Vincent Baker wins the Ohio HS Championship and Jason Wang wins Ohio MS Championship

April 9, 2019

CCL cleaned the table with clear 1st place finishes in every major Ohio Scholastic event this Spring: Queen City Classic, K-3 Championship, and Elementary School Championship. Last weekend we won the State HS and MS Championships. The top CCL results were:

High School

Clear 1st place - Vincent Baker
Tied for 2nd place - Elton Cao
Tied for 4th place - Justin Storn, Aryan Balyan, and Aristo Liu

Middle School

Clear 1st place - Jason Wang
Tied for 2nd - Rohan Padhye and Dae San Kim
Tied for 4th place - Varun Sathyajeeth, Wesley Lai, Matt Wang, Michael Lin, Adeti Mohanselvan

Vincent will be representing Ohio at the Denker tournament, against the HS Champions of the other 49 states. Jason will be represent Ohio at the Barber tournament, against the MS Champions of the other 49 states. Complete details on this event can be seen at http://ohioscholasticchess.org/2019hsmsresults.htm .

We also had a weekend camp with IM Atanas Kizov 2 weekends ago. Below are some the few pictures that I took at these two events.

CCL has perfect scores in winning both Ohio Elementary School Championships

April 1, 2019

Edison Lui scored a perfect 5-0 to win the Ohio Elementary School Chess Championship while Siddarth Kunapuli also had a perfect 5-0 score to win the Ohio K-3 Championship. Top CCL finishes include:

K-6
1st place – Edison Liu
2nd place – Anant Adury
Tied for 3rd – Matt Wang

K-3
1st place – Siddarth Kunapuli
3rd place – Saadhika Bagley
Tied for 4th – Colin Park

Complete details are at http://ohioscholasticchess.org/2019elementaryresults.htm .

CCL dominates at Queen City

March 20, 2019

CCL continues to show that there is no program even close to the strength of CCL in the State of Ohio.

Aryan Balyan defeated Justin Storn in the final round with the black pieces to win the Queen City Classic with a clear 1st place score of 4.5. It was a fascinating game where Justin sacrificed a minor piece for for two pawns and an apparent attack. However, the attack did not really exist as Aryan's knight dominated the position. You can see this game at https://cclchess.com/ccl-games/. The team pretty much had the team championship locked up after 3 rounds, almost doubling the score of the 2nd place team. CCL trophy winners in the top section where Aryan Balyan, Karthik Kallam, Arjun Krishna, Om Borkar, and Udbhav Raghukanth.

In the 7-9 section both Atharva Sapre and Dhruti Shah came in tied for 2nd place and the team came in 2nd place.

In the 4-6 section, Matt Wang sweep the field with a perfect 5-0 score. Matt is adding this win to his grade level championship for a coming of age year for Matt. Druvin Mutalam came in tied for 2nd while both Aditya Mehta and Aniket Shetty coming in tied for 5th. CCL won the team trophy by almost 3 times the score of 2nd place.

We only had two players in the K-3 section, Colin Park and Jashwin Pisini, yet we still manged to come in 3rd place as a team. Colin came in 3rd place with a 4-1 score.

Complete results are posted at https://ccpf.proscan.com/programs/queen-city-classic-chess-tournament/final-results/ . Below are the team pictures of those who were still available when the team trophy was given out, as well as a photo or the Storn-Balyan game. Team trophies were raffled off at the end of the tournament.

A CCL Chess Camp 3/30-31/2019

March 15, 2019

A weekend chess camp by International Master Atanas Kizov

- Date: Saturday/Sunday March 30-31, 2019
- Time: 9:00 – 5:00
- Where:
  CCL Training Center
  at the home of:
  Dr. Carrie Casden
  736 Watterton Drive
  Westerville, Ohio
  
  Open only to CCL members and members of a Mulligan Chess Club.
  Lectures, game reviews, camp review book, tournament, and many prizes.
  Draw or beat Atanas in a 5-1 game or Alan in a 5-2 game and win a $1 coin, tournament trophies, free chess lessons, books, etc.
  All chess equipment and snacks will be provided but bring your own lunch.
  For more details, or questions call Alan (614) 561-2718 or email cclalanc@gmail.com.
- 40% discounts to 2nd/3rd person from the same family, participants coming from over a 45 minute drive fto Columbus, and retired individuals.
  100% refunded if you cannot make it to the camp, no questions asked.This camp is only open to the 1st 24 signups! IM Atanas Kizov will be teaching these 6 topics, first 3 on Saturday and the second 3 on Sunday

Blocking the f6-square

The blocking of the f6 (f3)-square in front of the castled king with a piece (knight, bishop or rook) which can be captured by the opponent, is a usual tactical theme which can often meet in practice.

The idea is rather simple: to immobilize the opponent‟s f-pawn (mainly), creating at the same the best possibilities for an eventually successfully attack. The cost of a piece is usually compensating by the activity of the rest of his army, creating good chances of combinations or lethal attacks.

Passed pawn(s)

As a chess game progresses pawns gain in importance (they are no longer sacrificed for opening files, or to gain a lead in development they become a power in themselves). Indeed, in the endgame a passed pawn (or pawns) will often constitute a decisive advantage. In this short article we will encounter several aspects of the passed pawn.

We will not concern ourselves with the gradual creation of a passed pawn (or the realization of a positional advantage like, say, a majority on the queenside). We will investigate instances where a passed pawn already exists; concentrating on the techniques that are available to realize the advantage or defuse the pawn by defending accurately.

Simple tragedies – transfer into pawn endgames

Transfer into pawn endgames is the most natural way to realize the material advantage or to save worse position after difficult defense. But there are terribly many mistakes here.

Main reasons are:

1) Even IGMs don't have sufficient technical knowledge in the pawn endings;

2) Wrong evaluation of the exchanges;

3) Bad knowledge of the special methods in pawns ends.

Then realization of extra pawn is usually much easier, than realization of exchange. Let us see how this method was used in practice.

The g7 square - French blocked structure

A brief glance at the typical French Defence blocked structures with Black's short castle is enough to reveal Black's Achillee's heel: the g7–square.

All the other pawns are safely defended (the h-pawn could advance to h6 to enjoy his colleague support, for instance) or of low interest (the queenside pawns mainly), but the g7–pawn stands apart.

My favourite scenario included Qg4 and Bd3, putting g7 and h7 under observation. The queen's bishop would be well placed on c1, as would be ready to intervene to h6. I rarely payed attention to my queenside, as long as I had my own play going.

Endgames with rook and minor piece against rook and minor piece

1. Rook and knight against rook and knight.

As both pieces do not like passivity already a light initiative usually weighs heavily.

2. Endings with rooks and same colored bishops.

Here the "traditional values" like space advantage, good bishop, the more active king and initiative count for a lot.

3. Rooks and opposite colored bishops.

The drawish tendency of pure opposite colored bishops endings is much reduced due to the presence of rooks.

4. The Fischer endgame R+B against R+N (the bishop is better)

The endgame rook and bishop against rook and knight is called Fischer endgame, when the side with the bishop has the advantage due to the many instructive games of the American world champion.

Middle game with c3-d4 pawns

Middle game positions with a pair of pawns, c3–d4 (c6–d5), can be seen frequently in practical games. Analyzing positions with this type of pawn structure allows us to draw the following conclusions:

(1) it is important to restrict the movements of these pawns and take control over squares c4 and d5 (or c5 and d4, respectively);

(2) the side with the c and d pawns must recognize that passive play will likely only result in a draw, therefore, this side must create a dynamic structure with hanging pawns c4 and d4 (c5 and d5), or it must build up an active game on the King side.

This article highlights games where the pawn structure c3–d4 (c6–d5) is the center of the theoretical dispute in those games.

Cost of the camp
- - two days – $199
  - one day - $109
  - free to a parents of a student in 2nd grade or below
  - 40% discount to 2nd student from the same family, students greater than 45 minutes from Columbus, and retired students.

To signup, CLICK HERE!

3 New CCL Graduates

March 4, 2019

We have always had the honor of becoming 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). You are also welcome to a free CCL graduation shirt. See https://cclchess.com/graduate-shirt/ for details. I decided to change the requirements for this accomplishment so that it is not totally rating based, but is time/rating based. The old graduation rule was getting your rating over 2000 when in CCL, In the new criteria you must be an active student at the time of graduation and for the whole time before the graduation. You also 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 believe that these new rules will make it easier for more of our dedicated students to earn a CCL graduation. I will not know if you meet any of these requirement unless you notify me.

As a result of the new requirements we have 3 new graduates:

Viktor Mishkin = 5+/1800+ Viktor is a 7th grader. Besides chess, he likes to play soccer, tennis, and badminton. Also Viktor is a pretty good swimmer and voracious reader. See an annotated game of his at https://cclchess.com/ccl-games/

Dakshin Pisini = 5+/1800+

Rohan Padhye = 4+/1900+