Welcome to the CCL Chess School!

chess lessons, for players of all strengths and ages

THE CCL CHESS SCHOOL
Private Chess Lessons … with group activities
… for students of all ages and strengths
Alan Casden – CEO – (614) 561-2718
Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/cclchess

Justin Storn wins State Championship while CCL soars

CCL graduate Justin Storn came in clear first place among Ohio residents at the 2023 Ohio Chess Congress.  An out-of-state GM, Alexander Fishbein, actually won the event.  This means that Justin is the State of Ohio Champion for the year 2023 - 2024.  It is a great accomplishment and aspiration of any Ohio chess player.  Justin has made videos of all of his games which can be seen at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKY1N5we6Q0AJl0cbakrQHGKeK5z36e7M&feature=shared.

Also coming in clear 1st place in their respective sections were Dae-San Kim in the U-2100 section and Maxwell Chung in the U-1200 section.  For their accomplishments, Justin won $650, Dae-San won $914, and Maxwell won $457.  Not too many people know of Maxwell, who gained 277 rating points, as he has not been an active tournament player.  But trust me, this was no fluke, he is a very strong young player.

There were many other excellent results by CCL players and I will be covering them in our next newsletter.

Matt Wang becomes the 35th CCL Graduate

Matt Wang CCL graduation

Congratulations to our latest and 35th CCL graduate, Matt Wang.  Matt has become a perenially tough contender of scholastic chess in Ohio. participating in many tournaments. He graduated when his rating went over 2000. He is a great example of how hard work and persistence will get you to your goals.  Matt started learning chess in 2015 when he was eight and in the same year he joined CCL. Over the past years, Matt truly appreciates your coaching, inspiration, and encouragement. One of the best lessons he learned from the CCL is “If you don’t know what to do in a given position, improve your worst piece”. Chess is not only fun but it also helps to build up his ability to interact with other people and tests his sportsmanship in a competitive environment.  The skills developed in becoming a CCL graduate transfer to a successful future.  I am amazed at all of the accomplishments of CCL graduates in their future endeavors, which I am sure I will see in Matt's future as well.

It is a hard-earned honor to become a CCL graduate, which includes a lifetime membership to CCL, based on good behavior, without the need to take lessons from CCL.  Anything that CCL has to offer (newsletter, library, team participation, etc. will always be available to you).    To become a CCL graduate, you need to meet any of the following requirements:

- 1 year in CCL and earning a rating of 2000
- 4 years in CCL and earning a rating of 1900
- 5 years in CCL and earning a rating of 1800

I will probably not know if you meet one of these requirements unless you notify me.

CCL Graduates
from first to most recent

  • John Hughes
  • Walker Griggs
  • Maggie Feng
  • Rahul Ramaswamy
  • Annorjan Naguleswaran
  • Luke Xie
  • Chris Shen
  • Noah Keating-Adams
  • Sam Massick
  • Anagh Kulkarni
  • Vikram Srivastava
  • Aristo Liu
  • Abhi Ramaswamy
  • Jason Wang
  • Ricky Wang
  • Vincent Baker
  • Forest Chen
  • Neo Zhu
  • Alex Kolay
  • Xavier Paganini
  • Justin Storn
  • Stanley Cao
  • Elton Cao
  • Jasen Lai
  • Shourjya Ghosh
  • Aryan Balyan
  • Viktor Mishkin
  • Dakshin Pisini
  • Rohan Padhye
  • Dae-San Kim
  • Adeti Mohanselvan
  • Joe Kleban
  • Michael Lin
  • Minghao Gu
  • Matt Wang

2023 MOTCF

My favorite tournament of the year is the MidWest Open Team Chess Festival.  CCL sent 5 teams to this event and a CCL-sponsored chess club also sent a team.  Our prize winners were:

Top 2nd board - Justin Storn
Top U2000 team: CCL – The Nicer Side (Minghao Gu, Emma Chung, Sneha Prabu, Dhruti Shah)
Top U1800 team: CCL – Me Donut No (Matt Wang, Om Borkar, Druvin Reddy Mutalam, Sanjay Medicherla, Shiv Srinivasan)

Complete results are at https://www.columbuschessacademy.org/motcf-standings.

Below are a few pictures.  I didn't take any pictures but the below were available from the tournament organizer.

CCL - me donut no
CCL - the nicer side
no mulligans given

2023 Queen City Classic

CCL has always dominated the Queen City Classic, the largest scholastic tournament in the Midwest.  During the pandemic, CCL went into a semi-hiatus and is now going through a rebuilding phase.  This year we sent a small squad to the Queen City Classic and I am very proud of their relatively strong performance.

Our K-3 team came in 1st place, our 4-6 team came in 2nd place, and our K-12 team came in 2nd place.  There were two other rated sections where we came in 4th place.  Our K-12 team just had 3 players on it, a 4th grader and two 7th graders!  Another amazing result was when CCL Kindergartener Mehmet Yilanli came in clear 1st place in the K-3 Championship with a perfect 5-0 score.  Complete results are at https://ccpf.org/programs/queen-city-classic-chess-tournament/final-results/.

Top Team Results

1st place CCL  K-3
Yilanli, Mehmet (5.0,766)
Jiang, Albert (4.0,842)
Wolfe, Henry James (3.0,436)

2nd place CCL 4-6
Srinivasan, Shiv Karthik (4.0,1267)
Gupta, Samar (3.5,1070)
Lin, Yicheng (1.0,902)

4th place CCL 4-6 U-800
Sasikumar, Akhilesh (4.0,754)
Liu, Ethan (3.0,550)

4th place CCL 7-9
Chang, Chase H. (3.5,1204)
Pisini, Jashwin (3.5,1066)
Ravi Sankar, Navin (1.5,937)

2nd place CCL K-12
Kunapuli, Siddarth Sriaditya (4.0,1694)
Hamilton, Jack (4.0,1620)
Yuan, Ethan (4.0,1460)

some pictures are below:

Kevin Xu

Kevin Xu

Although CCL is primarily in Ohio, we do have students from all parts of the country.  Sometimes these other students go unnoticed and their accomplishments go unnoticed.  Kevin is a good example of this.  I just noticed that he should be a CCL graduate and although I just added him as our 35th graduate, he earned this title a while ago.  I will quote an email sent from Kevin's parents to IM Atanas Kizov.  The email does a good job of telling his chess story.

Yes, it works. As Kevin is graduating from high school, May will be his last month of Chess lessons.

I wanted to take a moment to express my family's heartfelt gratitude for all the incredible work you have done as Kevin's chess teacher over the past years. Through your guidance and expertise, Kevin has grown into a remarkable scholastic player, achieving tremendous success on and off the chessboard. He was crowned the Kansas K-12 Champion in 2022 and named one of the five recipients of the prestigious USChess Scholar-Chessplayer Awards (https://new.uschess.org/news/2022-scholar-chessplayer-awards-announced). It is a true testament to his hard work, talent, and dedication, all of which have been nurtured and developed under your watchful eye. But your mentorship has gone beyond teaching Kevin how to play chess. You have helped him develop critical thinking skills, hone his analytical abilities, and cultivate a strong work ethic. You have provided him with a supportive learning environment that has allowed him to grow and flourish, both as a chess player and as a person.

We are also thrilled to share that Kevin has been early-admitted to his dream school, Columbia University. Thank you again for all your hard work, dedication, and mentorship.

Alan, we also greatly appreciate that Kevin has had the opportunity to take chess lessons through your CCL CHESS SCHOOL.