Symetra Jumps Ahead in North American Corporate Chess League: Week 3 Recap!

Through three weeks of the North American Corporate Chess League season, Symetra Financial has emerged as the clear leader with a total of 30 points. Having been tied for the lead after last week's set of games, Symetra's two Grandmasters each went a perfect 3/3 this week and are currently numbers one and two on the individual standings list. 

The North American Corporate Chess League is an online recreational league in which players represent NA-based companies. Teams can include as few as four or as many as thirty players, but only the top four individual scorers count for a team's total. The competition takes place here on chess.com, with three rounds per week at a 10+2 time control.

Symetra's success can be chalked up to having a very strong top four, as no other team in the competition can match the two GMs and two IMs atop the Symetra lineup. GMs Andrey Stukopin and Vladimir Belous are the only two players in the tournament who have at least 8/9 individually. Despite some challenging pairings this week, they both continued to churn out victories, including Belous' endgame win over NM Sameer Mujumdar (representing Ernst & Young).

While we've highlighted the performance of Symetra's two GMs throughout this blog, IMs Ikrali Beradze and Yannick Kambrath also scored 2.5/3 and 3/3 respectively, giving the team 11.5 out of a possible 12 points this past week. Kambrath defeated Ozzy Bommannan of Plante Moran using a crucial in-between move:

Meta was tied for first in the team standings last week and still ranks in clear second with 27.5 points. Just behind are Anduril Industries, Jane Street, and Ernst & Young with 27, 26.5, and 26 points respectively. That's where the big logjam begins, as the next fifteen teams in the standings all have between 22.5 and 25.5 points. View the current NACCL team standings at this link.

Trailing GMs Stukopin and Belous in the individual standings are four players on 7.5 out of a possible 9: FM Roland Feng of Anduril, FM Richard Chen (Databricks), IM Kyron Griffin (Lyft), and NM Matias Shundi (Jane Street).

FM Chen is notable because he has a perfect score in the rounds he's played, having taken half-point byes in the previous week's games! His closest call was against GM Andrey Baryshpolets of PWC. In a Tarrasch French endgame, black was pressing for a win but dropped a rook in deep time pressure.

Behind the aforementioned four on 7.5 are fourteen players with 7/9, including many who have been featured in recaps on this blog. One I haven't highlighted to this point is NM Francisco Guadalupe, who used a fun tactical idea to win Matthew Abraham's queen:

Not all players with a high score are titled! Danny Liu of Meta is undefeated and went 2.5/3 this past week, scoring this victory against Nicholas Konovalenko in the final round:

Current individual standings through three weeks of the NACCL season can be viewed here. Thank you all for reading, and remember to come back next week for more updates about the North American Corporate Chess League!

-------------------------------------------------------------

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