Connecticut State Chess Association
a 501(c)(7) nonprofit corporation




























History 2018

12/31
CSCA Board approves State Championship events for 2018-19. The National Nominations Grand Prix (NNGP) is renewed with three legs and a guaranteed prize fund of $1,275 for the National Nominations Candidates' Tournament (NNCT) on March 30, 2019. Added to the calendar is the first ever State Senior Open Championships on March 2, 2019. Please find all tournaments under Events.

12/16
Several players from Connecticut placed near the top at the 2018 K-12 Grade Championships held December 14-16 in Orlando, FL.
Eitan Genger of Stamford finished tenth in 11th Grade, Hans Niemann of Weston finished third and Jack Grills of Westport finished tenth in 10th Grade, Jack Klein of Greenwich finished tenth in 8th Grade, Max Ingargiola of Fairfield finished twentieth in 5th Grade , Dean Colin of Greenwich finished twentieth in 3rd Grade and Annie Ulmer of Greenwich finished in fifteenth in 2nd Grade.

12/15
Derek Meredith wins the Holiday Party Open in Coventry.

12/13
Hans Niemann goes undefeated with 12-0 and wins the National K-12 Blitz Championship at the 2018 National K-12 Grade Championships in Orlando, FL.

12/9
Results of 45th NECA in Stamford (83 players).

12/8
Jan van de Mortel is the new President of the CSCA. Results of the CSCA Annual Meeting election of Directors and Officers (meeting minutes).

12/8
27 players participated in the CCO Scholastic Speed Championship held ahead of the CSCA Annual Meeting in Newington: results and US Chess rating report.

12/5
45 players at DIG 2018 Fall in Weston.

12/3
Punyavrat Upadhyay wins the Mouja Studio 3rd Scholastic in Manchester.

11/18
102 players participated in the Greenwich Country Day Scholastic in Greenwich.

11/17
Derek Meredith and Joe Bihlmeyer tied for first place at the Yankee Peddler Open in Coventry.

11/10
Jithu Sajeevan won the Greater Hartford Scholastic Championships at Hall in West Hartford (results).
NBCC President Norman Burtness reports.

Photo provided by Bob Cyr, TD of the event

11/9
Storrs: in their Chess & Go match on 11 boards UConn beat Simsbury 17 - 5.
CSCA Historian Bob Cyr reports.

Left Simsbury, right UConn

Group photo

11/4
GM Alexander Ivanov wins 4th Stamford Open.

11/3
Ahead of the CSCA Annual Meeting in Meriden the first State Scholastic Bullet Championship was won by Avery Hogrefe.

10/27
Joe Bihlmeyer wins 2018 Connecticut Harvest Open in Coventry.

9/30
Abhijit Mondal wins 2018 Charter Oak Open.

Abhijit (left) with organizer Rob Roy (right)

9/24
Hans Niemann wins 9th Annual Hartford Open

9/3
Best CT results at New York State Championship in Albany:
- U-2100, 1st: Derek Meredith $600
- U-1500, 1st: Xing Zhou $650, 3rd: Yikuan Zhou $250
Best CT player in the Championship section was Zachary Tanenbaum who scored 3.5/6

8/27
Hans Niemann took his good form from the US Masters to the Summer IM Norm Invitational held in Cambridge, MA where he tied for second place with 6/9 and achieved his third International Master Norm. More information on the event at the Boylston Chess Club blog.

Hans facing Qibiao Wang in round 2

8/26
On his birthday, Rick Bauer wins the out-doors 53rd New Britain Summer Open.
Click for section details for Open, Under 1618, Under 918.


Bryant Mercado (UConn chess club) enjoying his burger from the NBCC grill.

8/21
Connecticut's 15-year-old Hans Niemann has scored a Grandmaster Norm at the US Masters held in Greensboro, NC. Hans faced 9 GM's in a row and scored 5 points and had a performance rating over 2600 (FIDE). For more information see the tournament report, detailed results and games and MSA crosstable.

8/20
Best CT results at Continental Open in Sturbridge:
- Premier Section, 8th: Arslan Otchiyev, $671
- U-2100, 3rd: Mark Bourque (Stafford Springs chess club and NBCC), $500
- U-1700, 5th: Matthew Shirvell (UConn chess club), $350

8/11
Fairfield 7th Grader Aaryan Chitnis won the Western CT K~8 Scholastic played on Saturday, 8/11, in Wilton with a perfect 4-0 score. Henry Buczkiewicz from New Canaan 2nd, Arnav Kamineni from Glastonbury 3rd.

8/11
Nathan Chang wins Nutmeg State Open in Coventry.

8/4
US Chess Delegates vote against the RCSCA: The unofficial news from Madison, Wisconsin is that "President Hoffpauir outlined the EB recommendation for the delegates to appoint a committee to study the situation, attempt to get the parties to mediate, and, failing that, the committee to bring a recommendation on the matter to the 2019 Delegates meeting (...) The board recommendation passed without dissent."

7/31
The results are in from the National Championship events in Madison, Wisconsin. Connecticut's junior representatives finished in 22nd place in the team standings and each received a $50 gift certificate for best U1900 state team. Yoon-Young Kim scored 4/6 in the Denker (High School) finishing in 6th place, defeating top seed IM Patel (2570) along the way. Daniel Zhou finished in 24th place in the Barber (K-8) with a score of 3/6. Beatrice Low finished in 32nd place in the Girls' with a score of 2.5/6. In the National Senior Tournament of Champions Mikhail Koganov finished in 9th place with a score of 4/6. US Chess MSA crosstables: Denker, Barber, Girls' and Senior.


Yoon-Young and Daniel, and, Daniel, Beatrice and Mikhail

7/30
Hans Niemann, with 4th place, best CT player in 23rd Bradley Open
CT players Dennis Wigg wins Under 1500, Suma Dendi wins Under 1200.

7/29
Connecticut's Maximillian Lu has won the Gold Medal for players under 16 at the Pan-Am Youth Chess Championships held July 21-29 in Santiago, Chile. Despite losing his first round game, Max took sole first with a score of 7,5/9 and achieved an IM norm. Follow the links to visit the tournament website with round bulletins and games, thecomplete results and USCF report.

7/25
The Reformed CSCA has issued two statements to address the Executive Board's recommendation regarding the governance of chess in Connecticut, statements made by the Chair of the US Chess States Committee, and to substantiate the RCSCA's claims against Jim Celone/CSCA. The statements also address multiple false statements made by Celone in his petition to the Executive Board, the most egregious of which relate to fraud involving the election of Connecticut's Delegates to US Chess. The RCSCA's statements can be found at www.rcsca.org.

7/14
GM Aleksandr Lenderman wins CCFC Masters and Class Championships in Norwalk.

7/14
Nelson Castaņeda Alvarez wins Connecticut Yankee Open in Conventry.

7/7
2018 US Champion GM Sam Shankland gave a simul in Newtown organized by Glenn Budzinski. The only draw was for Adeethyia Shankar, the GM won against the 28 other players.

Adeethyia

6/24
39 players at 43rd NECA in Stamford.

6/23
Results of 2018 Coventry Summer Open.

6/16
Nelson Castaņeda Alvarez wins NBCC Saturday Swiss.

6/11
David Brodsky (NY) wins 24th Annual Northeast Open in Stamford.

6/10
State High School Champion Yoon-Young Kim achieves an International Master norm at the CCCSA GM/IM Norm Invitational in Charlotte, NC winning his section with 7/9.

6/9
On May 24, 2018, six Board members of the CSCA combined their efforts to create the Reformed Connecticut State Chess Association, a new organization to represent and support the Connecticut chess community. Ahead of the June 1 deadline, the RCSCA submitted its credentials to the US Chess Executive Board for recommendation to the US Chess Board of Delegates to become Connecticut's State Affiliate in place of the CSCA. The Board of Delegates will vote on RCSCA's application in August 2018.
Find out more about the RCSCA's founders, its background and the reasons for forming the new organization by visiting the RCSCA website at www.rcsca.org

6/2
Results of 2018 Planet Earth Championship. Winner was Rajesh Coimbatore Shanmugasundaram on 2nd tiebreaker over Nelson Castaņeda Alvarez.

from left: Nelson, Rajesh and tournament organizer Norman Burtness.

5/19
Daniel Smith (RI) wins Constitution State Open in Coventry.

5/19
Team "Ponies of Death" (ranked 7th of 14 teams of four players) wins Fairfield County Team Championships in Norwalk. Team members are Furqan Tanwir, Derek Chen, Liam Kaufman, Noah Aylesworth (all NY).
Individual results are here.

4/29
Results of 42nd NECA.

4/29
Mark Bourque won class A and Nathan Chang won class B at the Eastern Class Championships in Sturbridge (all results).

4/21
Suhas Kodali and Jithu Saajevan co-winners with 3/3 at 2018 Nathan Hale Open.

4/14
Results of Brunswick Scholastic in Greenwich.

4/8
Derek Meredith wins the State Rapid Championship and William Torres wins the State Quick Championship held in West Haven.

3/31
Yoon-Young Kim, Daniel Zhou and Beatrice Low have won the nomination to represent Connecticut at the Denker, Barber and Girls National Championships in Madison, WI this summer. Final results and ratings.


a game from the Denker qualifier: Jithu vs Evan

3/31
Emmanuel Hernandez, Avery Hogrefe and Audrey Zhou won State Titles at the Scholastic Quick State Championship in New Haven. Results of the Elementary, Middle and High School and Rating report.

3/25
Results of 41st NECA.

3/24
Yoon-young Kim wins 2018 New Haven Championships.

3/17
Results of Greater Hartford Open in Coventry.

3/10
Carter Clayton wins 2018 West Hartford Scholastic Chess Championship
(directed by Norman Burtness & Bob Cyr):

1st Carter Clayton (5-0, in red-and-white shirt), 2nd Kunde Sudarsan (4-1), 3rd Jack Clayton (4-1)
U900 Peter Wolfe (4-1), U600 Michael Kowalski (4-1)

Team 1st Webster Hill Elementary School, West Hartford
Team 2nd Wolfe (home school)
Team 3rd West Woods Upper Elementary School, Farmington
Ratings.

3/10
Arslan Otchiyev wins 2018 CT State Championship in West Hartford:
(Arslan is in the blue sweater at the far right playing against Andrew Colwell in round #1)
Results with tie-breaker and Ratings.

3/7
FM Nelson Castaņeda wins New Britain Chess Club Championship, a six-week tournament, for the 10th time.

3/4
National Nominations Grand Prix Final Points Standings.

3/3
K-12 State Championships at Bartels Hall in New Haven:




2018 Scholastic State Champions are Yoon-Young Kim (9-12), Sadie Edelman (4-9), Robert Ulmer (K-6) and Erik Nebylovych (K-3).
2018 Team State Champions are Ludlow Middle School (Fairfield), West Woods Upper Elementary School (Farmington) and Riverfield Elemenntary School (Fairfield).
Full results of the High, Middle, Elementary, Primary School and Unrated sections.
Rating report of the event.

2/24
Results of Eastern Connecticut Open.

2/23
An image from the Friday Night Pop-Up Blitz tournament in Glastonbury

2/11
National Nominations Grand Prix Points Standings after leg 4.

2/10
Results and Ratings of Tom Hartmayer Memorial / round 4 NNGP.

from left: Eva Lucia, Tessel, Luca, Sanjana, Haneesh, and, Jake, Sam, Joshua, Daniel and Raghav

2/8
Results 2018 Greater New Haven Winter Open.

2/4
94 rated players at 40th NECA in Stamford.

1/31
New Chess Club in Milford, CT!
A new chess club, "Breakout", located in Milford, CT and lead by a National Master Arslan Otchiyev, offers up to 9 hours of group classes a week (eventually will go up to 13 hours) for only $100 a month. During the classes we will cover: chess basics, openings, middlegames, endgames and play practice games. The membership will also give you 20% off discount on private lessons, tournaments, lectures, seminars. Hurry up the classes have limited spots. The club also will hold regular adults as well as kids tournaments. For more information please contact us. Phone number: (203) 918-8553 Arslan. The address is: 217 PEPES FARM RD., MILFORD, CT 06460. Email: arslan.90@mail.ru, https://www.facebook.com/breakoutchess/.

1/27
Sean Henderson from Simsbury wins K-12 section of 2nd Annual Hopkins Chess Haven tournament. Vendata Bhargava and Vincent Zhu win K-8, Angus Pittenger wins K-4.

Bros. Wang ran the event with over 80 participants.

< 1/22
National Nominations Grand Prix Points Standings after leg 3.

1/21
Jared Schwartz wins Greenwich City Scholastic Championships.

1/20
Shesh Budhabhatti wins 2018 CT State Girls Championship held in Farmington: details and ratings.

Shesh

1/20
Yoon-Young Kim wins Northern CT Scholasic / Leg 3 of National Nominations Grand Prix: details and ratings.

1/20
Nicolas Checa wins 2018 CCFC Club Championship.

1/13
Results of the CT Scholastic Grade Championships at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield.

1/13
National Nominations Grand Prix Points Standings after leg 2.

1/13
Results of Coventry Open

1/7
CT Superior Court hearing regarding lawsuit by Connecticut Chess Organization (CCO) against Jim Celone (doing business as Educational Technologies) is moved from 1/8 to 1/16 and later to Milford 1/29(?).

2017