NACCL's 13th Season Underway: Week 1 Recap!
This past Thursday, the North American Corporate Chess League kicked off its thirteenth season right here on chess.com. With three rounds in the books, Week 1 of the NACCL's six week regular season has concluded, but as you might expect, very little has been decided.
The North American Corporate Chess League is an online recreational chess league for NA-based companies, running for over five years now! The format is best described as a "blended individual/team competition" in which players are grouped into a massive open section and try to score as many points as they can for their companies. Each Thursday, players log into chess.com to play three games of rapid chess against members of other teams. Team scores are calculated by adding the scores of the top four players on each company, but players further down the list are still important, as their scores may serve as tiebreakers. This actually came up at the end of last year's regular season, deciding the last playoff spot.
During the regular season, players are paired according to factors such as rating and points scored, and will likely face opponents from a variety of teams (but not their own). There are many individual and team plaques at stake, but to win the top overall prize, a team must first qualify for the playoffs by finishing in the top eight of the overall standings, then survive a team-vs-team knockout tournament scheduled for May 28. More detail about the league's structure, schedule, and prizes can be found on the format page of the NACCL's website.
This season's NACCL lineup includes 40 teams and 519 total players, including two GMs, four IMs, nine FMs, and numerous other NMs, experts, and strong tournament players. Through Thursday's first three rounds, 26 players scored a perfect 3/3, but that actually didn't include either of the league's two Grandmasters!
While GM Parimarjan Negi missed the first week and took half-point byes for Thursday's games, GM Andrey Baryshpolets of PWC was upset by FM Maggie Feng. Black achieved a slightly worse but manageable position out of the opening, and played precisely to equalize in a sharp middlegame. Then she unleashed a devastating rook sacrifice:
FM Feng's team, JPMorgan Chase, boasts one of the stronger lineups in the NACCL this season, with four titled players, although only one finished with a perfect score on Thursday. That was IM Edward Song, whose most impressive victory so far was perhaps his win as white over Susequehanna's FM Ethan Li:
Several other top players are also on perfect scores, including IM Kyron Griffith (Lyft), NM Warren Wang (Meta), FM David Peng (Jane Street), and IM Craig Hilby, who played a starring role in Capital One's title run last season.
Richard Chen of Databricks is another player with a history of success in the NACCL, and it continued on Thursday with three clean wins. Facing IBM's Sathvik Singireddy, Chen used a tactical resource to rescue his undefended bishop on f7 and then launch an attack against his opponent's king.
One of the most consistent top scorers in recent NACCL seasons has been Anduril's Roland Feng, but he took a loss on Thursday in a crazy game. NM Nicholas Desmarais of DRW needed lots of precision and played most of the game in heavy time pressure, but managed to find several creative tactical resources. Just as black started to develop counterplay, Desmarais found a way to trade queens into a winning endgame.
It wasn't only the titled players who posted perfect scores on Thursday! In fact, a majority of the players on 3/3 in the individual standings have listed ratings under 2000, including Karthik Palaniappan of IBM. His win over DRW's Samuel Olutola ended on a fun note:
Through one week of play, the current team standings list Meta, Capital One, and Plante Moran tied for first with 11 points, with Jane Street half a point behind at 10.5 and four teams on 10 points out of a possible 12. Good luck to all companies participating, and be sure to check this blog for weekly updates on the North American Corporate Chess League throughout the season!
-------------------------------------------------------------
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!
Not a member of the CCC? Join over 1000 members today!
NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
