CCL really shined at King’s Island.  I will try to give some of the highlights below.

 

The money winners were:

Open Section:

–        The new John seems to be showing up every time now.  He has established himself as a solid master (2249) and will finish 12^th grade as one of the top adult players in Ohio.  He also got $54.50

–        Coach Hans makes a stand for the old chess coaches of the world, tying for 1-2 U-2300 prize.  Taking home $1,095.50 for his 4-1 score in the open section.

U-2100

–        Noah Keating-Adams scored 3.5 and ended in a two way tie for 5^th place.  He netted $136.50 for his efforts.  Noah has been consistently playing at expert strength this year.

U-1900

–        Who is that riding his stallion and swinging his sword over his head, it is Srivastava!  Vikram, long overdue, showed how strong of a player he is.  He swept the U-1900 field 5-0 to finish in clear 1^st place and took home $1,823.00.

–        Forest took the trip up from Tennessee to join us for this tournament.  And he stayed in his good form of late, finishing 4-0 which was good for a 6 way tie for 3^rd place and $182.34.

U-1700

–        Shourjya (who has been on a tear of late, but perhaps not satisfied) and Divyesh came into the spotlight.  They both scored 4 points and shared a 3 way tie for 4^th place.  They each got $212.67 for their efforts.

U-1500

–        Coming off a 5-0 sweep at the Clover Challenge, Jeremy played the ‘Swiss Gambit’ to perfection at King’s Island.  He finished with 4.5 and took home $1458 for tying for first with an unrated player!!  Watch out for Jeremy at the grade levels, he is smokin’!

U-1250

–        In this section it was time for ‘the little one’ to have her breakout tournament.  Emma double dipped, taking home $319 for her two way tie for 3^rd with 4 points as well as $182.50 for tying for 1^st place team in the mixed doubles.  Is it legal for a ‘little one’ to win over $500?

–        Akul, just in pre-ccl a few months ago, took home $36.50 for his 3.5 point tied for 5^th finish.  He might be scratching his head asking why Emma got so much money when he beat her in this tournament.

We had a number of other great results that do not show up in the money column because those players chose to play up.  You can see them in our 25 club.

–        25 club

• Emma                   +159      1296
• Vikram                 +127      1976
• Shourjya              +115      1698
• Tim                       +111      1777
• Kunal                    +109      1399
• Ethan                    +94        1297
• Jeremy                 +81        1577
• Phillip                   +77        1816
• Aditya                   +70        1062
• Akul                      +65        1275
• Sanjay                  +64        1010
• Timothy               +63        1437
• Stanley                 +53        1768
• Victor L                +53        1362
• Kevin                    +51        1310
• Ayush                   +50        1320
• Divyesh                +46        1666
• Forest                   +43        1862

• As always we dominated in a scholastic event.  This tournament was designed more for the next generation of super heroes, than the present.  One of the strategies at this tournament was to develop a ‘hit squad’, we picked the 4 people that looked the scariest to walk around the tournament to intimidate our opponents, the 2^nd graders!

The Hit Squad

Alan, Viktor, Emma, and Jason

• 
• Jeremy sweep the field in the Open section, with a 4-0 score.  Stella (3^rd), Josh (5^th), Mark (6^th) and Vincent (7^th) all had 3-1 scores.  CCL was the 1^st place team.

 

• 
• In the U-900 division, Soham finished in clear 2^nd place with a 4-1 score.  Abby, a last round win away from taking clear 1^st place finished in 5^th place with a 3.5 score.  CCL was the 1^st place team.
• All of the pictures from the event can be seen at https://cclchess.com/2013-clover-challenge/

 

–        Cincinnati Scholastic Chess Series

• Lainie won the November league of the Cincinnati Scholastic Chess Series. She tied with Victor L and two others with a 3-1 score but took home the 1^st place trophy on tiebreaks.

For the third year in a row, a CCL student won the title of State of Ohio Chess Champion.  This year it was won by a student who is starting to come into his own as a dangerous player at ANY LEVEL, John Hughes.  There ended up being a 4-way tie with the co-champions being: John Hughes, Calvin Blocker, Bill Wright, and Oliver Koo.

Figure 1 –  l) TD Joe Yun  then co-champions John Hughes and Calvin Blocker

Whenever we go to these major tournaments, you represent CCL well but sometimes you really shine.  At the 2013 Ohio Chess Congress you really shined.  I am a little tired today so I am just going to lay the results down that I have (some details are unknown to me):

 

Open:

John Hughes – State of Ohio Chess Champion  $$$$$

U-2000:

Anagh    – Tied for first     +23        1922      $$$$$ – Anagh put 4 positive tournaments in a row together, driving his rating from 1801 – 1922

U-1700:

Stanley and Arvind SP      2-way tie for 1^st   $494.40 each

Austin tied for 4^th – 5^th   +23          1690

Dakshin – Won upset prize $50, and his opponent was upset!

U-1400:

Won by pseudo-CCL player, Daniel Zhang (Cody Yang’s older brother)

Lainie – Clear 2^nd   $$$$$

Jeremy – Clear 3^rd $$$$$

Viktor – won $50 upset prize and got U-1100 class money $$$$$

 

The kids are taking over the world!

 

Every year CCL breaks their previous year’s records.  The new school year ratings are out and CCL has:

The top 4 k-12 players (we have finally taken control of the K-12 list.   Being a young program, only 6 years old, it took us a little while to develop the talent to compete on the older players list).

The top 14 K-6 players!

The top female player and 9 of the top 14 female players.

The complete lists can be seen at http://ohchess.org

Scholastic Top 50

September USCF Rating Scholastic Top 50

Ranking	Name	Rating	Grade
1	Hughes, John Lodger	2206	12
2	Naguleswaran, Annorjan	2087	7
3	Feng, Maggie	2053	7
4	Xie, Luke Bohua	2032	6

 

Scholastic K-6 Top 50

September USCF Rating Scholastic K-6 Top 50

Ranking	Name	Rating	Grade
1	Xie, Luke Bohua	2032	6
2	Shen, Christopher	1999	4
3	Liu, Aristo	1805	5
4	Baker, Vincent	1684	5
5	Yuan, Matthew	1681	6
6	Yan, Austin	1667	4
7	Cao, Stanley	1626	6
8	Rachuri, Sujan	1599	6
9	Prasad, Arvind Sai	1551	5
10	Ghosh, Shourjya	1542	6
11	Kleban, Joseph	1527	6
12	Borkar, Om	1510	6
13	Kumar, Arvind	1508	6
14	Yang, Cody	1487	4

 

Top Scholastic Girls

September USCF Rating Top Scholastic Girls

Ranking	Name	Rating	Grade
1	Feng, Maggie	2053	7
3	Huang, Stella	1307	7
5	Massick, Laine	1284	3
7	Van Scoy, Ellison	1189	4
9	Tang, Lily	1153	6
11	Chen, Michelle	1103	3
12	Lin, Lisa	1056	7
13	Cheng, Emma	1051	2
14	Baker, Victoria	1047	7

As a results of tying for 2nd in the U-2100 section of the Indianapolis Open, Noah became a USCF expert and earned his CCL graduation.  Noah is our first Cincinnati player to graduate.  Congratulations to a hard working chess player.

 

CCL graduates are:

John Hughes

Walker Griggs

Maggie Feng

Rahul Ramaswamy

Annorjan Naguleswaran

Luke Xie

Chris Shen

Noah Keating-Adams

 

What is a CCL graduate?  It is an honorary degree that we give to any CCL player who has worked their way through the ranks while in CCL and has made a USCF experts rating (>= 2000).   It entitles them to lifetime membership in CCL, based on good behavior, without the requirements of taking lessons.  They are allowed to receive email spam from me for the rest of their lives!!  Although graduates are no longer required to take lessons while in CCL, all of our previous graduates are still active students in CCL.