This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center: 8/5-8/11/2024
Welcome to This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center! This is our weekly recap post covering all CCC rated chess tournaments held from August 5 to 11, 2024.
This week we hosted our full schedule of weekly events, as well as the scholastic Practice Tournaments at both the North and South locations and our Master Tour camp. Scroll down to the bottom of this post to find coverage of our online Sunday Blitz Arena!
To find a specific event, navigate using the headings below:
Monday Action Quads (CCC North)
Every Monday night, the CCC North location hosts our Monday Action Quads tournament for scholastic players. A total of 25 players came to MAQ this week, forming six quads including a five player "Small Swiss" Quad F.
Congratulations to the following players for winning their quads this week:
Quad A: Henry Thomas and Pranay Boyapati (2.5 points)
Quad B: Harith Hmimda (3 points)
Quad C: Arthur Blakely and Ankush Dey (2 points)
Quad D: Isaac Kidd (2.5 points)
Quad E: Bhargav Raghavendra and Rohit Mohan (2 points)
Quad F: Pradnesh Biswal and Pranav Pradeepkumar (2.5 points)
Special shoutout to Arthur Blakely for breaking 1000 USCF for the first time! Pranay Boyapati continued his recent meteoric rise, improving his rating to 1427, while Isaac Kidd gained 70 points and got back over 1000 himself.
For detailed results of this week's MAQ, view 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 first TNA of August took place at the Main/South location on Tuesday. Participants play one game of USCF standard-rated chess per week, following a lecture by FM and CCC founder Peter Giannatos. The tournament is rated at the end of the month, and the following players won their first round games:
Top section: Chase Bellamy, Patrick McCartney, Celine Atassi, Namish Kondabathini, Viraj Phadke, Dhanush Kondabathini, Sheerabdhi Niranhan, and Henry Thomas
U1600: Arsh Sharda, Srivatsa Gundumalla, Sidney Petersen, Mukund Neema, Ilgin Birsan, Sasmita Mohanty, Namish Mayank, Cole Putnam, Aadhav Nr, Satvick Kumar, and Shrehit Dhiman
U1300: Brian Lara, Jayan Medvin, Bryan Muraya, Vihaan Dhulipala, Saketh Mamidipally, Nichol Garrison, Adrian Paez, and Nora Thomas
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. View the current standings here.
The next Tuesday Night Action will be held at CCC's Main/South location on August 13.
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. A grand total of 56 players came to this week's WAQ, forming fourteen quads.
The following players finished in first place:
Quad A: Chase Bellamy and Steve Alappatt (2.5 points)
Quad B: Daniel Malmgren and Arjun Malik (2 points)
Quad C: Kingsley Koon and Eshwar Kothapalli (2.5 points)
Quad D: Harshil Jagga and Raghav Arun (2 points)
Quad E: Vihaan Purohit (2.5 points)
Quad F: Sahasra Rallabandi (2.5 points)
Quad G: Mukund Neema (3 points)
Quad H: Kody Crouch (2 points)
Quad I: Brent Jenkins and Brenda Hill (2 points)
Quad J: Satvick Kumar (2 points)
Quad K: Reyansh Mayank (2.5 points)
Quad L: Ritvik Kumar (3 points)
Quad M: Saketh Mamidipally and Kyle Thornburg (2 points)
Quad N: Madison Malmgren (2.5 points)
Mukund Neema's perfect score propelled his rating over 1600 USCF for the first time, while Kody Crouch jumped over 1500 with 2/3 in Quad H. Other big gainers included Sahasra Rallabandi, Ritvik Kumar, Kyle Thornburg, and Madison Malmgren. Congratulations to all quad winners!
View detailed results with rating changes at this link. Our next Wednesday Action Quads is scheduled for August 14.
Friday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)
The Charlotte Chess Center hosts two scholastic quads tournaments on Friday evenings, one at each location. Our Friday Action Quads tournament at the Main/South hosted 30 players this week, split into seven quads including a six-player Quad G.
Our FAQ winners this week were:
Quad A: Rishaank Channad (2.5 points)
Quad B: Aadhav Nr (3 points)
Quad C: Bryan Muraya (3 points)
Quad D: Vishaanth Aravindhan (3 points)
Quad E: Advikk Rastogi (3 points)
Quad F: Maya Naik (3 points)
Quad G: Nicolas Giard and Laura Gu (2.5 points)
This makes the third week in a row that Maya Naik has won her quad at FAQ! Meanwhile, Advikk Rastogi's rating shot up over 150 points to a new peak of 887, and Bryan Muraya gained 156 points for his perfect score in Quad C.
For the complete results of this week's Friday Action Quads, view the USCF crosstables.
The next Friday Action Quads will be held at the CCC Main/South location on August 16.
Friday Pizza Quads (CCC North)
This week's Friday Pizza Quads tournament hosted 25 players across six sections, with several players sticking around from the Master Tour camp held on site earlier that day! The following players finished in first place in their respective quads:
Quad A: Henry Thomas (3 points)
Quad B: Sibani Balaji (2 points)
Quad C: Shrinika Musuluri and Karthik Anguluri (2 points)
Quad D: Aaryan Nagolu (3 points)
Quad E: Keerthan Gajulapalli (2.5 points)
Quad F: Four-way tie between Nethan George, Nora Thomas, Kayal Senthil, and Vihaan Tyagi (2 points)
Shrinika Musuluri achieved a new peak rating of 837 for her performance, while Aaryan Nagolu rocketed up 101 points to 818! Find the full detailed results from this week's FPQ at this link.
The next Friday Pizza Quads will be held at the CCC North location on August 16.
Practice Tournaments!
On Saturday, the CCC hosted two unrated Practice Tournaments for scholastic players, one at each location. Our practice tournaments are designed to help get scholastic players more experience in a tournament-style atmosphere before diving into USCF-rated events.
Our gold medalists at the CCC South location were Harish Chandramohan, Bennett Cordero, and Arjun Kargool, each of whom scored a perfect 3/3. Srikar Pasya and Neel Harsha each scored 2.5/3 and tied for first at the CCC North Practice Tournament, earning gold medals for their efforts as well. Congratulations to all medalists!
Sunday Afternoon Classical (CCC North)
Sunday Afternoon Classical is a weekly tournament held at the CCC North location, open to players of all ratings and strengths. 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.
The following players won their games at SAC this week:
Top: Naitik Rathi, Siddhant Gutgutia, Alex Chu, and Harith Hmimda
U1300: Ankush Dey, Shrinika Musuluri, Adhvik Boddupally, Raghavendra Rajan, Justin Purvis, Mario Michaels, Paul Ward, Santhosh Manikandan, Shaurya Nannapaneni, Abinav Pradeepkumar, Nischay Peela, Major Collins, and Viaan Modugavalasa
The current SAC standings can be found on our website. The next Sunday Afternoon Classical will be held on August 18 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. This week's edition hosted 17 players, with four quads including a five-player Quad D. Congratulations to this week's quad winners:
Quad A: Arnav Watwe (2.5 points)
Quad B: Atharv Garg (3 points)
Quad C: Adrian Augusto Paez (2 points)
Quad D: Aarav Shah (3 points)
Arnav Watwe's rating jumped to a new high of 1199, and Atharv Garg also gained nearly 90 points for his perfect score in Quad B.
The full rating 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 18.
Online Blitz Arena!
The CCC hosts a weekly Sunday Blitz Arena right here on chess.com! It takes place on Sunday evenings and is open to any and all members of our online club. The top five finishers win a month of diamond membership to this website!
The first place winner was CCC regular Hugo, who ran away with the tournament, scoring 70 points and winning 20 of his 25 games. He seemed to be enjoying himself, employing several unusual openings (including the "topical" a4/Ra3 system in his game against second place finisher Steve Alappatt!) alongside some more conventional options in other games. Here's a win with the rare 3. a3!? against the Sicilian:
This one was a bit more "normal," as Hugo won with the black pieces in a Rubenstein French. Black's queen and bishop created enormous pressure down the long light-squared diagonal.
Congratulations to all the top finishers in our arena, the standings of which can be viewed here.
Camp Tournament and Game Submissions!
I'd like to conclude this report with two unrelated items. The first is that the penultimate Master Tour Camp of the summer concluded this past week at the CCC North location. It was a great time and several students even stuck around to play our quads events after camp! Each day, students participated in one round of USCF-rated chess, with the detailed results from that event here.
Finally, I'd like to share two submitted games from the past two weeks of Sunday Afternoon Classical. The first comes from the SAC held on August 4, and it was sent in by Aaron Wilson who played with the white pieces against Naitik Rathi. I always appreciate receiving a tournament game submission, but doubly so when it comes from the player who lost! It takes a lot of humility to send in a loss, but it's extremely important to learn from our defeats in chess, and I would like to thank Aaron for sending in his game.
To this author's mind, white had a comfortable position in the early middlegame with play against black's backwards d-pawn, but one mild imprecision (14. Rab1) gave an opportunity to equalize. Several moves did the trick, but black's response 14...Nxe4! was very creative and white soon found himself in danger.
The other submitted game comes from this past week's SAC, where a big crowd gathered in the skittles area after this fascinating matchup between Alex Chu and Kishan Karthigeyan. White employed an opening line I'm utterly unfamiliar with (6. b4!?) and the game actually followed theory for quite some time. The position quickly devolved into chaos where black's king was just a bit too weak, and white was winning after 20. Rd5!
Thanks to both Aaron and Alex for sending in their games!
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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.
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NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
