Charlotte Chess Center Hosts Spring Norm Tournaments: Full Recap!
From April 16 to 20, 2025, the Charlotte Chess Center hosted our 34th GM/IM Norm Invitational tournament, featuring a GM norm section and two IM norm groups. Some of the CCC's most notable players (including one of our coaches!) participated in the nine-round event, which saw one player achieve a norm and several others post very impressive results. This recap will highlight some of the most notable games and performances from last weekend!
Each section consisted of ten players who faced off against each other in a round robin format. The top group included Grandmasters Bartlomiej Macieja, Magesh Panchanathan, and Gabor Nagy, with IMs Liam Putnam, Tianqi Wang, and Alice Lee vying for GM norms. The latter was the USCF's "Young Player of the Year" in 2024 and scored an endgame victory early in the tournament over FM Ryan Amburgy.
One of the more local participants in this event was FM Donald Johnson, a frequent presence at CCC events. Johnson wasn't quite able to score an IM norm as he started on 0/3, but recovered his form later in the tournament, including a win over fellow FM Gauri Shankar.
Fifteen-year-old FM Isaac Wang was the only player to achieve a norm, scoring 5.5/9 and ending up in clear second place! Wang actually started on 3.5/4 and only lost one game the rest of the way en route to an IM norm.
Here's Isaac Wang's victory against CCC regular IM Tianqi Wang in the second round:
IM Liam Putnam, the third highest-rated 16 year old in the USCF, finished atop the field with 6.5/9. Putnam went undefeated and won three games with the black pieces in this tournament, giving him norm chances heading into the last round against FM Shankar. Putnam created some heavy pressure as the game headed into an ending, and at times had a winning position, but it was difficult to find the right path with little time.
Among the participants in the IM norm event (Group A) was one of the Charlotte Chess Center's coaches, NM Alexander Crump.
Crump played several crazy games in the tournament, including holding a miracle endgame in the first round (viewable here) as well as this victory against IM Tamas Petenyi:
IM Andrei Macovei was the top finisher in the IM A section, scoring 7/9 and not losing a single game. Also impressive was the performance of young NM Daniel Yang, who achieved a plus score of 5/9 despite being one of the lowest-rated participants!
Several of the CCC's most notable players competed in the IM B section, including two of our top juniors. FM James Chirilov and NM Andrew Wu are both regular participants in CCC events and faced off in the first round. The game was nearly flawless by FM Chirilov, who achieved some little positional advantages and eventually created lasting pressure on black's queenside.
Despite a 1.5/5 start, NM Wu actually finished on a positive note as he didn't lose any of his final four games, including this victory against WGM Dina Belenkaya:
WGM Belenkaya streamed the tournament live on her Twitch channel, with VODs still viewable in the archive! Dina won three games in a row early in the event and rebounded from her loss to Andrew Wu with a last-round win against IM Emil Stefanov. Like many of the top games from this tournament, it came down to an imbalanced endgame with both sides low on time.
GM Christhian Camilo Rios Gomez and NM James Nguyen placed atop the standings in the IM B group, each scoring 5.5/9. While Nguyen didn't norm, his excellent performance against quality opposition gained him new peak ratings in both USCF and FIDE!
Full standings of the tournament with USCF rating results can be viewed at this link. Additionally, the entire collection of games from this event can be viewed right here on chess.com.
A big thanks as always to FM and CCC founder Peter Giannatos for organizing the event, to Kelly Centrelli for the photographs in this recap, and to all the players and arbiters who made this tournament happen.
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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!
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NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
