Where are they now?

February 4, 2022

CCL started 14.5 years ago when I retired. The time has gone quickly and many of my little elementary students are now adults, attending colleges or having strong careers. I have lost track of many of them but these are the students that I know where they landed. If you were in CCL and I didn't list you, please let me know and I will update this blog. Good luck to all of you. When you look at this list, it is easy to believe that chess is good for your development. I have many fond memories of all of you. 'Alan

Chris Shen got admitted to the Harvard class of 2026 and he will study Economics and Math this coming fall.
Walker Griggs graduated from Oberlin College and is a graduate student in Russian Literature at USC.
John Hughes graduated from Cornell University and lives near the East Village in NYC working in IT at Google.
Forest Chen is in the Vanderbilt class of 2024.
Vincent Baker is attending The Ohio State University, majoring in Finance.
Maggie Feng is attending The Ohio State University.
Aristo Liu is planning to study mathematics and computer science at Columbia University in New York.
Justin Storn is currently at Case Western in Cleveland, studying Biomedical Engineering.
Luke Xie is currently studying applied math in computation at UCLA.
Sam Massick is at Princeton.
Noah Keating-Adams graduated the University of Cincinnati with a bachelor's degree in finance and earned a master's degree in finance there as well. He now works as a financial analyst in the insurance industry.
Aryan Balyan is going to the University of Cincinnati next year and will be studying computer science.
Abhi Ramaswamy will graduate from Georgetown University with a political science degree this spring. He plans on going to graduate school in political science.
Anagh Kulkarni is a Bio-Medical student at OSU currently in his 3rd year. He is studying to be a medical doctor.
Emily Hu went to the Pennsylvania State University last year.
Rahul Ramaswamy is graduating with a medical degree from Vanderbilt University this spring. He is working toward being a doctor in Hematology / Oncology.
Stanley Cao is currently at Stanford.
Matthew Yuan is in his sophomore year at Duke.
Shourjya Ghosh is a sophomore at Vanderbilt, with a double major in computer science and economics.
Meghana Bhanuprasad now lives in India where she is pursuing Electronics and Communications Engineering at the National Institute of Technology. She plans to return to the United States in a couple of years for graduate school.
Vincent Chen went to Duke last year.
Joe Kleban also goes to Georgetown and sees Abhi at their chess club.
Sneha Prabu will probably be going to The Ohio State University next year.
Dakshin Pisini will probably be going to The Ohio State University next year.
Tim Goldenberg graduated from the University of Cincinnati (as did Alan Casden).
Justin Wu will go to Stanford.
Victoria Baker is attending Butler University. She is currently in Germany as an exchange student at WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management for Spring 2022.
Sanjay Medicherla is currently going to the University of Cincinnati.
Jacob Eismann accepted a swimming scholarship to attend the University of Kentucky and is a Junior majoring in Finance.
Hemma Bagley graduated early from high school
and is doing her premed/biology at the University of Akron.
Uku Hughes is studying cyber security at Tallinn Technical University, in Estonia.

CCL wins Ohio Grade Levels in grades 6, 8, 9, 10

November 8, 2021

Last Saturday, 11/6/2021, The Ohio Grade Level Championships were held. CCL finished clear first in 6th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grades. Listed with the below pictures are the players name and which grade they won. A complete rating report on this event is at http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202111061172.0-16280602.

Siddarth Kunapuli - 6th grade

Rohan Padhye - 8th grade

Dae San Kim - 9th grade

Michael Lin - 10 grade

Three New CCL Graduates

September 11, 2021

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 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 any of these requirement unless you notify me.

Our 3 new graduates:

Dae San Kim = 4+/1900+

Adeti Mohanselvan = 5+/1800+

Joe Kleban = 5+/1800+

Dae San

Joe

Adeti

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

CCL Chess Camp 9/11-12/2021

July 4, 2021

Cancelled due to Delta varient!

A weekend chess camp by International Master Atanas Kizov

- Date: Saturday/Sunday September 11-12, 2021
- 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

Bobby Fischer and the Square d5..

- Bobby Fischer and the Square d5:

Bobby Fischer who inspired us with his light square strategy and if we look even more deeper with his master ship by controlling over the extremely important square d5 in various Sicilian variants. His opening setups were in principle focused in the light square strategy: various Sozin variants (Bc4), with
the plan f4-f5, which forced the opponent to move e6-e5 (or to take e6-f5), or unusual variants with h2-h3, where his opponents in most cases did not recognize that they are already deadly lost and of course did not know why this happened at all …

First, we look at the definition of the weak square:
»A square is weak when it is controlled by your opponent and you have little or no chance of regaining control due to a lack of pieces which can effectively fight for that square. Typically, pawns that could have controlled the square have moved past it and, of course, cannot move backwards to help guard it. Single weak squares are called “holes”. Holes on the opponents half of the board that can be occupied by one of your supported pieces are called “outposts”.

Playing without castling

Backward pawn on c7

- Backward pawn on c7

When white takes c4xd5 and black recaptures with e6xd5 in the queens gambit, we reach the well known Karlsbad structure, where black usually plays c7–c6. But sometimes, black delays or is not able to play c6, and white manages to advance his b pawn to b5, leaving the c7 pawn backwards. In this article we will have a look at this type of positions, which usually are in white's favor. Let's start with a fantastic game by Magnus Carlsen, where the World champion shows a deep understanding of this type of position.

Bobby and the Hedgehog

- Bobby and the Hedgehogs

Every legendary champion had its own favourite plan in classical structures. They have their own individual preferences how to conduct typical plans. Fischer have a few interesting games in hedgehog structure for both sides. He played few really high quality games. He even invented the classical attack with the g-pawn! Hedgehog was considered until 70-ies years of the last century as extremely passive and a boring structure, completely suffering from the lack of space. But suddenly games of Adorjan, Ljubojevic, Andersson and Psakhis showed a lot of dynamic potential here. Even such active players as Garry Kasparov applied this kind of structure in a number of games. Nowadays enthusiasm of hedgehogs disappeared - foxes are ruling!

Triangle central set up

- Triangle central set up

The set up with Black pawns c6-d5-e6 became universal weapon against closed openings. In such way Black avoids sharp play ,slowly prepares b7-b6,Bc8-b7 and then is ready for central counterstrikes like c6-c5,sometimes e6-e5. White has two plans against this set up. First is old Pillsbury plan Nf3-e5, then f2-f4, making center position strong and then preparing for attack on the Kings side. Second plan is to play e4 and to open position maximally, but the main idea is still attack on the Kings side.

When is it OK to Play g4?

- When is it OK to Play g4?

When we teach our students, it is important to teach them the basic principles of chess. Once they are aware of those and are able to apply them in their own games, it is just as important to point out when it may be ok not to follow those same principles and recognize the exception from the rule. Let us imagine a situation when we are in the opening (or middlegame) with most pieces (especially queens) still on the board, and we castle (or plan to) to the kingside of the board.
In such situations, we generally do not recommend playing g4 as it typically would weaken our kingside and put our king in potential danger.

Cost of the camp
- - two days - $179 by 8/31 - $199 after 8/31
  - one day - $99 by 8/31 - $109 after 8/31
  - 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.

CCL takes top 4 spots in the Ohio High School Championship

April 24, 2021

Congratulations to CCL graduate Chris Shen for coming in clear first place in the Ohio HS Championship while CCLians Sean Jackson, Jason Wang, and Justin Storn finished a 1/2 point behind at 4 points. The Columbus Academy team which had both Chris and Sean on it, was the top HS team.

The only one of the 4 Ohio Scholastic Championships that CCL did not win was Middle School Championship where Aniket Shetty came in clear 2nd place. Alan Casden will also represent Ohio/CCL in the Seniors version of this event. Of the 5 Champion of Champions events, CCL is in 4 of them.