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

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.

Minghao Gu becomes the 34th CCL Graduate

Minghao

Congratulations to our latest and 34th CCL graduate, Minghao Gu.  Minghao has been a steady and hard worker in chess, participating in many tournaments. He graduated when his rating went over 2000 by winning a quad.  Minghao started showing his interest In chess when he was 7 years old; his grandfather first taught him Chinese chess, and we saw the concentration in his eyes. Minghao appreciates chess helping him to become quiet and focused, and now becoming part of his life; he experienced happiness, and pains in the past years, learned to face challenges, and shared success with family and friends. 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 that I will see in Minghao'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

Jason Wang wins the North American Open

GM Victor Matviishen vs FM Jason Wang
GM Victor Matviishen vs FM Jason Wang

Jason Wang took clear first place in the North American Open.  This is an amazing result in many ways:

  • In his uncompromising style, Jason defeated a Ukrainian and Russian grandmaster in the last two rounds.  The above picture is at the beginning of the pre-ultimate round.
  • This result brought his rating over 2500, a new record for a CCL graduate.  Even more amazing when you realize that Jason is only an 11th grader in high school.
  • He fell a little short of a GM norm but he did get his second IM norm.
  • He won $10,300 for his efforts.

I couldn't be happier for this humble young gentleman.  Talent, hard work, and great parental support are all there, as you should expect.  Complete tournament results are at https://chessevents.com/event/northamerican/2022/standings/open.