Category: Season 2

The sixth and final week of the second season of North American Corporate Chess League featured lots of action, with many decisive games and a strong comeback attempt.

Team Standings

Google was a complete powerhouse this season, with a robust roster of players including four players who earned a strong 9 points out of 12 – Chuanqi Shen (2303), Andrew Latham (2031), Bret Bryan (1981), and Benjamin Stern (2109).  The top four scores from each company form the team score, and Google’s score of 36 points was just enough for first place.  As a comparison, Susquehanna International Group scored 37 points in season 1, just ahead of runner-up Wells Fargo.

A very valiant comeback was staged by Deloitte, who was neck-and-neck with Google throughout Thursday night, ultimately earning second place, just half a point short of first place.  NM Saumil Padhya (9 points), Benjamin Blium (9), Pratik Thorwe (9), and Igor Alfimov (8.5) were Deloitte’s top scorers, earning a team score of 35.5 points.

Defending NACCL champions, Susquehanna International Group, settled for third place in season 2 with 33.5 team points, while Jump Trading (32.5) and Airbnb (32) round out the top 5.  The complete team standings, with prizes for the top 10 teams and some special category prizes, can be found here.

Individual Standings

In season 1, the individual standings were dominated by GM Ashwin Jayaram (Wells Fargo), who amassed a perfect 12-0 score.  This season was a bit different, with many strong expert and master players taking the lead in the individual standings at different times.  In the end, NM Sameer Mujumdar of Ernst & Young finished in first place with 10.5 points.

GM Jayaram led the pack of players of 9.5 on tiebreaks, earning the second-place plaque.  Janusz Kudelka (Airbnb) and FM Kyron Griffith (Lyft), also with 9.5 points, finished in third and fourth place.

In a big tie for fifth place were several players, including four Google players and three Deloitte players, and also NM Kevin Bu (Peak 6 Investments), NM Austin Jiang (SIG), NM Nicholas Desmarais (DRW Holdings).

Plaques are awarded to the top 15 players, on tiebreaks when necessary, but also the top 10 players rated under 1700, under 1100, and unrated.

The final individual standings can be found here.

Games

In round 12, NM Sameer Mujumdar (Ernst & Young) played a very important game vs fellow National Master Saumil Padhya (Deloitte).  With this victory, Mujumdar not only clinched first place for himself in the individual standings, but cost Deloitte the NACCL season 2 title – if Black had even drawn the game, Deloitte would have eclipsed Google in the final standings.

Google’s top performer on tiebreaks was Chuanqi Shen, a strong player with lichess blitz and bullet ratings over 2600.  In the final round, Shen defeated Colin Diamond of Airbnb:

Commentary

The final week was absolutely thrilling. Rewatch the final week commentary with FM Peter Giannatos here.

Weekly Tactics Test

Special Thanks

A very special thanks goes to New In Chess Magazine for sponsoring a free digital copy of their two most recent editions to all of players in the league.

To GM Daniel Naroditsky for leading our weekly improvement seminars.

And to GM’s Margvelashvili, Charbonneau, and Flores Rios for leading our “Chess and Business” seminars.

Players in the league may go back and rewatch all lecture using the link in the weekly newsletter.

Following the League + Next Season

Congratulations to all the winners!  Thank you for an excellent second season of the North American Corporate Chess League.  Season 3 will be in the fall of 2021, and we will have plenty of activities during the NACCL off-season!

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

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]

After five weeks of the North American Corporate Chess League’s second season, longtime frontrunners Google seem to have amassed a decisive lead with 32.5 points, though their lead is certainly not insurmountable.

With only 2.5 points separating second and tenth place, there is a lot to play for in the final week.  Prizes are not only awarded to the top 10 teams, but also the top 2 small companies (<50 employees), top financial service company, top IT company, and top law company.

In addition to the team prizes, there are 45 individual prizes up for grabs!

• Top 15 Overall
• Top 10 Under 1700
• Top 10 Under 1100
• Top 10 Unrated

As we prepare for the NACCL’s final two games, there is still so much to play for, as both the team and individual standings are subject to major changes in week 6.  Although Google has a commanding lead, surprises are still very possible.

Standings

Team Standings after Week 5

Rank	Team	Team Points	Top Scorer
1	Google	32.5	Benjamin Stern (9.0 points)
2	Deloitte	29.0	NM Saumil Padhya (8.0)
3	Qualcomm	28.5	Peter Bisgaard (8.0)
4	DRW	28.5	NM Nicholas Desmarais (8.0)
5	Jump Trading	28.0	FM Andrey Krasnov (7.5)
6	AirBnb	28.0	Janusz Kudelka (7.5)
7	SIG	28.0	Andy Lee (7.5) Kenny He (7.5)
8	Wells Fargo	27.5	GM Ashwin Jayaram (7.5) David Stamper (7.5)
9	Lyft	27.5	FM Kyron Griffith (8.5)
10	Uber	26.5	Punit Agrawal (7.5)

At the top of the individual standings is Google’s Benjamin Stern (9 points), who has won all 8 of his games in addition to two “half point byes” for missing week 1.  Stern upset the top-rated player (GM Ashwin Jayaram) in round 10, but will surely face two very strong opponents in week 6.

Just behind Stern are NM Sameer Mujumdar of Ernst & Young and FM Kyron Griffith of Lyft with 8.5 points, and they are followed by a pack of five players at 8 points.  See the individual standings here.

*New Feature* – Check out our new “Head to Head” feature which compiles the scores and games of company matchups.

Games

In a critical round 10 game, the top rated players from Lyft and Google faced off, with Lyft’s FM Kyron Griffith winning in an up-and-down game over Google’s Chuanqi Shen (2303) which proved important for Lyft’s chances to reach the leaderboard.

In addition to games between Masters, the NACCL has plenty of entertaining games in the middle of the pack, where due to the rapid time control of 15+5, blunders happen all the time.  In this game between Vikram Raja (Torchlight Investors) vs Sean Yu (Jump Trading), the game was never quite over until it was over:

Commentary and Lectures

With just one week left, the NACCL standings could not be more exciting – re-watch FM Peter Giannatos’ commentary here. 

Coming up on Monday is the last weekly improvement seminar, featuring GM Daniel Naroditsky.

The last “Chess and Business” Seminar with GM Mauricio Flores Rios was well received by all.

See weekly newsletter for video replay links (NACCL Participants Only).

Weekly Tactics Test

Special Thanks

A very special thanks goes to New In Chess Magazine for sponsoring a free digital copy of their two most recent editions to all of players in the league.

Follow the League

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

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]

After four weeks in the North American Corporate Chess League, the team and individual standings are packed at the top.  While Google leads the team standings with 27 points, Deloitte is just behind at 26 points.  Susquehanna International Group (24) and Jump Trading (23.5) round out the top 4, and there is pack of teams at 23 points.

GM Ashwin Jayaram suffered his first loss in two seasons against NM Saumil Padhya of Deloitte in a game which may prove critical in Deloitte’s aspirations for the NACCL title.  It was an interesting game with mistakes from both sides, but that is certainly to be expected from rapid chess!

Standings

In the individual standings, no one has a perfect 8 points.  Players from season 1 may remember that GM Ashwin Jayaram of Wells Fargo scored a perfect 12/12 last season, but that will not be the case this time, as GM Jayaram scored 0.5/2 in Thursday’s games.  There are five players tied at the top of the individual standings with 7/8 featuring players from Google and Deloitte.  Most of them will face each other in weeks 5 and 6, so we can look forward to a photo finish.

With two games played every week, the standings are completely in flux, and we can expect many changes by the end.  Last season’s champions, Susquehanna International Group, did not lead the standings after any week except the last!

*New Feature* – Check out our new “Head to Head” feature which compiles the scores and games of company matchups.

Commentary and Lectures

With just two weeks left, the NACCL standings could not be more exciting – re-watch FM Peter Giannatos’ commentary here.  

Coming up on Monday is weekly improvement seminar, featuring GM Daniel Naroditsky.

Wednesday 8:30pm will be our final “Chess in Business” Seminar with Mauricio Flores Rios, GM and PhD, who is an accomplished chess player and author but now works as an Applied Scientist at Amazon.

See weekly newsletter for video replay links (NACCL Participants Only).

Weekly Tactics Test

Special Thanks

A very special thanks goes to New In Chess Magazine for sponsoring a free digital copy of their two most recent editions to all of players in the league.

Follow the League

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

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]

It’s half time in the North American Corporate Chess League!  A clear leader emerged after three weeks, with Google (21 points) just ahead of Deloitte (20) and Jump Trading (19.5).  With the top four individual scores on each of the 42 teams counting for a team’s score, expect lots of movement as we enter the second half of season 2.

There were many high-level games this week, with a few National Masters and many other strong players being nicked for draws or even upset for the full point. For the first time this season there were several games between FIDE-titled players. Check out this very interesting game between NM Kevin Bu (Peak6 Investments) and NM Saumil Padhya (Deloitte):

In a very up-and-down game which featured an endgame pawn race and possible fortress, Alex Weil (Google) defeated Marshall Seid (Palantir):

Standings

After six rounds, GM Ashwin Jayaram (2571) a very familiar name at the top, is tied with Chuanqi Shen (2303) of Google at a perfect 6/6.  These two will face off next week, with GM Jayaram taking the White pieces.  FM Kyron Griffith (Lyft) is in clear third place with 5.5/6, followed by a huge pack at 5 points, including 2200+ rated players NM Saumil Padhya (Deloitte), FM Andrey Krasnov (Jump Trading), NM Siddharth Arun (Charles River Associates), NM Sameer Mujumdar (Ernst & Young), and NM Nicholas Desmarais (DRW).  See the individual standings here and team standings here.

*New Feature* – Check out our new “Head to Head” feature which compiles the scores and games of company matchups.

Commentary and Lectures

FM Peter Giannatos had the call on week 3 commentary, which can be replayed here. 

Coming up on Monday is weekly improvement seminar, featuring GM Daniel Naroditsky.

Many NACCL participants enjoyed GM Pascal Charbonneau’s seminar this past Wednesday, which can be replayed in the private link in our regular newsletter.

Our final “Chess in Business” seminar will feature Mauricio Flores Ríos, who is a chess Grandmaster and author but also has a PhD in Machine Learning and works as an Applied Scientist at Amazon.

See weekly newsletter for video replay links (NACCL Participants Only)

Weekly Tactics Test

Special Thanks

A very special thanks goes to New In Chess Magazine for sponsoring a free digital copy of their two most recent editions to all of players in the league.

Follow the League

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

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]

In the second week of the North American Corporate Chess League’s season 2, Google and Jump Trading moved to the lead with 14 points out of a possible 16.  With 470 total players competing this season, the competition is really starting to heat up.

“Checking in” for a week means that you be paired for 2 rapid games played at a time control of 15 minutes + 5 second increment.  New this season, players will receive up to four half point byes for any games they miss.

As always, the competition is quite strong, with titled players facing each other as early as round 4.  GM Ashwin Jayaram (2571) of Wells Fargo, who is the only Grandmaster this season, moved to 4/4 after defeating NM Sameer Majumdar (2247) of Ernst & Young.  Colin Diamond (Airbnb) played very well against FM Andrey Krasnov (Jump Trading) until he made an “automatic” capture which turned the tides:

Further down the leaderboard but still important for the overall standings was the following game between Harry Murphy (1628) of Sullivan & Cromwell and Kathan Shukla (1937) of Google:

Standings

After four rounds, there are no teams with perfect 16/16 scores.  Google and Jump Trading lead with 14/16.  Airbnb moves to third place with 13.5 points, and Wells Fargo rounds out the top four with 13 points.  The full team standings can be found here.

Ten players remain with perfect 4/4 scores in the individual standings, including five titled players and five unrated players.  These perfect scores will continue to be whittled down in future weeks, when Zoom monitoring will be added as a fair play safeguard.

Commentary and Lectures

NACCL Director FM Peter Giannatos had the call on week 2 commentary, which can be replayed here. 

Coming up on Monday is weekly improvement seminar, featuring GM Daniel Naroditsky. 

Wednesday’s “Chess in Business” lecture with GM Giorgi Margvelashvili was well-received (the recording is accessible for league participants who missed it).

Our next seminar is Wednesday, May 19, featuring GM Pascal Charbonneau, a two-time Canadian Chess Champion and senior portfolio manager at Vazirani Asset Management.

See weekly newsletter for video replay links (NACCL Participants Only)

Weekly Tactics Test

Follow the League

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

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]

05/09/21

On Thursday night, Season 2 of the North American Corporate Chess League got underway.  The NACCL, which launched season 1 in January 2021, is a brainchild of the Charlotte Chess Center in cooperation with lichess and Chessstream.

Registration for Season 2 matched the inaugural season’s number of teams (42), but with over 460 players, this is the largest ever league-style corporate chess competition in the world.  With the chess world still experiencing the effects of Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit and the rise of streaming and e-sports, it is great to see so many business professionals representing their companies in a serious chess competition.

To set it apart from other leagues, the NACCL features an inclusive, easy-to-understand, and flexible format.  An overwhelming number of the players in the league are casual players – only 14 of the 461 participants have ratings over 2200.  The top four scores from each company comprise a team’s score, so recreational players can compete without the fear that they are “bringing down” their colleagues.  There are also individual standings and prizes, plus chess improvement and chess in business seminars for all participants.

With a simple online check-in process and no downloads, roster submissions, memberships, or powerhouse chess teams from within the industry, the NACCL is very accessible and straightforward, meanwhile emphasizing engagement, team building, and the popularization of chess.

Return of the Big Guns

Many of last season’s top teams return to the NACCL, including defending champions Susquehanna International Group (SIG), and 2nd-6th place teams Wells Fargo, Deloitte, Qualcomm, Lyft, and Jump Trading. 

356 of the 463 players checked in for week 1, which consisted of two games of 15+5 (15 minutes plus 5 second increment per move).  It was a diverse yet strong player field in rounds 1 and 2, with many titled players.

There are many titled players competing, including Grandmaster Ashwin Jayaram (2571) or Wells Fargo, who scored a perfect 12/12 in last year’s NACCL, and FIDE Master Kyron Griffith (2490) of Lyft.  Kyron’s teammate, FM Varun Krishnan (2354) was upset in round 1 by Google’s Abhijeet Gijare after the “bongcloud” opening experiment led to quite a bad position for White.

NM Siddharth Arun (Charles River Associates) defeated Axel Zaritsky (Google) in the following round 2 game:

Players of all levels are competing in the NACCL, and with the rapid time control, upsets are frequent!  Cristhian Ortiz (Deloitte) pulled off the upset win over Expert David Stamper (Wells Fargo) in a nice finish:

Standings

With two rounds in the books, five teams scored the maximum 8 points – Google, Deloitte, Airbnb, Novetta, and Qualcomm.  Capital One is right half a point behind with 7.5 points.  The top four player scores within each company contribute to the team standings, which can be seen here.

In addition to team prizes, the league offers individual prizes for the top performers.  71 players move to 2-0 on the individual standings, but with an accelerated pairing system and closer matchups coming up in week 2, the number of perfect scores will be whittled down within a few rounds.  New this season, players will earn half point “byes” for up to 4 missed rounds, which will allow players and teams to remain competitive even if they must miss a week or two.  Individual standings can be found here.

Commentary and Lectures

NACCL Director and FIDE Master Peter Giannatos commentated live on week 1’s games, which you can replay here. 

Coming up on Monday is season 2’s first weekly improvement seminar, featuring GM Daniel Naroditsky. 

Next Wednesday, May 12 will be a “Chess in Business” Seminar with GM Giorgi Margvelashvili (equity research analyst and portfolio engineer at Fisher Investments).  All seminars are free to all NACCL participants!

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.

Tactics Test

Follow the League

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

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]