This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center: 9/2-9/8/2024

Welcome to This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center! This post will summarize all the weekly events hosted by the CCC in the past week, including Saturday's Rapid & Blitz tournament.

Before getting into this week's slate of events, I'd like to announce that a full recap of the previous weekend's Charlotte Doubles Championship has recently gone live on the CCC's official blog!

Also, as I mentioned in last week, the CCC recently announced a new Tournament of Champions for scholastic players, scheduled for December 14. All players earning a gold medal at a Practice Tournament, a perfect score in a CCC scholastic quad, or a plus score (2.5 or more) at a Rated Scholastic are eligible to participate. Find the full details and eligibility rules here.

To find a specific event, navigate using the headings below. 

Monday Action Quads (CCC North)

Every Monday evening, the Charlotte Chess Center's North location plays host to Monday Action Quads! This weekly USCF-rated tournament is open to all scholastic players and runs at a time control of g20+10. This week's MAQ tournament hosted 18 players across four sections.

The following players finished in first place this week:

Quad A: Arjun Raja (2.5 points)

Quad B: Patrick Young-Grady (2.5 points)

Quad C: Arya Harsha (2.5 points)

Quad D: Johan George (3 points)

Our top performer this week was Arjun Raja, who gained well over 100 points and broke 1200 USCF for the first time! For detailed results, view the USCF crosstables here. Our next Monday Action Quads will take place tonight at the CCC North location.

Tuesday Night Action (CCC Main/South)

Tuesday Night Action is a one-game a week tournament held every Tuesday night at the CCC's Main/South location. Following a lecture by FM (and CCC founder) Peter Giannatos, players are paired into one standard time control USCF-rated game, with the top two-sections also FIDE-rated. 

The following players won their TNA games this week:

Top section: Nirav Natha, Shawn Bale, Namish Kondabathini, Harshil Jagga, and Trishona Kumar

U1600: Sidney Petersen, Sampath Kumar, Gabriel Rowe, Nandhan Gummi, Cole Putnam, Charles Cameron, Aadhav Nr, and Nilai Gummi

U1300: Brian Lara, Vivan Ghule, Avery Bradley, Michael Bernard, Saketh Mamidipally, Henry Yoo, and Dominic Billi

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. Since last week's TNA was the first of the month, there's still plenty of competition for this month's prizes. View current TNA standings here.

The next Tuesday Night Action of September will be held at CCC's Main/South location on September 10.

Wednesday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

Wednesday Action Quads is our weekly quads event at the CCC Main/South, open to players of all ages and strengths. This week's WAQ hosted a total of 42 players across ten sections, including a six player "Small Swiss" Quad J. 

The following players took first place in their quads this week:

Quad A: Steve Alappatt and Grant Oen (2 points)

Quad B: Celine Atassi (2.5 points)

Quad C: Shravan Dash (2 points)

Quad D: Matthew Khariouk, Sattwik Dutta, and Jason Marshal (2 points)

Quad E: Neil Harit and Diya Balamurugan (2 points)

Quad F: Gabriel Rowe (3 points)

Quad G: Anthony Young (3 points)

Quad H: Reyansh Mayank, Chalpati Gundumalla, and Aadhav Nr (2 points)

Quad I: Druv Balamurugan, Murari Raghavan, and Bryan Muraya (2 points)

Quad J: Vivan Ghule (2.5 points)

Provisionally-rated Anthony Young was perhaps our biggest winner this week, vaulting his rating to 1875 USCF! Additionally, Gabriel Rowe soared to a new peak of 1593 with a perfect score in Quad F, while Celine Atassi and Chalpati Gundumalla also made big rating gains. For detailed results of this week's WAQ, view the USCF crosstables here. 

Our next Wednesday Action Quads is scheduled for September 11.

Friday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

On Friday evenings, the CCC hosts two scholastic quad events, one at each location. Our Main/South offering is Friday Action Quads, with this week's edition hosting 20 players split evenly into five quads. Here were this week's FAQ winners:

Quad A: Benjamin Raz (3 points)

Quad B: Arjun Nair (3 points)

Quad C: Imhotep Collins (3 points)

Quad D: Major Collins and Nicolas Giard (2 points)

Quad E: Maksim Nikolov (3 points)

Arjun Nair broke 1200 USCF for the first time, and Quad E winner Maksim Nikolov also gained well over 100 points for his perfect performance in Quad E.

View the full results of Friday's tournament here. The next Friday Action Quads will be held at the CCC Main/South location on September 13.

Friday Pizza Quads (CCC North)

While the CCC Main/South plays host to FAQ, the North location hosts its own scholastic quads event, the Friday Pizza Quads. This tournament runs concurrently with FAQ and takes place after the conclusion of the Academy Classes on Friday evenings. FPQ this week hosted 16 players across four quads, with the following players finishing in first place:

Quad A: Harith Hmimda (3 points)

Quad B: Bhargav Raghavendra and Sharvesh Swaminathan (2.5 points)

Quad C: Deniz Galitsky, Avyaan Prasad, and Diyan Korat (2 points)

Quad D: Rodrigo Merida (3 points)

Despite not winning the quad, Nischay Peela had a great performance in Quad A, achieving a new peak rating of 947 USCF! Other big gainers included Bhargav Raghavendra, Sharvesh Swaminathan, Diyan Korat, and Rodrigo Merida.

View the rating results from this week's Friday Pizza Quads here. The next Friday Pizza Quads will be held at the CCC North location on September 13.

Rapid & Blitz Tournament! (CCC Main/South)

On Saturday, the CCC hosted a Rapid & Blitz tournament at the Main/South location, featuring a guaranteed $1,000 prize fund. A total of 62 players participated in the fun, with five rounds of g10+5 rapid to start followed by a nine-round blitz tournament.

Grandmaster Kayden Troff was the highest rated participant in the rapid portion, and he didn't disappoint! The GM, recently relocated to the Charlotte area, finished with a perfect 5/5 and took home $120 for clear first place.

Second place went to NM Han Schut, who drew in the third round against Kingsley Koon but won all four of his other games to score 4.5/5 and net himself $80. He actually sent in his fourth round game against fellow NM Zubin Baliga to be featured in this recap! The game is reproduced below with his annotations:

Han also made a note to congratulate Rachel Whitehouse and Nichol Garrison for pulling off major upsets in the tournament, each defeating players rated over 400 points above them in the second round. Thank you Han for submitting the game!

Other prizewinners in the rapid:

- WGM Dina Belenkaya, FM Donald Johnson, NM Andrew Wu, and Steve Alappatt (Tie for third place - $10 each)

- Shlok Kaushik (Top U1800 - $40)

- Neil Harit and Rachel Whitehouse (Top U1600 - $20 each)

- Errol Restelli, Aadhav Nr, Anthony Romero, Karthik Anguluri, Utkarsh Kumar, Dominic Billi, and Trey Morse (Top U1400/Top U1200 - $12 each)

As has often been the case in CCC blitz events, it was Grandmaster Olexandr Bortnyk who reigned supreme over the field during the second event, scoring a perfect 9/9 and defeating every other player in the top five! Bortnyk won the $200 first prize for his performance, while FM Donald Johnson (who had a perfect score apart from his loss to Bortnyk) finished in second and won $100. The aforementioned GM Troff scored 7/9 and won $60.

Additional blitz prizewinners:

- NMs Andrew Wu, Zubin Baliga, and Han Schut (Tie for fourth place - $15 each)

- Steve Alappatt and Kingsley Koon (Top U2100 - $20 each)

- Smayan Ammasani and Arya Sharma (Top U1900 - $20 each)

- William Jindal (Top U1700 - $40)

- Errol Restelli and Joshua Rubanenko (Top U1500 and Top U1300 respectively - $40 each)

Congratulations to all top finishers! View the USCF rating report here. 

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. 

This week's SAC was the second of the month, with the following players winning their games:

Top: Grant Oen and Harith Hmimda

U1300: Phaneendra Bulusu, Josh Alex, Dominic Billi, Saketh Mamidipally, Arjun Raja, Christopher Eyer, Shaurya Nannapaneni, Sibani Balaji, Abinav Pradeepkumar, Kingshuk Mitra, and Raj Boddupally

Just like with TNA in the South, the top adult and junior player in each section of SAC at the end of the month receives a $25 gift card to USCF sales. The current SAC standings can be viewed on our website here.

Our next SAC will be held on September 15 at the CCC North location. 

Sunday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

Sunday Action Quads is a weekly scholastic quads tournament held every Sunday evening at the CCC's Main/South location, with a similar format to our other quads events. Players are paired into quads of four and play three games of g20+10 USCF-rated chess. 

Congratulations to this week's SAQ winners:

Quad A: Druv Balamurugan and Moses Collins (2 points)

Quad B: Ankush Dey and Noor Alsafadi (2.5 points)

Quad C: Davershi Tirunagari (3 points)

Quad D: Anvay Mishra (2.5 points)

Since there was an odd number of players, we also hosted a seven player "Small Swiss" Quad E, in which (somehow!) six out of the seven players scored 2/3. The biggest gainer of the bunch was Rodrigo Merida, whose rating rose to a new peak of 568.

In Quad C, both the winner Davershi Tirunagari and second place Akul Gowdru rocketed up to new peak ratings, and the same can be said for both of the winners of Quad B. Congratulations to all top finishers at this week's SAQ!

The full results of the most recent SAQ can be viewed at this link. The next Sunday Action Quads will be held on September 15 at the Main/South location. 

Online Blitz Arena!

Every Sunday evening, the CCC hosts an online blitz arena right here on chess.com, open to all members of this online club. The top five finishers in our Sunday Blitz Arenas win a free one-month Diamond membership to this website!

CCC regular and Sunday Blitz Arena veteran Steve Alappatt ran away with the tournament this week, scoring 64 points, with no other competitor clearing 40. I especially enjoyed this game against fifth place finisher amenon11, which must have been lots of fun to play:

Travelux, muk-nee, ewfleisc, and the aforementioned amenon11 rounded out the top five. We hope to see you in next week's arena! In the meantime, view the full arena standings here.

Thanks to all who participated in our events this week. Make sure to check out our blog about the Charlotte Doubles Championship!

-------------------------------------------------------------

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 Fall Open.

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

NM Dennis Norman

Chess Coach - Club Journalist