GMs Liang and Zhou Win 2025 Charlotte Fall Open: Full Recap!

Over the past two weekends, the Charlotte Chess Center hosted the 2025 Charlotte Fall Open at the SouthPark Hilton Garden Inn. Over 200 players participated in at least one of the event's five sections, with the U1800, U1500, and U1200 held from September 19-21 and the Championship and U2000 taking place the following weekend at the same site. All sections featured five rounds of g/90 standard-rated chess, with a combined prize fund of $8,000 at stake!

Championship

Our two Charlotte Fall Open champions are Grandmasters Awonder Liang and Jianchao Zhou, drawing each other in the fourth round and defeating all other opponents. The two GMs took home $750 each, with Awonder earning the first place plaque on tiebreaks.

Here's Jianchao Zhou's win from round two, crashing through on the Kingside in a Makogonov King's Indian:

Liang and Zhou were the two highest-rated players in a field that also included FMs Andrew Jiang and James Chirilov, as well as fellow GM (and CCC coach!) Kayden Troff. Through three rounds, the GMs were the only three players on a perfect score, as Troff won with style in his third game against NM Saharsh Santosh.

Meanwhile, GM Awonder Liang took down WGM Dina Belenkaya with the white pieces to maintain his perfect score. Belenkaya (who streams chess on Twitch and YouTube!) went undefeated in her other games, but couldn't quite finish her development in time and found her king stuck in the center:

All three GMs entered Sunday morning with a perfect score, but Zhou and Liang drew quietly in the Queen's Indian, while Troff found himself worse at times against the aforementioned FM Andrew Jiang and had to struggle for a draw as well. That left the trio of GMs and FM Chirilov as the only four players on 3.5/4 heading into the final round. 

To clinch a share of first, GM Zhou took down FM Chirilov in an O'Kelly Sicilian. Although both sides were solid out of the opening, black's numerous little threats and provocations caused white's pieces to become a bit jumbled, with the knight on a1 and rook on a2 unable to find much activity. Eventually, the Grandmaster nabbed a pawn on the queenside and converted it into a win:

The other top game, between GMs Liang and Troff, was a slow positional grind in a Rossolimo Sicilian. White played against black's passive bishop on e7 for many moves until black ultimately sacrificed a pawn to trade it away. Even then, Awonder's pieces crept into black's position to set up the crushing 31. f4! and secure the full point:

Just behind GMs Liang and Zhou in the standings was young NM Andrew Wu, who went 4/5 with two draws to clinch clear third place. Wu came away with $300, while NMs Aaron Wang and Zubin Baliga tied with experts Beiyang Ni, Advik Prasanna, and Kishan Karthigeyan for the top U2200 prize ($80 each).

Under 2000

While there wasn't a perfect scorer in the championship section, three of the four "under section" winners scored a perfect 5/5. Our U2000 champion was fourteen-year-old Isabella Yan, whose USCF rating rocketed to a new peak of 1966 after the tournament. According to her USCF profile, Isabella is the fourteenth highest-rated girl of her age in the country!

While she was never in imminent danger of losing, it looked for a long time like Isabella wouldn't be able to muster more than a draw in the last round against Lennie Cohen-Solal. White played very solidly and even applied some positional pressure at times throughout the game, but couldn't quite hold the resulting king-and-pawn endgame under time pressure:

Isabella Yan's fantastic tournament earned her $800 and the first place plaque, while Raghav Keskar drew Arsh Sharda in the fourth round and won all his other games to finish in clear second for $400. Sharda, Bradley Marts, and Kai Mondaresi-Beal each scored 4/5 ($66.67) while Siddharth Santosh, Aadhav Nr, Viraj Phadke, and Mustafa Muhammad split the U1800 prize and won $100 each.

Under 1800

Despite only entering as the tenth seed, Eshan Singh emerged with a perfect score of his own and won $600 for clear first in the U1800!

Singh's triumphant performance included wins over two others finishing in the money. His round four opponent, Diya Balamurugan (a student here at the Charlotte Chess Center!) won all her other games and tied with Casey Stratton for second place, netting $300 each. His final opponent, Abigail Lin, scored 3.5/5 and split the third place prize with Aadith Vijayakumar and Olivia Delos ($66.67 apiece).

Under 1500

CCC Master Class student (and soon-to-be Elite Team member!) Dhruv Thokur went a perfect 5/5 in the U1500 section, catapulting his rating to a new peak of 1591. Dhruv sent in one of his games for inclusion in this report, a miniature win out of a London System against Forrest Dunlap:

Dhruv's 5/5 performance earned him the $600 top prize, while Dunlap won all four of his other games to tie for second with Dominic Billi and Shrinika Musuluri (herself a CCC Master Class student!), each winning $266.67.

Under 1200

After drawing in round three against Arnav Anugandula, Aradhya Bhatia won each of the last three rounds to finish on 4.5/5 and clinch clear first in the U1200 ($500). Aradhya's rating jumped to 1262 after her impressive performance, which isn't so surprising in retrospect given that she jumped well into the 1300s in her very next event! Four players split second, as Anugandula tied with Joanna Epstein (one of our school program coaches here at the CCC!) and Academy Class student Sahith Vattikuti to win $166.67 each, while Asher Bowe's 4/5 earned him the $200 Top U900 prize.

Games from the top boards of the tournament were broadcasted live on chess.com via DGT and can be viewed at this link. To view detailed results of the tournament, including USCF rating changes, click here for the top two sections and here for the U1800 and below. 

A big thanks as always to Kelly Centrelli for providing the photos used in this recap, as well as the team of organizers and tournament directors here at the CCC who helped make this event happen. We hope to see you all next time at the Charlotte Chess Center!

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NM Dennis Norman

Chess Coach - Club Journalist