chess lessons and more, for players of all strengths and ages

–        The big event last weekend in Ohio is the HS/MS Championships

• Top CCL HS finishers:
  • John tied for 2^nd
  • Rahul tied for 4^th
• Top CCL MS finsihers
  • Luke – clear 1^st – perfect 6-0 score
  • Vikram and Anagh tied for 2nd
  • Abhi – tied for 5^th
  • CCL finished in 10 of the top 17 spots (4 points or more)

–        A note on Luke

• We talked before about Luke’s amazing feat of winning the Ohio Middle School Championship two years in a row, as a 4^th grader and as a 5^th grader.
  • Last year he did not go to the Barber and his spot eventually dropped down to Maggie who attended.
    • The Barber is the championship of champions where the Middle School Champions of every state meet to see who is the ultimate MS Champion.
    • In Ohio, three years ago they started to allow elementary school students to attend this tournament and for the last 3 years it was a CCL 5^th grader who represented Ohio at this tournament (Abhi, Maggie, and Luke {yes Luke is going to attend this year}).  We are always one of the youngest players competing in this event.
  • Last year Luke also qualified for the World Youth Championship but did not attend.  However, this year he will attend if he qualifies by getting his rating up to 2050 in the next month.  He is 2048 right now. Luke will be playing in the Cincinnati Open to try and gain these points.

The Super Nationals were held from Friday to Sunday, April 5 – 7, in Nashville Tennessee.   CCL sent about 35 players to this event and had a strong showing.  Our top results are listed below:

K – 12 = John (drew last round but a win would have been a National Championship) tied for 2^nd

K – 5 = Luke (lost last round where a win would have been a National Championship) and Stanley tied for 9th

K – 3 = Chris and Austin tied for 3^rd 

(Austin’s only loss was to the now National Champion)

K-5 teams

Wyandot             6^th place

Deer Run             11^th place

 Chris is the National K-3 Blitz Champion

Anagh’s dad, Nitin, won the U-1200 section of the Parent’s and Friends tournament.

Queen City is the best scholastic tournament in the Midwest and was held on Saturday March 23rd.    Due to a splitting of our forces that weekend, with us having two teams compete at MOTCF, CCL did not win either 1^st place individual or 1^st team in the Open section.  Something that we have been very accustomed to doing.  The team barely missed 1^st, finishing in 2^nd place to a Cleveland team with five 12^th graders on their team.  Our top individual score was by Vikram, finishing 4-1 and coming in 3^rd place.  Great courage was shown by Timothy, a new CCL 2^nd grader who fought amongst the tall trees in the K-12 section.  His courageous efforts were rewarded by gaining 142 rating points.  The winner of the tournament was Jonathan Clinton.  CCL was matched up to him in rounds 2 (Alex, who probably lost to do a bad TD call), 3 (Tim), 4^th (Vikram).  In all three of these games we were better with our opponent being in bad time pressure.  However, we lost all of them.  That is why during our O-1600 camp this May, we will be discussing and practicing how to avoid time pressure and how to take advantage or your opponent’s time pressure.  This is a very important topic which has proven to be the Achilles heel of many of us.

In the other 3 open sections (K-3, 4-6, and 7-9) CCL was its typical dominate self, easily winning 1^st place team and 1^st place individual in each of these sections.  Below are all of the individual trophy winners:

K-3

1^st           Rusty     5             beating 1^st grader Emma in round 5 and regaining his swagger

3^rd          Viktor    4             1^st grader

4^th          Lainie    4

5^th          Emma    4             1^st grader

6^th          Elton      3.5         was not in CCL then but in CCL now

7^th          Doc        3.5

10^th        Gavin     3.5         1^st grader

 

4-6

1^st           Sujan     5             riding a rocket ship to the top

2^nd          ArvindSP 4.5

3^rd          Sourjya  4.5

6^th          Arvi        4

7^th          Om         4

9^th          Jeremy  3.5

11^th        Kunal     3.5

13^th        Stella     3.5

 

7-9

1^st           Miles     5             Need two hands to take up the 1^st place team and individual

3^rd          Cody F   4

7^th          Kaushal 4

MOTCF, the Midwest Open Team Chess Festival, is a very strong team tournament and one of the most anticipated tournaments for many of the “old timers”.  It is a chance for old chess friends to get together and play chess together on a team.  The tournament has a long history but none for the few years prior to 2012.  This is why many of you at not aware of this tournament, which is my favorite chess event of the year.  CCL had an A team (Walker, Maggie, Luke, Vikram R), the CCLian Defense and a B team (Chris, Anagh, Sam, Matthew), the CCLian Attack.  Both teams performed well with the A team actually winning this prestigious event.  They were a 4^th seed and smash the #1 seed, from Indiana, 3.5 – .5 in the last round to finish in sole first place.  The tournament took place from March 23rd – March 24th.