This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center 9/9-9/15/2024
Welcome to This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center! This is our weekly recap post summarizing all the events the CCC hosted from September 9 to September 15, 2024, including our Reverse Angle tournament at the CCC Main/South on Saturday.
Before getting into this week's slate of events, a few notes:
- A full recap of our recently completed Charlotte Doubles Championship is up on our blog page right here on chess.com!
- The CCC has recently announced a new Tournament of Champions for scholastic players, scheduled for December 14. Find the full details and eligibility rules here.
- The CCC North has a new weekly event, the Wednesday Adult Casual! Anyone 21 years of age or older is free to come and play some casual chess at our north location.
To find a specific event, navigate using the headings below.
Monday Action Quads (CCC North)
On Monday evenings, the CCC North location hosts our Monday Action Quads tournament! MAQ is a three-round quad event open to all scholastic players with a time control of g20+10.
The following players finished in first place this week:
Quad A: Sanchit Haripradeep and Atharv Dubey (2 points)
Quad B: Sibani Balaji (3 points)
Quad C: Sahith Vattikuti (2.5 points)
Quad D: Rodrigo Merida (3 points)
Congratulations to Sibani Balaji, who gained 139 points to achieve a new peak of 1081! Other big gainers included Rodrigo Merida, Sahith Vattikuti, and Quad C second place finisher Pradnesh Biswal. For detailed results, view the USCF crosstables here. Our next Monday Action Quads is being held tonight at the CCC North location.
Tuesday Night Action (CCC Main/South)
Our weekly Tuesday Night Action tournament is the one-game-a-week event hosted every Tuesday evening at the CCC Main/South. Following a lecture by FM (and CCC founder) Peter Giannatos, participants 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: Naitik Rathi, Shawn Bale, Harshil Jagga, Smayan Ammasani, Shlok Kaushik, Celine Atassi, and Kyle Cameron
U1600: Sidney Petersen, Gabriel Rowe, Aadhav Nr, Brent Jenkins, Zachary Grossman, Neil Harit, Chalpati Gundumalla, and Shrehit Dhiman
U1300: Michael Bernard, Ritvik Kumar, Advikk Rastogi, Douglas Samson, Nichol Garrison, and Connor Crosby
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. Current standings for Tuesday Night Action can be found here.
The next Tuesday Night Action will be held at CCC's Main/South location on September 17.
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. WAQ is one of our most popular events, with 43 players participating this week across ten quads, including a "Small Swiss" Quad J.
This week's edition of WAQ was the 100th in the event's history! The following players finished in first place this week:
Quad A: Grant Oen (2.5 points)
Quad B: Krishna Rallabandi and Antonio Padron (2 points)
Quad C: Luke Zimmer (2.5 points)
Quad D: Ibraheem Naushad (3 points)
Quad E: Matthew Khariouk (2.5 points)
Quad F: Srivatsa Gundumalla, Diya Balamurugan, and Gabriel Rowe (2 points)
Quad G: Neil Harit (2.5 points)
Quad H: Kody Crouch, Samanyu Ammasani, and Aadhav Nr (2 points)
Quad I: Druv Balamurugan and Murari Raghavan (2 points)
Quad J: Ryan Brock (3 points)
Some of our top performers this week included Ibraheem Naushad (1784 -> 1853!), Neil Harit (1573 -> 1608), and Aadhav Nr (1384 -> 1437!). There were also some notable performances from non-quad winners, such as Namish Mayank, who achieved a new peak rating of 1529 with 2/3 in Quad G, and Kyle Thornburg, who gained 91 points with 2/3 in Quad J.
For detailed results of this week's WAQ, view the USCF crosstables here.
Our next Wednesday Action Quads is scheduled for September 18.
Friday Pizza Quads (CCC Main/South)
On Friday evenings, the CCC hosts two scholastic quad events, one at each location! We're now calling them the Friday Pizza Quads North and South, with both events offering pizza to hungry participants between rounds one and two!
Here were our winners from the CCC Main/South's FPQ this week:
Quad A: Samanyu Ammasani, Temir Alimov, and Shanmukhi Malireddy (2 points)
Quad B: Reyansh Mayank (2 points)
Quad C: Anirudh Mani (3 points)
Quad D: Arav Kumar (3 points)
Quad E: Advik Mani (3 points)
Quad F (Small Swiss): Gabriel Williams (3 points)
Samanyu Ammasani broke 1500 USCF for the first time! Anirudh Mani gained 87 points for a perfect score in Quad C, while Arav Kumar and Advik Mani each gained over 90 points for their perfect scores in Quads D and E.
Find the detailed results of Friday's tournament here. The next Friday Action Quads will be held at the CCC Main/South location on September 20.
Friday Pizza Quads (CCC North)
Friday Pizza Quads at the CCC North runs concurrently with the Main/South tournament on Friday evenings, at a time control of g20+10. It takes place right after the conclusion of Friday evening academy classes, giving chess students a chance to learn about chess, eat some pizza, and play some rated games all in one afternoon!
Our FPQ North winners this week were:
Quad A: Ishaanvii Aswhin (2.5 points)
Quad B: Rodrigo Merida (3 points)
Quad C: Dhruv Thokur and Devansh Behera (2.5 points)
Quad D: Harlan Moss (2.5 points)
Rodrigo Merida continued his run of excellent tournaments, gaining well over 200 points for going 3/3 against three higher-rated opponents. View the full FPQ results here.
The next Friday Pizza Quads will be held at the CCC North location on September 20.
Reverse Angle! (CCC Main/South)
On Saturday, September 14, the CCC hosted the monthly Reverse Angle tournament at the Main/South location. This is a three-round USCF-rated tournament with a $1,000 guaranteed prize fund!
NM Andrew Wu and expert Steve Alappatt split the first prize in the top section, each earning $150 for a perfect 3/3 score. They each achieved new peak USCF ratings in the process!
Also finishing in the money were Shawn Bale, Brian Zhang, and Smayan Ammasani, each scoring 2/3 and splitting the U2100 prize ($20 each).
The clear winner in the U1900 was Eshwar Kothapalli, who won all three games to take the $160 prize all by himself. A whole logjam of players tied for second place and took $25 each: Shravan Dash, Harshil Jagga, Anvay Phadke, and Jason Marshal. Neil Harit, Laura Zhang, and Nandhan Gummi split the U1650 prize ($20 each).
Two players tied for first in the U1500: Mario Michaels and Dominic Billi. The latter, whose rating is provisional, jumped from well under 1000 to over 1300 USCF! Sanchit Haripradeep scored 2/3 and won $60 for the top player U1200.
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.
The following players won their games at this week's SAC:
Top: Grant Oen, Aaron Wilson, and Zachary Reynolds
U1300: Phaneendra Bulusu, Dominic Billi, Arjun Raja, Christopher Eyer, Raj Boddupally, Shivin Ashwin, Shrinika Musuluri, Sai Saravanan, and Utku Aysev
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 22 at the CCC North location.
Sunday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)
Sunday Action Quads is a weekly scholastic tournament held every Sunday evening at the CCC's Main/South location. Just like our other scholastic quads tournaments, SAQ runs at a time control of g20+10 and features three games of USCF-rated chess.
Congratulations to this week's SAQ winners:
Quad A: Kaiden Butler and Arav Kumar (2 points)
Quad B: Mekhai Collins and Noor Alsafadi (2 points)
Quad C: Rodrigo Merida and Kieran Centrelli (2 points)
Quad D: Madison Malmgren and Connor Crosby (2.5 points)
Quad E: Malhaar Zagade (3 points)
Several players at this week's SAQ gained tons of rating points, including Arav Kumar (1309 -> 1343!), Atharv Garg (1052 -> 1103!), and Kieran Centrelli (710 -> 859!). Both of our Quad D co-champions (Madison Malmgren and Connor Crosby) gained over 100 points as well, with the latter achieving a new peak.
The full results of the most recent SAQ can be viewed at this link. The next Sunday Action Quads will be held on September 22 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!
NMBrayden (Brayden Van De Graaff) finished in clear first with a whopping 78 points, scoring 21 wins against only one draw and two losses.
In this game against putarbalikandstop, Brayden squeezed water from stone in what could easily have been a drawn endgame. After white's move 39. Be4, Brayden traded into the K+P ending and used the principle of the two weaknesses (two disconnected passed pawns) to overload white's king:
Here's Brayden's win against H2Chess2, another of the top seeds in the tournament this week:
Our second and third place finishers were Steve Alappatt and ChessShark Antonio Padron, CCC regulars who have often played in our Sunday Blitz Arenas. Rounding out the top five were CMCoachQ and the aforementioned H1Chess2.
View the full arena standings here. Thanks to all who participated!
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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 Fall Open.
Not a member of the CCC? Join over 1000 members today!
NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
