One of the biggest accomplishments that many chess players hope to achieve is to become a USCF Chess Master. Recently one more CCL member climbed to the top of this huge mountain, which takes an exceptional amount of hard work and commitment. CCL is very proud of:

Jason Wang

Jason is one of the great success stories in CCL, starting as an unrated player and becoming a USCF master in 5th grade, earlier this year he almost won the World Youth Championship for his age group.  In the photo above, he is seen defeating a 2300 player, Yuri Barnakov, in route to tying for 1st in this weekend’s Pawn Storm tournament.  The following were active members of CCL from the early parts of their chess development through getting their Master’s title.  This amazing group  includes: Walker Griggs, John Hughes, Maggie Feng, Chris Shen, Luke Xie, Noah Keating-Adams, Annorjan Naguleswaran,  Aristo Liu, Vincent Baker, Forest Chen, and Jason Wang.

Another year and another great ending at the Ohio Grade Level Championships.  I am just posting the CCL players who are now the 2016 Ohio Grade Level Champions.  There were many other strong CCL performances and more details will be coming out in the next CCL Chess School newsletter.

11th grade = Abhi Ramaswamy and Cody Fan; co-champions

9th grade = Sam Massick

8th grade = Vincent Baker

7th grade = Joshua George

6th grade = Alina Niu

5th grade = Michael Lin

4th grade = Matt Wang

3rd grade = Rohan Padhye and Benjamin Yin; co-champions

 

 

Open
Walker Griggs	30.75	8-way tie for 5th
Maggie Feng	30.75	8-way tie for 5th
U-2100
Abhi Ramaswamy	958.34	3-way tie for 1st
Marissa Li	958.34	3-way tie for 1st
Anagh Kulkarni	41.00	6-way tie for 5th
Justin Storn	41.00	6-way tie for 5th
U-1900
Adith George	1643.00	1st place
U-1700
Stella Huang	312.00	5-way tie for 2nd
U-1500
Rohan Padhye	944.50	2-way tie for 1st
Mixed Doubles
Marissa Li	410.50	1st place
Stella Huang	205.50	2nd place
Maggie Feng	61.50	2-way tie for 2nd
Anagh Kulkarni	61.50
Total	$5,698.68

Jason had a great tournament and almost won the event. Going into the last round Jason was 1/2 point behind the sole leader. He position was solid, probably a little better, and he saw that the top board was drawn.  Jason could have also gone for, or offered a draw and won a medal at the event. But Jason is an amazing fighter and an inspiration to me. His thoughts were not on getting a medal but rather on becoming a world champion.  He threw caution to the wind but unfortunately he came out on the losing side.

I am so proud of this young man.  While most of us are running for a safe ending, he fights to the end. This was clear to me the very first time that I met him.  I was giving a simul at the Queen City Classic and this very young little kid was playing really well against me.  He was losing but competing very hard. I thought that I would be nice and offer him a draw for his great effort.  He looked at me and said, ‘no thanks’. “What!”, I thought.  I went on to win that game but I knew that he was something special. Right after the event I went to his parents and invited them to join CCL.  They took be up on my offer and here we are today.

For more  information on the event, Click Here.

Below in a picture of IM Goran Vojinovic (1963 – 2016) as a teenager.  Goran was the previous head coach of the CCL Chess School, before his untimely death. He will always be missed by the many people that he had a positive influence on.  RIP.