FMs Zhu and Jing Earn Norms at CCC Fall Invitational: Full Recap!
This past week, the Charlotte Chess Center hosted a Fall Norm Invitational tournament for players seeking IM and GM norms. Two participants emerged with their first-ever IM norms: 11-year-old FM Linxi Zhu and 13-year-old FM Andrew Jing!
Our 2025 Charlotte Fall Norm Invitational was a nine-round FIDE-rated tournament split into four groups, lettered A through D. Groups A and B featured strong enough fields that players could even earn GM norms with enough points, while groups C and D were IM norm sections.
A total of six Grandmasters participated in the two GM Norm groups, including Tanguy Ringoir of Belgium, whose 6.5/9 score led the way in the GM A section.
Here's his win against talented FM Rose Atwell:
While Ringoir managed to fend off the youngsters en route to an undefeated performance, the other two GMs in Ringoir's section were not as lucky! Both GMs Luka Budisavljevic and Viktor Matviishen fell victim to FM Linxi Zhu, the section's only norm-earner.
Facing Matviishen as black, Zhu equalized as black out of a Moscow Sicilian and then sought to create winning chances in his opponent's deep time pressure. The game came down to the crushing blow 35...b3! which left white down a piece without much compensation.
Sticking with GM A for one more moment, I'd be remiss not to include FM Atwell's sparkling victory over GM Budislavljevic, featuring a combination of beautiful sacrifices to attack black's weak king:
Our other norm recipient was Delaware's FM Andrew Jing, scoring a tremendous 5.5/9 despite facing many higher-rated players. Jing took down GM Emilio Cordova in round two, IM Tianqi Wang in round nine, as well as FMs Vincent Latorre and Ethan Guo. Here's his win against the latter, including a fun sacrifice on g2 in the early middlegame:
GM Harsha Bharathakoti was the top scorer in the B group, winning all but three of his games! That included a victory against IM Tianqi Wang (who himself had a strong performance and was in the running for a GM norm for much of the event) in which he spent nearly half his time on the precise 12. Nb5!, after which black was in lots of trouble.
The top scorers in our IM norm groups were IMs Rohan Talukdar and Adam Frank (6.5/9 each in IM C) as well as IM Roman Ryrih, who posted a excellent 7.5/9 score. Once again, an early sacrifice on g2 played a role:
Following the Norm Invitational, several competitors are now shifting their focus towards another norm-earning opportunity: the 2025 US Masters. Stay tuned for updates on that event throughout the rest of this week, right here on the CCC blog.
All games from the 2025 Charlotte Fall Norm Invitational can be viewed here. A big thanks to all the players and organizers who made this event possible, as well as Kelly Centrelli for the photographs in this recap. We hope to see you all soon at the Charlotte Chess Center!
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NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
