Overview
The tenth season of the North American Corporate Chess League kicked off this past Thursday evening, with a total of 468 players participating in three rounds of online rapid chess, representing 37 teams!
The NACCL is an online recreational chess league for North American companies, with teams including at least four and as many as 15 players. Each Thursday night, players engage in three rounds of 10+2 rapid chess online, and each company team’s top four scores count towards the total. This season runs from October 3 all the way to the final games on November 14, with six weeks of play consisting of three rounds each (skipping Halloween Thursday!). Three Grandmasters, four IMs, five FMs, and numerous NMs and experts participated in the action this week.
Team Standings
Only one team had a perfect score across all four top boards on Thursday. That was Jane Street, led by FMs Jacob Furfine and David Peng, with identical ratings of 2418. Each scored a perfect 3/3, alongside Jesse Sun and Leonardo DiPerna.
Four teams finished Thursday’s rounds just behind Jane Street, scoring 11.5 out of a possible 12: Capital One, Stripe, Jump Trading, and Pricewaterhouse Coopers. DRW Holdings is in clear sixth place with 11 points, while Roblox in seventh with 10.5, and IBM, Hewlett Packard, and NVIDIA rounding out the top ten with 10.
Individual Standings
Thirty out of the 400+ participants are currently on 3/3 individually, with players vying for individual prizes as well as team titles. GM Andrey Baryshpolets of Pricewaterhouse Coopers was the only Grandmaster to finish with a perfect score, with many titled players dropping half or even full points to lower-rated opponents. Competition was fierce! Below you can find annotations for six of the top games from this past week, featuring players on top teams such as Jane Street, DRW Holdings, and Jump Trading.
Game Analysis
NM Dennis Norman annotates fun league games.
If you feel as though you played an interesting game, please feel free to send Dennis a link to the game via lichess.
Commentary and Lectures
GM Kayden Troff commentated live, which you can replay here. GM Troff and GM Naroditsky will alternate the weekly Monday Chess Improvement lecture at 8:00pm Eastern!
Season 10 Partners
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