The CCL Chess School

Chess, Community and Learning

 

Chess lessons and more, for players of all strengths and ages.

CCL comes up on top in Ohio HS and MS Championships

Vikram and Aristo

Our latest Ohio 2015 Champions:
High School – Vikram Srivastava
Middle School – Aristo Liu

Without a lost game among them, Vikram and Aristo represented CCL well at the state HS and MS championships.  Now Vikram has earned the right to represent Ohio at the National Denker tournament while Aristo has earned the right to represent Ohio at the National Barber tournament. Last year Vikram won the Middle School Championship and competed in the Barber tournament. Complete results are posted at http://www.ohioscholasticchess.org/2015hsmsresults.htm .

The Midwest Open Team Festival (MOTCF) was also held last weekend where CCL teams won Silver, Bronze, and U-1600.

 

Emma on The Good Morning Columbus Show

Emma Cheng, interviewed by NBC NEWS, regarding her upcoming bout with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

UPDATE

The Dispatch Gets it Right

My hats off to Lori Kurtzman from the Dispatch who got the story right, from beginning to end. Her insights, concern for accuracy, and ease to talk with, was a marvel to me.  Thank you so much for telling this story correctly. Here is her story:

Pre-fight - http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/03/06/arnold-chess.html

Post fight - http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/03/08/8-year-old-is-no-pawn.html

Both Ethan and Emma represented CCL very well, showing great composure dealing with all of the news media and cameras back stage. Since Emma was the initial, and the local player, much of the focus was on her.  However Ethan performed equally as well, both in his chess and in his behavior.  Thank you both, for confirming that CCL is a program with class.

This was not really a fair chess match as although Arnold may be a good chess player among his peers, he does not really compete with us.  Here are the first few moves of the game where Arnold, playing white against Emma, was down by a pawn and bishop after only 7 moves!

CCL Welcomes 2 New Coaches

With great pride we are welcoming two very accomplished chess coaches to the CCL family.  Not only do I think a great deal of them, Jelena things so much of Zoran that she married his twin brother IM Goran Arsovic.  People who know this author might think that this is one of those mean Balan jokes, but no this is for real!   Please welcome IM Zoran Arsovic and his sister-in-law WFM Jelena Arsovic to the CCL family.  What a thrill it is to have the two of them join our program.  Zoran has all 3 of his GM norms and just needs to raise his rating to get the title.  But much more important than that, he has extensive history of quality experience as a chess coach.  Jelena is going to be working in our Pre-CCL program.  Having a female coach in our Pre-CCL program should really help us to develop our girl’s program to even greater heights than we have taken it already.  And it is my understanding that these are two very honest individuals with a high degree of personal integrity.  Our search for additional coaches has taken awhile, as we needed to be absolutely sure that it will not lower the high bar that we have set for CCL.  More information on these new coaches in the CCL family can be see on the coaches page.

Chris Shen becomes a National Master

Chris earns master rating

Congratulations to Chris Shen who became the 4th CCL member to become a USCF National Master. He is preceded by John Hughes, Walker Griggs, and Maggie Feng. The next in line is Luke Xie, who only needs another 18 rating points to earn this honor.  Chris will be on a team with Walker, Maggie, and Luke in next month's MOTCF tournament.

In this past weekend, Chris played in the FIDE rated Baltimore Open and achieved the U.S. National Master title.  During this tournament, Chris defeated one FM (USCF rating 2345, FIDE rating 2150), one IM (USCF rating 2364, FIDE rating 2308), then, he drew IM Tegshsuren Enkhbat (USCF rating 2479, FIDE rating 2419).   After scoring 2.5 out of 3, his live USCF rating went above 2200 and he decided to drop out the tournament in order to secure his first chess master title.  His post tournament rating now is 2215, and he may be the youngest chess master in Ohio history at the age of 10 years and 9 months. Chris was putting in a sustained effort, playing in 9 open tournaments from the east coast to the Midwest in the past three and one half months.  His hard work paid off and his rating increased by 159 points, only staying between 2100 and 2200 for 3 months. 

 The Baltimore Open is a perennial, traditional chess tournament which runs in early February of each year and is now FIDE rated.  The time control follows the FIDE rule of 40/90, SD 30, with 30 seconds increment.  This year, 80 players participated.  Other CCL players who participated were Emily Hu and Meghana Bhanuprasad.