chess lessons, for players of all strengths and ages

• Congratulations to our latest and 12th CCL graduate, Aristo Liu.
• Aristo earned his graduation at the Parma July 8
• Aristo is one of our younger CCL graduates, obtaining this difficult mile mark at just 11 years of age.
• The CCL graduates have been rolling in recently.
• 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).   This group is becoming a who’s who of the top young talent around.  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!!
• CCL graduates are (in order of obtainment):
• • John Hughes
  • Walker Griggs
  • Maggie Feng
  • Rahul Ramaswamy
  • Annorjan Naguleswaran
  • Luke Xie
  • Chris Shen
  • Noah Keating-Adams
  • Sam Massick
  • Anagh Kulkarni
  • Vikram Srivastava
  • Aristo Liu

 

Chris finished with a perfect score, 9-0 in the U-10 open section of 2014 Pan American Chess Festival in Mexico. This perfect result had him finishing a full 1.5 points ahead of 2nd place.  This is his first international championship title, having once finished in 3rd place in the World Youth Championship. He also placed 4th place in blitz (3+2″). There were near 600 players from North, Central, and South America countries, 78 in the U-10 open section. Chris was the top seed in his section and stayed on first board throughout the tournament.

The time control was 90 +30″, slightly different than the world youth but identical to the North American youth championships.  Chris continues to be a strong representative of CCL.

This experience was a challenge as this is an international tournament, where he needs to overcome the language barrier, food and the living conditions in a different country.

• Congratulations to our latest and 11th CCL graduate, Vikram Srivastava.
• Vikram earned his graduation at the 2014 Columbus Open and his having a great year.
• He won the Ohio Middle School Championship earlier in the year and will soon be traveling to Orlando to represent Ohio at the Barber Tournament, for the champion of champions of all state middle school champions.
• 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).   This group is becoming a who’s who of the top young talent around.  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!!
• CCL graduates are (in order of obtainment):
• • John Hughes
  • Walker Griggs
  • Maggie Feng
  • Rahul Ramaswamy
  • Annorjan Naguleswaran
  • Luke Xie
  • Chris Shen
  • Noah Keating-Adams
  • Sam Massick
  • Anagh Kulkarni
  • Vikram Srivastava

 Maggie at the 2014 Chicago Open

 

o   Congratulations to Maggie for this amazing result (+50 =2223) at the Chicago Open, coming in tied for 6^th and taking home $237.50 in the U-2300 section.

o   Maggie is now the 3^rd CCL student who earned the National Master while a student at CCL.   She follows in both Walker’s and John’s footsteps.

• When Maggie started in CCL her rating was around 1000, Walker’s was in the 800’s, and John was unrated.  Why can’t you be next?

o   This is an amazing accomplishment for this young lady.  I think that it will put her as the 4^th highest rated female under 21 in the USA.  And she is only 13 years old!!

 

(l-r) Jason, Vincent, Rusty, Ethan

 o   Vincent Baker and 2nd grader Jason ‘Mason’ Wang are the 2014 Ohio Elementary School Co-Champions

o   Things do not always go as planned but 1^st seed Vincent and 2^nd seed Jason left little doubt who was in charge in this tournament.  Both players sweep through the field and left everyone in their wake with perfect 5-0 scores.  Vincent won the 1^st place trophy on tie-breaks.

o   CCL players with 3.5 or more were:

• 1             Vincent Baker                    5
• 2             Jason Wang                       5
• 5             Ethan Ferkins                    4
• 8             Viktor Mishkin                  3.5
• 9             Justin ‘Rusty’ Wu              3.5
• 11           Aditya Jambhale                3.5
• 12           Lainie Massick                  3.5
• 14           Duke Wang                        3.5
• 15           Sneha Prabu                      3.5

o   Congrats to Alan Zhang for finishing 4-1 in the K-3 championship and coming in a 2 way tie for 2^nd.

 

Below is a slideshow of pictures from the tournament.

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