This Week at the Charlotte Chess Center: 3/17-3/23 2024

Welcome to the Charlotte Chess Center's Weekly Recap for the third week of March 2024!

This post will cover all seven rated tournaments hosted by the CCC this week, including six weekly events as well as our Rated Scholastic at the North location. Use the headings to scroll down to the section you're most interested in, or all the way to the bottom for four CCC member game submissions.

Sunday Afternoon Classical (CCC North)

Our Sunday Afternoon Classical event is a weekly tournament held at the CCC North location featuring one round of g60+10 USCF-rated chess per week. The March 17 SAC attracted a total of 30 players, a vast majority of whom competed in the jam-packed U1300 section.

The following players won this week at SAC:

Top: Naitik Rathi, Alex Kaelin

U1300: Mario Michaels, Saharsh Santhoshkumar, Mekhai Collins, Imhotep Collins, Nichol Garrison, Moses Collins, Sean Smith, Alex Sedlock, Harsith Haris, Sibani Balaji, Pranav Pradeepkumar, and Salai Dhayabaran

Heading into last Sunday, the only player with a perfect 2/2 score this month in either section was Graham Sledge in the U1300. But this week, Sledge was defeated by Mario Michaels, leaving Mario and Saharsh Santhoshkumar as the top two players in our SAC standings with 2.5/3. Meanwhile, Naitik Rathi has the most cumulative points of any player in the Top section with 1.5, having only played two rounds. Full standings can be viewed at this link.

Our next Sunday Afternoon Classical will be held this weekend on March 24.

Sunday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

Sunday Action Quads is a weekly event at CCC Main/South, open to all players K-12. Players are split into quads (small sections of four players each) and compete in three rounds of g20+10 USCF-rated chess. A grand total of 40 players participated in our SAQ event on March 17.

Our first-place finishers this week were:

Quad A: Michael Lu (2.5 points)

Quad B: Srivatsa Gundumalla (3 points)

Quad C: Joel Kindy and Nandhan Gummi (2 points)

Quad D: Ritvik Kumar (2 points)

Quad E: Nilai Gummi and Anirudh Prasanna (2.5 points)

Quad F: John Smith (3 points)

Quad G: Ayaan Geda (2.5 points)

Quad H: James Newton and Vihaan Jain (2 points)

Quad I: Ian Banerjee (3 points)

Quad K: Samuel Ghosh (3 points)

Congratulations to all quad winners! All perfect scorers in our scholastic quad events in grades K-8 are qualified for the NEW Tournament of Champions event, which is scheduled for May 4, 2024. Detailed results from March 17 can be viewed here.

Come by the Main/South location for the next Sunday Action Quads this weekend on March 24.

Monday Action Quads (CCC North)

Our Monday Action Quads event is similar to SAQ and FAQ at CCC Main/South, but it's held at the North location on Monday nights. All players in grades K-12 are welcome to participate in the three-round g20+10 USCF-rated tournament. This week's MAQ had a total of 22 players across five sections.

Congratulations to the following players who finished in first place:

Quad A: Abinav Pradeepkumar and Vihaan Dhulipata (2 points)

Quad B: Arthur Blakely (2.5 points)

Quad C: Arya Harsha (2.5 points)

Quad D: Aaryan Nagolu (3 points)

Quad E (six player "small swiss"): Jenny Guo (3 points)

Reminder that all 3-0 scorers in grades K-8 are qualified for our Tournament of Champions event! For detailed results, click here for the USCF crosstables.

The next Monday Action Quads event is scheduled for March 25.

Tuesday Night Action (CCC Main/South)

Every Tuesday night, the CCC Main/South location hosts a lecture by Fide Master (and Charlotte Chess Center founder) Peter Giannatos, followed by our one-round-a-week Tuesday Night Action chess tournament. We had a big turnout this week with 54 total participants across three sections.

This week's winners were:

Top: Andrew Wu, Chase Bellamy, Karthikeya Malireddy

U1750: Brent Jenkins, Sampath Kumar, Diya Balamurugan, Deepak Vellattu, Steven Libonati, Kevin Nguyen, Sidney Petersen, and Shreyas Karki

U1300: Nilai Gummi, Charles Cameron, Reyansh Mayank, Avery Bradley, Eldar Gabidoff, Esteban Gutierrez, Srihan Valluru, Neal Woodruff, Nandhan Gummi, Vivan Ghule, Anthony Gentile, Brian Lara, Namish Mayank, Douglas Samson, and Kyle Thornburg

In this month's standings, Andrew Wu leads the Top section with 2.5/3, while Brent Jenkins and Sampath Kumar each have 3/3 in the U1750 section. Four players (Nilai Gummi, Charles Cameron, Reyansh Mayank, and Avery Bradley) have three points this month in U1300. We'll see if anyone is able to remain perfect through the entire month of March!

Our next Tuesday Night Action will be held on March 26.

Wednesday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

WAQ is a weekly quads event held at the CCC's Main/South location every Wednesday. While similar in structure to our other quads events, it is open to both adult and youth players. 32 total players participated across eight quads this week (in addition to a bonus game between TD Ali Thompson and Lokruth Patil!).

Here are the top finishers from each quad:

Quad A: Alex Kaelin and Matthew Khariouk (2 points)

Quad B: Sri Pallapothu and Mario Pineda-Bermudez (2 points)

Quad C: Aharshi Bhattacharjee (2.5 points)

Quad D: Nishita Jaikumar (2.5 points)

Quad E: Muraru Raghavan (2.5 points)

Quad F: Mukund Neema (2.5 points)

Quad G: William Vea (3 points)

Quad H: Brendan Daunt and Daniel Freeman (2.5 points)

The full results of the March 20 WAQ tournament can be viewed at this link. We hope to see you at our next Wednesday Action Quads on March 27.

Friday Action Quads (CCC Main/South)

Our 185th Friday Action Quads event took place at the Main/South location on March 22. FAQ is a weekly g20+10 quads event open to all K-12 players. This week's event attracted 34 total players across eight quads.

The following players took first place in their respective quads:

Quad A: Benjamin Raz (2.5 points)

Quad B: Moses Collins (2.5 points)

Quad C: Mekhai Collins (2.5 points)

Quad D: John Smith (2.5 points)

Quad E: Vishaanth Aravindhan (3 points)

Quad F: Adith Kumar (3 points)

Quad G: Aadya Kumar (2.5 points)

Quad H ("small swiss"): Vihaan Jain (3 points)

All players who score 3/3 at FAQ are qualified for the Tournament of Champions scheduled for May 4, 2024. Full results of the tournament can be viewed here.

The next Friday Action Quads will be held on March 29.

Rated Scholastic (CCC North)

The final tournament CCC hosted this week was our Rated Scholastic event at the North location on March 23. Rated Scholastics are four round tournaments with 10+ trophies and medals available to the winners. The event is USCF-rated and open to all players K-8 with a rating below 1000.

The first-place finisher in the U1000 was Haresh Nagarajan with a perfect 4/4 (surpassing a 1000 USCF rating in the process)! Vihaan Dhulipala finished in clear second with 3.5 points. In the U500 section, Aadhav Nr scored 4/4 and finished a full point ahead of the field for clear first place.

Rated Scholastic tournaments are also Tournament of Champions qualifiers. The following players scored 2.5/4 or greater, earning a spot in the May 4 Champions tournament:

U1000: Haresh Nagarajan, Vihaan Dhulipala, Sibani Balaji, Saharsh Santhoshkumar, Magathkannan Udayasankar, Sayooj Nair, Sahith Vattikuti, and Charles Barr

U500: Aadhav Nr, Walker Brown, Samarth Goudar, Michael Kravtsov, Sriyan Pamidimukkala, and Sivesh Nagarajan

Congratulations to all who qualified and won medals!

Our next Rated Scholastic is taking place next weekend at the CCC Main/South location. Click here for detailed results of the March 23 event.

Submitted Games!

To conclude this week's slate of tournament recaps, I'd also like to feature a collection of games that have been submitted recently for this blog. To send us a game, head to our Chess Game Submission page and enter it in!

The first game I'd like to highlight was played a couple weeks ago at Tuesday Night Action by Sattwik Dutta. White played a "Jobava London" with an early g4, and black's king ended up stuck in the center. From there, white won a minor piece and converted that advantage into a full point.

Esteban Gutierrez sent in his games from rounds two and three of Tuesday Night Action. I'd like to share both of them here. The first game turned on a key tactic in the middlegame after white had achieved a near-winning position.

In the second game, white played a Panov-Botvinnik Attack in the Caro-Kann and achieved a massive initiative on the queenside.

Finally, Nichol Garrison submitted a game from last week's Sunday Afternoon Classical. Although her position immediately out of the opening might not have been the best, Nichol created counterattacking chances to compensate for the loss of the rook on a8, and ended up winning white's queen and delivering checkmate soon after:

A big thanks to all who submitted games for inclusion in this post!

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 such as the upcoming 2024 Spring Open and ALTO tournaments.