Louis Zhang becomes the 36th CCL Graduate

July 30, 2024

Congratulations to Louis Zhang, our latest and 36th CCL graduate. He participated in many tournaments and graduated when his rating went over 2000.

When Louis was 7 years old, he went to a nearby library where there was a chess club. He joined and learned how to play. This was where his affection for chess began. Even to this day, he still remembers getting up at 6 am to play chess when he was in elementary school. He discovered the joy of victory and the regret of losing, which fueled his passion for chess and led him to where he is now. Louis appreciates Atanas's teaching, and he learned a lot from CCL.

The skills developed in becoming a CCL graduate transfer to a successful future. I am amazed at all of the accomplishments of CCL graduates in their future endeavors, which I am sure I will see in Louis' future as well.

Louis is the current Ohio 7th-grade champion, and he won the most recent chess camp tournament, It is a hard-earned honor to become a CCL graduate, which includes a lifetime membership to CCL based on good behavior, without the need to take lessons from CCL. Anything that CCL has to offer (newsletter, library, team participation, etc. will always be available to you). To become a CCL graduate, you need to meet any of the following requirements:

- 1 year in CCL and earning a rating of 2000
- 4 years in CCL and earning a rating of 1900
- 5 years in CCL and earning a rating of 1800

I will probably not know if you meet one of these requirements unless you notify me.

CCL Graduates
from first to most recent

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
Abhi Ramaswamy
Jason Wang
Ricky Wang
Vincent Baker

Forest Chen
Neo Zhu
Alex Kolay
Xavier Paganini
Justin Storn
Stanley Cao
Elton Cao
Jasen Lai
Shourjya Ghosh
Aryan Balyan
Viktor Mishkin
Dakshin Pisini
Rohan Padhye
Dae-San Kim
Adeti Mohanselvan
Joe Kleban
Michael Lin
Minghao Gu
Matt Wang
Louis Zhang

Major Changes in CCL

June 6, 2024

CCL has been around for almost 20 years, and most of the top young players from Ohio come from our group. Although I am still in good health, I am 73 years old, and I want CCL to outlast me. Then, a synergy of events led to moving to a more parent-involved group and a new way of doing CCL. The main idea is to change the current CCL operation over time, trying to go from Alan Casden to the community it serves (mostly parents of the students).

The Student Activity Group has recently formed, and they will run CCL. They will get $5 from every lesson, and I gave them the authority to make future decisions on CCL. Although this sounds simple, I think it is deceptively complex, but we got some great parents on the project. One of my mom's sayings was, "If you never reach for the stars, how would you ever know how far you could go?"

This group needs your help. All suggestions for creating an inspiring, supportive chess community for Team CCL are welcome. If you want to send suggestions, you can post them in the new CCL WhatsApp Group. Others can comment on the suggestions as well.

The Student Activity group was just formed and has already executed some great ideas. Om's parents set up a WhatsApp CCL group. Anyone in CCL can join this group. There is a link on the 'Students' 'Private' page. This will probably be where much of the future CCL information will be communicated. I can get the news out quickly and with little effort. I encourage everyone to join this WhatsApp group. WhatsApp is an easy and effective way for anyone in the group to communicate with everyone else.

The other idea was an Impromptu chess get-together. Henry's mom designed and delivered it. It was a last-second thought, and it worked out perfectly. The kids had a great time. Below are pictures from this event.

Catch Up Time

May 17, 2024

This blog is designed to catch up on the top CCL results from the major events over the past few months.

National K-6 Championship

We had a great time in a private room with IM Atanas. Kizov went over the students' games. Former CCL student Jacob Eisman joined us in working with the kids. Some of our top finishes were:

K-5 U-1200 - 4th place Aadya, 20th place Henry
K-1 U-500 - 1st place Kaison
Blitz K-3 - 6th place Aadhi
First-rated tournament - Eli and Nat

CCL Chess Camp

IM Atanas Kizov flew in from Eastern Europe to give a CCL chess camp and support our students at the National K-6 Championship. 22 students attended the camp. In the camp tournament, the results were:

1st place - Louis
2nd place - Andrew
3rd place - Het
Top U-1400 - Samar
Top U-1000 - Lucas
Top U-600 - Aimee

We hope to have our next camp in the Fall.

Queen City Classic

This is the largest perennial scholastic tournament in the Midwest. CCL graduate and 2 time Queen City Classic champion Aryan Balyan helped coach CCL students at this event.

Team results:
K-3 open team - 1st place CCL
Yilanli, Mehmet (4.5,1296) - 1st place individual
Adaikappan, Aadhi Veerapandia (4.0,1094) - 3rd place individual
Wolfe, Henry James (3.5,966)
Gupta, Soham (3.5,639)
4-6 open team - 1st place CCL
SRINIVASAN, Shiv (5.0,1595) - 1st place individual
PATEL, Het (3.5,1315)
SASIKUMAR, Akhilesh (3.5,1034)
7-9 open team - 2nd place CCL
Park, Colin (4.5,1653) - 1st place individual
Kondekar, Aryan (3.5,1233)
Shukla, Rishik (3.5,1078)
K-12 open team - 3rd place CCL
KUNAPULI, Siddarth Sriaditya (3.0,1921)
YUAN, Ethan Yuming (3.0,1491)
COLE, Jonathan N (2.0,738)

1st grade unrated - 1st place Kaison

MOTCF

CCL had three teams at the Midwest Ohio Team Chess Festival. The U-1600 team prize was won by CCL - Water Bottle Gambit (Aniket, Het, Om, Samar).

Ohio Elementary School Championship

Although most of CCL was playing in MOTCF this weekend, we did manage to tie for first place (Maxwell—Ohio Elementary School co-champion) and come in third place (Shiv).

Cole Braun wins Ohio Middle School Championship

February 27, 2024

Cole won the Ohio Middle School Championship and will represent Ohio and CCL at the Barber tournament, playing against all other state middle school champions. Cole just recently joined CCL and will represent our program well. Below is a picture of Aadhi Adaikappan, the Ohio 3rd grade champion, who came in 2nd place in the K-5 division of the Ohio HS/MS Championship. I will participate with Aadhi and some of our other young stars on the same MOTCF team.

CCL Chess Camp 4/20-21/2024

February 17, 2024

A weekend chess camp by International Master Atanas Kizov

- Date: Saturday/Sunday April 20-21, 2024
- Time: 9:00 – 5:00
- Where:
  CCL Training Center
  at the home of:
  Dr. Carrie Casden
  736 Watterton Drive
  Westerville, Ohio
  
  Open only to CCL members.
  Lectures, game reviews, camp review book, tournament, and many prizes.
  Draw or beat Atanas in a 5-1 game or Alan in a 5-3 game and win a $1, tournament trophies, free future chess lessons, books, etc.
  All chess equipment and snacks will be provided but bring your own lunch.
  For more details, or questions call Alan (614) 561-2718 or email cclalanc@gmail.com.
- 40% discounts to 2nd/3rd person from the same family, participants coming from over a 45-minute drive to Columbus, and retired individuals.
  100% refunded if you cannot make it to the camp, no questions asked. This camp is only open to the 1st 24 signups! IM Atanas Kizov will be teaching these 6 topics, the first 3 on Saturday and the second 3 on Sunday

Bobby Fischer and the Square d5..

- Bobby Fischer and the Square d5:

Bobby Fischer who inspired us with his light square strategy and if we look even more deeper with his master ship by controlling over the extremely important square d5 in various Sicilian variants. His opening setups were in principle focused in the light square strategy: various Sozin variants (Bc4), with
the plan f4-f5, which forced the opponent to move e6-e5 (or to take e6-f5), or unusual variants with h2-h3, where his opponents in most cases did not recognize that they are already deadly lost and of course did not know why this happened at all …

First, we look at the definition of the weak square:
»A square is weak when it is controlled by your opponent and you have little or no chance of regaining control due to a lack of pieces which can effectively fight for that square. Typically, pawns that could have controlled the square have moved past it and, of course, cannot move backwards to help guard it. Single weak squares are called “holes”. Holes on the opponents half of the board that can be occupied by one of your supported pieces are called “outposts”.

Playing without castling

Backward pawn on c7

- Backward pawn on c7

When white takes c4xd5 and black recaptures with e6xd5 in the queens gambit, we reach the well known Karlsbad structure, where black usually plays c7–c6. But sometimes, black delays or is not able to play c6, and white manages to advance his b pawn to b5, leaving the c7 pawn backwards. In this article we will have a look at this type of positions, which usually are in white's favor. Let's start with a fantastic game by Magnus Carlsen, where the World champion shows a deep understanding of this type of position.

Bobby and the Hedgehog

- Bobby and the Hedgehogs

Every legendary champion had its own favourite plan in classical structures. They have their own individual preferences how to conduct typical plans. Fischer have a few interesting games in hedgehog structure for both sides. He played few really high quality games. He even invented the classical attack with the g-pawn! Hedgehog was considered until 70-ies years of the last century as extremely passive and a boring structure, completely suffering from the lack of space. But suddenly games of Adorjan, Ljubojevic, Andersson and Psakhis showed a lot of dynamic potential here. Even such active players as Garry Kasparov applied this kind of structure in a number of games. Nowadays enthusiasm of hedgehogs disappeared - foxes are ruling!

Triangle central set up

- Triangle central set up

The set up with Black pawns c6-d5-e6 became universal weapon against closed openings. In such way Black avoids sharp play ,slowly prepares b7-b6,Bc8-b7 and then is ready for central counterstrikes like c6-c5,sometimes e6-e5. White has two plans against this set up. First is old Pillsbury plan Nf3-e5, then f2-f4, making center position strong and then preparing for attack on the Kings side. Second plan is to play e4 and to open position maximally, but the main idea is still attack on the Kings side.

When is it OK to Play g4?

- When is it OK to Play g4?

When we teach our students, it is important to teach them the basic principles of chess. Once they are aware of those and are able to apply them in their own games, it is just as important to point out when it may be ok not to follow those same principles and recognize the exception from the rule. Let us imagine a situation when we are in the opening (or middlegame) with most pieces (especially queens) still on the board, and we castle (or plan to) to the kingside of the board.
In such situations, we generally do not recommend playing g4 as it typically would weaken our kingside and put our king in potential danger.

Cost of the camp
- - two days - $199
  - one day - $109
  - free to the parents of a student in 2nd grade or below
  - 40% discount to the 2nd student from the same family, students greater than 45 minutes from Columbus, and retired parents/students.