday Afternoon Classical tournament is held every Sunday at the CCC North location, with a similar format to Tuesday Night Action. Participants are paired into one USCF standard-rated game per week, with the tournament being rated at the end of the month. The top adult and junior player in each section at the end of the month receives a $25 gift card to USCF sales.

This week's SAC was the first of the month, and the following players won their games:

Top: Celine Atassi, Naitik Rathi, and Charlie Manolakis

U1300: Gaurav Satwalkar, Christopher-Lee Marsh, Ankush Dey, Sanchit Haripradeep, Gavin Burton, Ishaanvii Ashwin, Shivin Ashwin, Ayaan Geda, Shrinika Musuluri, Adhvik Boddupally, and Raghavendra Rajan

The current SAC standings can be found on our website. The next Sunday Afternoon Classical will be held on August 11 at the CCC North location.

Sunday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

Sunday Action Quads is a weekly tournament at the Main/South location with a similar format to our other scholastic quad events. We had 18 players this week, forming four quads including a six player Quad D. Congratulations to the following players for winning first place:

Quad A: Pranay Boyapati and Kaiden Butler (2 points)

Quad B: Arav Kumar (3 points)

Quad C: Annapoorni Palaniappan (3 points)

Quad D: Dominic Hotchner (3 points)

Pranay Boyapati, Arav Kumar, Annapoorni Palaniappan, and Dominic Hotchner each achieved new peak USCF ratings!

Detailed results from this week's SAQ can be found here. The next Sunday Action Quads will take place at the Main/South location on August 11.

Online Blitz Arena!

The CCC hosts a weekly blitz arena every Sunday evening right here on chess.com! The first place finisher in this week's Sunday Blitz Arena was Steve Alappatt, one of our regular players and a frequent participant in our online tournaments. Steve put together a great performance, only conceding one draw and one loss throughout all his games in the arena. Here's his win against ewfleisc:

In this game against Celine Atassi, Steve was in serious danger until white got very low on time and blundered a checkmate. Every great tournament requires a bit of luck.

One of Steve's only mishaps occurred in the following game against matthf21. When your opponent only has a king, watch out for stalemates!

Ultimately, Steve scored 43 tournament points, seven ahead of matthf21 and Celine who tied for second with 37 points each. Rounding out the top five were ewfleisc and gringodp with 33 and 24 points respectively. Players finishing in the top five in our Sunday Blitz Arenas receive a free month-long Diamond membership to this website. Congratulations to our top finishers!

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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 Charlotte Doubles Championship and Charlotte Fall Open.

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

NM Dennis Norman

Chess Coach - Club Journalist