Category: Season 1

The sixth and final week of the first season of North American Corporate Chess League delivered on its promise of action.   Almost every game at the top was decisive and there were many fluctuations in the Team Standings.

Individual Standings

The Individual Standings, however, were a one-man story.  GM Ashwin Jayaram (2571), completed his quest to a perfect score, and was a major asset for Wells Fargo.  His 12-0 score against strong opposition is reminiscent of Bobby Fischer’s US Championship performances, as GM Jayaram defeated several FIDE Masters and National Masters, including every player in 2nd – 8th place!  Ashwin ends NACCL Season 1 with a lichess rapid rating of 2847, the second highest on the entire site!

In second place was FM Movses Movsisyan with 10.5/12 of Kaiser Permanente.  Movses had an incredible performance, only losing to GM Jayaram and drawing Expert Brian Luo who finished in third.  He defeated many strong masters including NM Samuel Song (Deloitte) and FM Kyron Griffith (Lyft).

Tying for third place with 10 points were Brian Luo of Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and NM Samuel Song.  The top 15 players in the individual standings, as well as the top 10 under 1700, top 10 under 1100, and top 10 unrated will all receive plaques in the mail.

Team Standings

Susquehanna International Group, LLP (SIG) was a surprising yet deserving winner of the NACCL’s first season.  The league’s team standings are based on each team’s top 4 scores.  In many cases, strong titled players with 2200-2600 over-the-board ratings top the standings, and they are supplemented by more casual players, however SIG’s victory was due to an underrated and strong squad.  While IM Arthur Shen (2511) had to skip a few weeks and finished outside of the top standings and NM Eric Most (2177) scored a strong 8.5/12, SIG’s top four were Brian Luo (2093, 10 points), Delen Heisman (1747, 9 points), Saimcan Bayir (1656, 9 points), and Justin Brereton (2042, 9 points).  To have several players rated 1600-2100 lead their team to victory was great to see – congratulations to SIG!

GM Jayaram’s excellent performance led Wells Fargo to be near the top of the team standings throughout the season.  Solid showings by Patrick McCartney (1943, 8 points), David Stamper (2080, 8 points), Charlie Durham (1920, 7.5 points), Sampath Kumar (1586, 7.5 points) allowed Wells Fargo to take second place on tiebreaks.

Tying with Wells Fargo was Deloitte who had strong players in NM Samuel Song (2300, 10 points), NM Saumil Padhya (2355, 9 points), Igor Alfimov (8.5), and several players at 8 points.  Although they will earn the 3rd place plaque on tiebreaks, Deloitte’s performance was very close to winning the NACCL title.

In fourth place was Qualcomm Inc., who was in first place in the early rounds, but ends up with a very respectable 35 points.  Lyft, Inc. rounded out the top 5 with 33.5 points with FM Varun Krishnan and FM Kyron Griffith scoring 9 points out of 12.

The top 10 teams, in addition to a few category prizes, will earn a plaque.

Games

In round 11, NM Samuel Song (Deloitte) and FM Movses Movsisyan (KP) played a very important and high level game:

The Susquehanna International Group’s first place title was spearheaded by Brian Luo’s strong play throughout the season.  In this game featuring the Sicilian, Luo adopts a quite setup but then launches a strong attack.

GM Jayaram Annotates

GM Ashwin Jayaram (Wells Fargo), winner of the 1st place individual prize, graciously offered to annotate some of his games for the article. Enjoy!

3 games annotated, use the drop down menu to toggle between games

Commentary and Lectures

You can replay FM Peter Giannatos’ commentary online. 

GM Daniel Naroditsky’s weekly Monday improvement lectures were well received by members of the league.

In addition to GM Naroditsky’s improvement lectures members of the NACCL also had access to guest lectures by:

• GM David Smerdon (Your Opponent’s Mind: A Behavioral Economist’s Guide to Chess)
• GM Patrick Wolff (The Parallels of Chess and Finance)
• GM Matthew Sadler (Finding a Path: Lessons from Chess Applied to IT)

Missed a lecture? All lectures are uploaded and shared privately with all members of the NACCL.

Weekly Tactics Test

Follow the League + Season 2

Keep up with updates via this blog, our LinkedIn group, and Facebook page.

The NACCL has already made history in its first season and we would like to thank so many teams and players for competing — information on season 2 is coming soon!

Look for an email with a survey about this season and improvements for the next!

Note: The NACCL does not spam its members via Linkedin messaging nor do we share personal contact information with any external companies. Should players, companies, or other entities wish to read out to us, please contact us at [email protected]

Week 5 of the North American Corporate Chess League saw big changes at the top of the standings – longtime frontrunner Qualcomm, Inc. fell to fourth place while Deloitte and Wells Fargo surged to the lead.

Although tied at 31.5 team points, Deloitte and Wells Fargo have earned their current first place positions much differently.  Deloitte has a large and balanced roster of 13 players, including NM Samuel Song (2300, 9 points out of 10), NM Saumil Padhya (2355, 7 points) and a few 1800-2200 rated players to assist.  Wells Fargo has a relatively small squad of 8 players, half of whom are rated under 1600, but their star performer is GM Ashwin Jayaram (2571) who remains absolutely dominant with 10/10!

Susquehanna International Group, LLP (SIG) is in third place with 29.5 points.  Brian Luo (2093) has certainly outperformed his rating and has 8 points, while NM Eric Most (7.5) is the team’s second highest scorer.  Further down the roster, SIG’s highest rated player IM Arthur Shen (2511) stumbled this week and will need to recover some points in week 6 of 6 if SIG is to fight for first place.

Games

National Master Siddharth Arun of Charles River Associates was on the unfortunate end of a nice game in round 7 as annotated in last week’s blog.  However, he rebounded nicely this week with a nice attacking game against Deloitte’s Pratik Thorwe (1900):

The NACCL’s most entertaining games in terms of opposite side castling and major piece attacks are usually found in the middle of the pack.  However, this high-profile, board 2 duel between FM Kyron Griffith (2470) of Lyft and NM Samuel Song (2300) of Deloitte was thrilling and very significant for the standings:

Further down the standings, 1475-rated Stuart Spiegel (Novetta) was fortunate in this up-and-down game against Tristan Gruska of Palantir:

All games played in the league can be found here.

Standings

With up to 8 team points up for grabs in the final week, all of the teams in the top 10 stand a serious chance to be the inaugural North American Corporate Chess League Champions.  The enterprising format of the league in taking the top four individual totals to constitute a team’s score means that even a single chess move can affect the entire league standings.

While Deloitte and Wells Fargo (31.5) are the frontrunners, SIG and Qualcomm (29.5), Lyft (29), IBM and Jump Trading (28), and Google (27.5) each have a great chance for the title.  With the prize list expanded to include team prizes to the top 10 overall, top 2 small companies, top financial service company, top IT company, top law firm and individual prizes to include top 15 overall, top 10 under 1700, top 10 under 1100, and top 10 unrated, almost every team and player has something to play for.

As mentioned above, GM Ashwin Jayaram dominates the Individual Standings with an amazing 10/10.  He has defeated many titled players (including those in 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, and 8^th places) and now boasts a 2837 lichess rapid rating – one of the highest ratings on the entire site.  NM Samuel Song (9/10) is unblemished besides his round 8 loss to Jayaram, and FM Movses Movsisyan is in clear third place with 8.5/10.

Commentary and Lectures

FM Peter Giannatos’ commentary was watched by nearly ten thousand unique viewers thanks to a Twitch “raid” by GM Daniel Naroditsky. Monday’s improvement seminar with GM Daniel Naroditsky was very well-received by attendees, and will back back next Monday for his last lecture of the season! Players in league who miss the Monday improvement seminars with GM Naroditsky can rewatch them using the link in the weekly newsletter.

Guest Lectures

The NACCL is more than just a chess tournament for working adults. It’s a team bonding experience and a way to complement and enhance corporate performance. The NACCL has scheduled “Chess and Business” seminars that all participants are encouraged to join these lectures and are included as part of their membership to league.

Special Guests this Season:

• GM David Smerdon, PhD – Your Opponent’s Mind: A Behavioral Economist’s Guide to Chess (Concluded)

• GM Patrick Wolff – The Parallels of Chess and Finance (Concluded)
  • Wednesday, February 17, 7:30pm-8:30pm EST

• GM Matthew Sadler – Finding a Path: Lessons from Chess Applied to IT
  • Sunday, February 21, 3:00pm-4:00pm EST

The links for these lectures are sent out in the NACCL’s weekly newsletter. Please let us know if you have not received our weekly newsletters.

Week 5 Tactics Test

Follow the League

Keep up with updates via this blog, our LinkedIn group, and Facebook page.

The NACCL has already made history in its first season and we would like to thank so many teams and players for competing.  Onward to the 6th and final week of the first season!

Note: The NACCL does not spam its members via Linkedin messaging nor do we share personal contact information with any external companies. Should players, companies, or other entities wish to read out to us, please contact us at [email protected]

We finally have a clear leader in the North American Corporate Chess League individual standings!  GM Ashwin Jayaram (2571) of Wells Fargo defeated Lyft’s FM Kyron Griffith (2470) and Deloitte’s NM Samuel Song (2300) on Thursday evening to maintain the only remaining perfect score.  340 of the 437 NACCL players signed up to play in week 4 of 6.  Grandmaster Jayaram ground down Griffith with Black in a Caro-Kann and then played an instructive sacrifice (19.Nxc5!) in a main line King’s Indian Defense as White against NM Song.  Ashwin’s week 4 results are very important for the team standings as all three teams are in very close contention for first place.

National Master Samuel Song of Deloitte was the only other perfect score after 7 rounds, as he defeated fellow NM Siddharth Arun of Charles River Associates in a nice game:

Perhaps the most entertaining game of the week was between 1821-rated Benjamin Blium (Deloitte) and 2080-rated David Stamper (Wells Fargo).  Considering that these two teams lead the standings, every single move in such a matchup is crucial for the leaderboards.

It is important to remember that instructive chess games are played at all levels of chess.  In this game between Neil Edwards (Novetta) and Bradley Barnum (Chevron), two lower-rated players, White goes for a tempting endgame tactic which ends up backfiring.  A common mistake for players of all levels is figuring out when to stop your tactical calculation.  Playing a nice combination, only for your opponent to see one move further, is something that never goes away even at the top level.

Standings

As the NACCL heads into the home stretch, the only thing that is clear is that nothing is clear!  Qualcomm, Inc. continues to lead the Team Standings with 26 points, however with Deloitte and Wells Fargo just behind at 25.5 and Lyft (25), Susquehanna International Group (24.5),  Google (23) rounding out the top 6 spots, there is still everything to play for.  While the frontrunners have emerged, which places they will land in at the end of the six-week season is completely unknown.

GM Ashwin Jayaram (Wells Fargo) tops the Individual Standings with a perfect 8/8. Closely behind with 7/8 are – FMs Kyron Griffith and Varun Krishnan of Lyft, NM Samuel Song (Deloitte), Brian Luo (SIG), Sridhar Ramanujam (Qualcomm), Ajay Mohanan (Qualcomm), and Benjamin Blium (Deloitte).  FM Movses Movsisyan of Kaiser Permanente is in 9^th Place by himself at 6.5/8, while IM Arthur Shen (SIG), who skipped week 1, leads a large pack at 6 points.

Commentary + Lectures

With just two weeks left, the NACCL standings could not be more exciting – re-watch FM Peter Giannatos’ commentary here. Monday’s improvement seminar with GM Daniel Naroditsky was very well-received by attendees, and will back back every Monday for more improvement tips! Players in league who miss the Monday improvement seminars with GM Naroditsky can rewatch them using the link in the weekly newsletter.

Guest Lectures

The NACCL is more than just a chess tournament for working adults. It’s a team bonding experience and a way to complement and enhance corporate performance. The NACCL has scheduled “Chess and Business” seminars that all participants are encouraged to join these lectures and are included as part of their membership to league.

Special Guests this Season:

• GM David Smerdon, PhD – Your Opponent’s Mind: A Behavioral Economist’s Guide to Chess (Concluded)

• GM Patrick Wolff – The Parallels of Chess and Finance
  • Wednesday, February 17, 7:30pm-8:30pm EST
• GM Matthew Sadler – Finding a Path: Lessons from Chess Applied to IT
  • Sunday, February 21, 3:00pm-4:00pm EST

The links for these lectures are sent out in the NACCL’s weekly newsletter. Please let us know if you have not received our weekly newsletters.

Week 4 Tactics Test

Follow the League

Keep up with updates via this blog, our LinkedIn group, and Facebook page.

The NACCL has already made history in its first season and we would like to thank so many teams and players for competing.  Onward to week 5!

Note: The NACCL does not spam its members via Linkedin messaging nor do we share personal contact information with any external companies. Should players, companies, or other entities wish to read out to us, please contact us at [email protected]

The North American Corporate Chess League’s week 3 seemed destined to create some separation between the leaders.  However, the team and individual standings are forming quite a logjam.  330 of the 435 registered players check-in for Thursday’s rounds 5 and 6, which produced plenty of upsets and interesting games.

Week 3

As discussed in last week’s blog, the relatively surprising leaders after four rounds were Qualcomm Inc. and Jump Trading, who had a few strong unrated players leading their team to a 14 point score.  As those top teams faced tough pairings in week 3, a new leader emerged in Deloitte, who now have 20.5 points out of a possible 24.  Deloitte’s secret weapon is National Master Samuel Song (2300) who has 6/6 after defeating Grandmaster Akshayraj Kore of Capital One:

Just half a point behind Deloitte are Wells Fargo and Lyft, Inc with 20/24.  Wells Fargo has a small but solid squad led by GM Ashwin Jayaram (2571), who has scored 6-0.  Grandmaster Jayaram is backed up by two expert players local to Charlotte in David Stamper (2080) and Patrick McCartney (1943).  Lyft’s team has two titled players in FM Kyron Griffith and FM Varun Krishnan, whose games have been featured in previous blogs.

As usual, I like to feature an exciting game where the evaluation jumps around throughout the course of the game.  Check out this encounter between Ara Hayrapetyan (Jump Trading) and Gianluca Montalti (Torchlight Investors) and see if you can spot the endgame save that White missed:

Nagesh Gummadivalli of Capital One, rated 1418, played a nice attacking game and scored the upset against Charlie Durham of Wells Fargo.

Standings

As we are only halfway through the first season of the North American Corporate Chess League, it is simply too early to tell if any teams and players are clear favorites to win the top prizes.  While Deloitte leads the Team Standings with 20.5, there are two teams at 20 points as well as Qualcomm at 19.5.  Rounding out the top six are Susquehanna International Group, LLC (SIG) and IBM at 18 points.  With the top four scores on each team contributing to the team score, there is plenty of movement happening each week.

Three titled players remain unscathed (6-0) at the top of the Individual Standings – GM Ashwin Jayaram (2571) of Wells Fargo, FM Kyron Griffith (2470) of Lyft, and NM Samuel Song (2300) of Deloitte.  Two strong players are just behind them with 5.5/6 – NM Siddharth Arun of Charles River Associates and Brian Luo of SIG.  There are no less than 20 players behind them with a 5-1 score.

Commentary + Lectures

FM Peter Giannatos‘ live week 3’s commentary, can be replayed here.  Monday’s improvement seminar with GM Daniel Naroditsky was very well-received by attendees, and will back back every Monday for more improvement tips!

The NACCL is more than just a chess tournament for adults. It’s a team bonding experience and a way to complement and enhance corporate performance. The NACCL has scheduled “Chess and Business” seminars that all participants are encouraged to join these lectures and are included as part of their membership to league.

Lecture Schedule:

• GM Daniel Naroditsky – Chess Improvement Seminars
  • Every Monday from 8:00pm-9:00pm EST
• GM David Smerdon, PhD – Your Opponent’s Mind: A Behavioral Economist’s Guide to Chess
  • Friday, February 5, 7:00pm-8:00pm EST
• GM Patrick Wolff – The Parallels of Chess and Finance
  • Wednesday, February 17, 7:30pm-8:30pm EST
• GM Matthew Sadler – Finding a Path: Lessons from Chess Applied to IT
  • Sunday, February 21, 3:00pm-4:00pm EST

The links for these lectures are sent out in the NACCL’s weekly newsletter. Please let us know if you have not received our weekly newsletters.

League Tactics Test

Lichess currently fixing embed codes to enable piece movement. In the meantime, you can click the square in the bottom right corner to solve on lichess directly or use this link.

Follow the League

Keep up with updates via this blog, our LinkedIn group, and Facebook page.

The NACCL has already made history in its first season and we would like to thank so many teams and players for competing.  Onwards to week 4!

In week two of the North American Corporate Chess League, a few leaders broke apart from the pack in both the team and individual standings.  As discussed in last week’s blog, the NACCL’s first season numbers are shattering records – there is now a total of 434 players registered (from 43 teams), over 360 of whom played on Thursday night.  Following the smooth debut last week, courtesy of the Charlotte Chess Center’s organization team in cooperation with Chessstream and lichess, players seemed less nervous about the evening’s proceedings, and were able to focus fully on their games.

Week 2

Players who check in each week are paired for two “15+5” rapid games based on a combination of USCF and lichess ratings to seed players as well as the results from previous weeks.  Although players who skipped the first two rounds start with 0-point score, many strong players will still look to finish at the top of the standings by the end of the 12-round season, including FM Andrey Krasnov (Jump Trading) and the 2500+ rated IM Arthur Shen (SIG).

The reliability of the pairing system and accuracy of the ratings assigned to every player can truly be seen from the round 4 results – out of 180 boards, only one game ended in an upset win in which 2093-rated Brian Luo of the Susquehanna International Group defeated FM Varun Krishnan (Lyft), rated 2354.  Both players were on a perfect 3-0 score, and the upset allowed Luo to lead the SIG team to a respectable tie for 4^th place in standings.  His 2354-rated opponent, Varun Krishnan, played a nice game in round 3 against Luo’s SIG teammate, Justin Brereton:

One of my favorite attributes of the NACCL is that it very suitable for players who have not played tournament chess in years, but who still play casually online and perhaps are revitalized by a certain Netflix series.  In the following game, playing White is Christopher Liu (Palantir) who has not played a rated tournament game since January 2007 and has a USCF rating of 1154.  Although Christopher played at a much higher level than that against his opponent (Narayana Kadiyala of Qualcomm), the game took a turn after a strong opening.

The roller coaster of a game between Joseph Terrigno (Novetta) and Heng Quang (Lyft) is true entertainment – White was winning for much of the game, then Black conducted a strong attack which garnered a piece, but the game ended in a draw!

Standings

It was unlikely that any teams would arrive unscathed with a perfect score after four rounds.  This proved to be the case, but the two leaders who emerged are quite surprising!  Qualcomm Inc. has a large but relatively unassuming squad, but they clearly came to play!  After a perfect 8 points in week 1, Qualcomm followed it up with a very solid 6 points in week 2 – their unrated players Anil Rao and Prajakt Kulkarni have 4/4 and they are followed up by several colleagues on 3/4 points, only one of whom is rated over 2000.

Tied for first place with Qualcomm at 14 points is Jump Trading who similarly have two unrated players still on a perfect 4-0 score: Qiuyi Han and Wim Glenn.  Between Qualcomm and Jump Trading, there is only one titled player in FM Andrey Krasnov (Jump Trading, rated 2265), so it will be interesting to see if these teams can maintain their early success!  Week 3 will see the accelerated pairing restrictions relaxed in favor of more traditional Swiss pairings, so these unrated players will soon face a tough test in the coming rounds.

Closely behind Qualcomm and Jump Trading, we have many top seeded teams with titled players – at 13.5 points is Lyft, lead by FM Kyron Griffith (4-0, 2470 rating) and tied at 13 team points are Wells Fargo, Susquehanna International Group, Deloitte, and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.  The top four player scores within each company contribute to the team standings, which can be seen here.

In the individual standings, 12 players remain perfect at 4-0, including three titled players in GM Ashwin Jayaram (Wells Fargo), FM Kyron Griffith (Lyft), and FM Movses Movsisyan (KP).  Grandmaster Akshayraj Kore (Capital One) was nicked for a draw by Gabriel Tkach (Credit Suisse) in round 3, both of whom are among the five players with 3.5/4. See the individual standings here.

Commentary + Lectures

FM Peter Giannatos had the call on week 2’s commentary, which can be replayed here.  Monday’s improvement seminar with GM Daniel Naroditsky was very well-received by almost 90 attendees, and league participants will be happy to know that we have scheduled “Chess in Business” seminars with GM/PhD David Smerdon (Behavioral Economist) and GM Matthew Sadler (IT Consultant and Infrastructure Architect).

The NACCL has already made history in its first season and we would like to thank so many teams and players for competing.  Onwards to week 3!

League Tactics Test

Lichess currently fixing embed codes to enable piece movement. In the meantime, you can click the square in the bottom right corner to solve on lichess directly. Direct Link to Study Here

Follow the League

Keep up with updates via this blog, our LinkedIn group, and Facebook page.