The Super Nationals were held from Friday to Sunday, April 5 – 7, in Nashville Tennessee.   CCL sent about 35 players to this event and had a strong showing.  Our top results are listed below:

K – 12 = John (drew last round but a win would have been a National Championship) tied for 2^nd

K – 5 = Luke (lost last round where a win would have been a National Championship) and Stanley tied for 9th

K – 3 = Chris and Austin tied for 3^rd 

(Austin’s only loss was to the now National Champion)

K-5 teams

Wyandot             6^th place

Deer Run             11^th place

 Chris is the National K-3 Blitz Champion

Anagh’s dad, Nitin, won the U-1200 section of the Parent’s and Friends tournament.

Queen City is the best scholastic tournament in the Midwest and was held on Saturday March 23rd.    Due to a splitting of our forces that weekend, with us having two teams compete at MOTCF, CCL did not win either 1^st place individual or 1^st team in the Open section.  Something that we have been very accustomed to doing.  The team barely missed 1^st, finishing in 2^nd place to a Cleveland team with five 12^th graders on their team.  Our top individual score was by Vikram, finishing 4-1 and coming in 3^rd place.  Great courage was shown by Timothy, a new CCL 2^nd grader who fought amongst the tall trees in the K-12 section.  His courageous efforts were rewarded by gaining 142 rating points.  The winner of the tournament was Jonathan Clinton.  CCL was matched up to him in rounds 2 (Alex, who probably lost to do a bad TD call), 3 (Tim), 4^th (Vikram).  In all three of these games we were better with our opponent being in bad time pressure.  However, we lost all of them.  That is why during our O-1600 camp this May, we will be discussing and practicing how to avoid time pressure and how to take advantage or your opponent’s time pressure.  This is a very important topic which has proven to be the Achilles heel of many of us.

In the other 3 open sections (K-3, 4-6, and 7-9) CCL was its typical dominate self, easily winning 1^st place team and 1^st place individual in each of these sections.  Below are all of the individual trophy winners:

K-3

1^st           Rusty     5             beating 1^st grader Emma in round 5 and regaining his swagger

3^rd          Viktor    4             1^st grader

4^th          Lainie    4

5^th          Emma    4             1^st grader

6^th          Elton      3.5         was not in CCL then but in CCL now

7^th          Doc        3.5

10^th        Gavin     3.5         1^st grader

 

4-6

1^st           Sujan     5             riding a rocket ship to the top

2^nd          ArvindSP 4.5

3^rd          Sourjya  4.5

6^th          Arvi        4

7^th          Om         4

9^th          Jeremy  3.5

11^th        Kunal     3.5

13^th        Stella     3.5

 

7-9

1^st           Miles     5             Need two hands to take up the 1^st place team and individual

3^rd          Cody F   4

7^th          Kaushal 4

MOTCF, the Midwest Open Team Chess Festival, is a very strong team tournament and one of the most anticipated tournaments for many of the “old timers”.  It is a chance for old chess friends to get together and play chess together on a team.  The tournament has a long history but none for the few years prior to 2012.  This is why many of you at not aware of this tournament, which is my favorite chess event of the year.  CCL had an A team (Walker, Maggie, Luke, Vikram R), the CCLian Defense and a B team (Chris, Anagh, Sam, Matthew), the CCLian Attack.  Both teams performed well with the A team actually winning this prestigious event.  They were a 4^th seed and smash the #1 seed, from Indiana, 3.5 – .5 in the last round to finish in sole first place.  The tournament took place from March 23rd – March 24th.

 

 

 

 

At yesterday’s CAHS Classic open section, CCL finished 1,2,3 and won the U-1400 prize.  In the U-1200 section CCL finished 1,2,3,4,5.  So many of our scholastic players have developed exceptionally strong skills and no longer play in local scholastic chess events.  This can cause you to lose focus on the incredible new talent that is emerging in CCL.  I don’t think that we have ever dominated the CAHS Classic so convincingly in the past and it just goes to show how shockingly strong we are becoming, even when our top players do not participate.

Trophy winners

Open

1^st place   4.5   Anagh

2^nd place  4      Vincent

3^rd place  4      Sujan

6^th place  3      Joe

Top Under 1400      Lily

U-1200

1^st place   5      Jeremy

2^nd place  4      Ethan

3^rd place 3.5    Stella

4^th place  3.5   Dakshin

5^th place  3.5   Joshua

8^th place  3.5   Lucas

10^th place 3.5  Victoria

Members of the +25 Club

Sujan        +194         1357

Dakshin   +183         1052

Jeremy     +117         1251

Lucas       +111         1009

Nayan      +95           962

Ethan       +68           1097

Viktor       +62           881

ArvindSP +56           1328

Vincent    +44           1465