The Open section at the Cardinal Open was very strong with a number of visiting Grandmasters. Walker Griggs kept his good form of late, coming in tied for 3rd and bringing his rating up to 2357. Strong performance by young CCL players, Luke Xie and Chris Shen, have brought them close to becoming Chess Masters with ratings of 2182 and 2162 respectively.

In the U-2100 section, Abhi Ramaswamy came in clear 1st place, netting him a very nice $806. Chess is such an odd game, a week earlier Abhi had one of his worst tournaments in a while and this week he had one of his best tournaments in a while. It just shows that in chess you can turn on a dime, as long as you can keep the proper mental attitude. Don’t carry your loses forward to your next contest, accept it as part of the game and come back for the next game fresh and ready to focus. Om Borkar had a very strong event, coming in tied for 2nd place.

In the U-1800 section, Matthew Yuan continued his hot streak of late by coming in clear 2nd place with 4.5 points. Finishing a ½ point behind Matthew for a tie for 3rd place were Shourjya Ghosh and Elton Cao.

In the U-1500 section, Udbhav (aka Oliver) Raghukanth stomped out all resistance with a clear 1st place finish, giving him a bunch of $$$. Udbhav joined CCL a few months ago and brought his rating up almost 500 points in that time. And this is not a fluke, he is for real. He has the combination of talent and hard work, that as we know nothing is more dangerous. Coming in a tie for 2nd, a ½ point back, was Sanjay Medicherla. This could be the breakout tournament that Sanjay needed to start a new climb.