The CCL Chess School

Chess, Community and Learning

 

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

Maxwell again! Good Gosh

What is the deal with Maxwell?  When he reached 1600, I told him he might plateau.  I didn't want him to be shocked when it happened.  Ignoring my sage prediction, Maxwell won his section in a major tournament.  After that happened, my new prediction was that he would hang out around 1700.  I guess he wasn't listening again, as his clear 1st place finish in the U-1900 section of the Ohio Chess Congress brought his rating up to 1800.  Maxwell will now hang out around 1800 for a while.  It is obvious..... right????????

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Maxwell with his mother Li-Chun.  Wait, that is the trophy that goes to the State champion.  Does Maxwell have some plans for the future?

Louis Zhang becomes the 36th CCL Graduate

Louis_pic

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

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

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

Cole Braun

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.

AadhiHSMS