CCC Students Shine at North Carolina K-12 Championship!
The North Carolina K-12 Chess Championship took place last weekend at the Raleigh Convention Center. Although the tournament wasn't held in Charlotte this year, that didn't stop many Charlotte Chess Center students from turning in excellent performances!
Excluding the bughouse side event, CCC's players won a combined 58 individual awards, with 53 in the standard events and another five in the blitz. This post will summarize and celebrate the achievements of our many talented young players in last weekend's tournament, including a few submitted games from the event with light annotations.
K-12 Sections
Several of the most impressive performances by CCC students came in the high school sections, where a majority of the players in the top five of both the Championship and U1800 were CCC regulars. FM Vishnu Vanapalli was the overall champion, scoring a perfect 5/5 and improving his rating to 2408 USCF. Vishnu has often played in big open tournaments such as the Charlotte Open and Charlotte Summer Open, as well as our Reverse Angle events at the Main/South location.
Also finishing in the top five of the K-12 Championship were Karthikeya Malireddy, Ethan Liu, and Namish Kondabathini, all from the Charlotte area and regular participants in CCC events. The same can be said of Smayan Ammasani, Chase Bellamy, Raghav Arun, and Arya Sharma, finishing in spots 7-10 respectively.
In the U1800 portion, four of the top five finishers are CCC's own. Kritarth Mishra and Akshay Rajagopal are both frequent competitors in CCC events, while Sattwik Dutta and Joel Kindy are students in the Master class! Here's a game Joel sent in for inclusion in this article, his fifth round game against Jake Baugh:
Joel deserves a lot of credit for reeling off a four-game winning streak following an early upset loss. The same can be said for both Akshay and Sattwik, who each lost one of the first two rounds but took care of business in the other games to achieve high placements in the final standings.
K-8 Sections
National Master Andrew Wu (representing Jay M. Robinson Middle School) took clear first place in the K-8 championship with 4.5/5. Andrew achieved his NM title at our Reverse Angle tournament back in August, and since then his rating has only continued climbing. USCF lists Andrew as the eighth highest-rated player of his age in the country.
Also in the top ten were familiar names such as Sri Bondalapati (the only player to hold Andrew to a draw), Kishan Karthigeyan, Krishna Rallabandi, Naitik Rathi, and Anagha Sinkar. In the under section, Moses Collins scored 5.5/6, tying for second place and gaining 70 points of USCF rating. As you'll see further down, Moses wasn't the only Collins brother who turned in a fantastic performance last weekend!
Trishona Kumar, also of Jay M. Robinson, sent in this game from the last round against Anvay Phadke:
Another game between two CCC students took place in the under section, as Connor Crosby pulled off a big upset win against Sanchit Haripradeep. Thanks to Connor for sending in his game!
K-5 and Under!
Several CCC players posted strong performances in the K-5 section, with Master class students Aadhav Nr and Shaurya Nannapaneni placing fifth and sixth respectively, while Samanyu Ammasani, a frequent presence at Wednesday Action Quads and other CCC Main/South events, placed fourth. Shaurya in particular had a tremendous tournament, gaining 95 points and only losing once in the entire event, despite playing four opponents over 250 points above him!
Here's a game between Shaurya and another Master class student, Nischay Peela, featuring lots of twists and turns:
Shaurya wasn't the only strong junior representing WR Odell Elementary last weekend, as fellow Odell students Pranav Arun and Shlok Kaushik each placed in the top ten of the K-4 section. Another Charlotte-area school that excelled in the K-4 was Endhaven, with Aadith Vijaykumar and Advik Subhav each scoring 3.5/6 and finishing in the top ten as well.
Many CCC kids posted strong performances in the K-4 under section, including Shreyas Srinivasan and Viaan Bahl, but the highlight was Kieran Centrelli's 5.5/6 performance! Kieran drew in the last round but won all his other games to take clear first place, including this victory against Shaun Fan in the third round:
Reyansh Mayank, Yashwin Nallu, Velann Emandi, and Murali Kongot each won trophies in the K-3 championship, while Major Collins scored 5.5/6 and won first place on tiebreaks in the K-3 under section. Major gained 256 points for his performance, with wins over three higher-rated players. Sriyan Pamidimukkala and Charles Barr also finished in the top ten with 5/6 and 4.5/6 respectively.
Three top finishers in the K-2 were CCC students: Khabir Muhammad, George Willsey, and Andrew Li. In the K-1, Luke Ta tied for second (ultimately receiving the third place trophy on tiebreaks) with 5/6, and Aaryan Nagolu, Reuben Mathew, and Sinkar Gauri also finished in the top ten.
Blitz and Fun!
Many CCC players also participated in the blitz event! In the K-12, Smayan Ammasani, Chase Bellamy, and Namish Kondabathini finished 3-4-5 respectively. Samanyu Ammasani and Khabir Muhammad each finished in the top five in the K-5, with the latter pulling off a big upset in the last round, winning with both colors against Pranav Arun.
Many of our kids also participated in the bughouse tournament on Saturday evening, the results of which are currently unavailable on the organizer's website.
Between rounds, students could get their games analyzed by several of our top coaches, including GMs Daniel Naroditsky and Kayden Troff, FM (and CCC founder) Peter Giannatos, and Alex Velasquez.
A big congratulations to all the top finishers at the North Carolina K-12 Championship!
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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!
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NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
