Wednesday Action Quads on February 7 was perhaps the wackiest tournament the Charlotte Chess Center has hosted so far in 2024. At the CCC Main/South location, a total of 36 players gathered across nine quads to play three games of USCF-rated chess. The theme of this tournament was absolute unpredictability.
NM Daniel Cremisi (who entered with a USCF rating of 2396) was again the highest-rated player in WAQ by over 200 points, but this time, the competition was fierce. After drawing Anagha Sinkar (whose rating hit a new peak of 1932 after the event), Cremisi was taken down by NM (and CCC coach) Anthony Parker (2136 USCF). You'd be forgiven for expecting that Parker would himself have gained a large chunk of rating from the tournament after pulling off such an upset, but this wasn't the case, as he scored 0.5/2 in his other games! As it turned out, Cremisi, Parker, Sinkar, and Chris Williams all ended up with 1.5/3, creating the first four-way tie in any quads event at CCC this year.
There was plenty more zaniness in the rest of the standings. Three quads (C, F, and H) saw the player with the lowest pre-event rating winning clear first place! Each of them (Namish Kondabathini, Zoey Moore, and Druv Balamurugan) ended up gaining over 90 points, with the former two finishing on 3/3. Also perfect were Samuel Paukovitz and Vivan Ghule.
Here are the quad winners:
Quad A: Four-way tie (see above) (1.5 points)
Quad B: Luke Zimmer (2.5 points)
Quad C: Namish Kondabathini (3 points)
Quad D: Three-way tie between Ibraheem Naushad, Ivan Manchev, and Ayaansh Kaistha (2 points)
Quad E: Samuel Paukovitz (3 points)
Quad F: Zoey Moore (3 points)
Quad G: Diksha Jaikumar (2 points)
Quad H: Druv Balamurugan (2.5 points)
Quad I: Vivan Ghule (3 points)
Congratulations to all quad winners, and we hope to see you at the next Wednesday Action Quads tournament on February 14!
Here are some photographs of the prize winners!
For upcoming tournaments, bookmark our Events Schedule. The CCC hosts nearly 8 events a week at our facilities in North and South Charlotte, along with bi-monthly major events such as the upcoming 2024 Spring Open and ALTO tournaments.
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NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
Charlotte Chess Center
Very happy with yesterday’s results, there are very few times when 1.5 out of 3 feels OK