Past events

11/08/2024:

11/07/2024: October 2024 Grand Prix Champions: we celebrated our October 2024 Grand Prix Champions! A huge congratulations to all the winners especially Krish, Simon and Alison Foo-Karna who won max points in their section. It was an incredible atmosphere filled with excitement and camaraderie.

10/30/2024: Chess Cardinals Halloween Special: A Spooktacular Success! 🎃👻. What a fantastic night of chess and costumes! 🧙‍♂️🧛‍♀️🧟‍♂️ 38 players turned up tonight, dressed in their most creative Halloween attire. 👻🎃 From adorable little witches to fearsome army commando, we saw it all. Between the three rounds of intense chess battles, players enjoyed delicious Halloween-themed treats, including chocolates, cupcakes, and juice. 🍬🧁🧃. Special thanks to Aryansh and Abhishek Tripathy for sponsoring Oreos, crackers and fruit snack gummies!! We loved hosting this event and hope everyone had a blast! We’re thrilled to announce the Best Costume Award winners, selected by tournament directors: Rafael, Simon, Aakesh, Dhakshan, and Stella! 🏆 A huge thank you to all the players, parents, and volunteers who made this event possible. We wish everyone has a spooktacular Halloween tomorrow as well!

1/10/2024: 3rd Batch of Introductory Chess Workshop! we kicked off the first class of our 3rd batch of Free Introductory Chess Classes for beginners, and it was a fantastic start! It was wonderful to see the kids begin their journey in the fascinating world of chess. Their enthusiasm, curiosity, and engagement were truly inspiring! To top it off, this batch is particularly special as it’s an all-girls group, guided by our trainer, Vihaana Subhash, fostering an environment of empowerment and inclusivity for women in chess.

1/4/24: Happy New Year Chess Fans! Some quick updates from the club tonight…a) We kicked off 2024 with a bang at our first Thursday night event, with 44 players! It was amazing to see so much chess passion!

b) Speaking of celebrations, we got to witness a very special one tonight as our dear Aryan celebrated his birthday between rounds with his chess family! Video attached. Everyone loved the cake (it was delicious!), and we want to give a huge shoutout to Aryan’s parents Sudha Madhavi for not only such a treat but also donating $200 towards our mission! Your generosity is truly appreciated!

c) And it wasn’t just cake and candles on the menu tonight! We also crowned the December Monthly Grand Prix champions! In the Championship Section, our birthday boy Aryan took home the first-place trophy, while Kirill reigned supreme in the Reserve Section. Congratulations to both and to all the other medalists in each section!

d) We also celebrated the graduation of our second batch of introductory chess classes! We’re so proud of these new chess minds and can’t wait to see their journey unfold. Thanks to Abirami Sureshkumar who dedicated so much time to make this program a success! e) Finally, who got the “Super Mario collector chess set” donated by Aryansh and his parent Ruchira Padhi? Well, tonight, we held a lucky draw, and Vidhuna walked away with this incredible prize! Congratulations, Vidhuna! Chess Cardinals team extends immense gratitude to all our supporters and players. Together, we’re building a thriving chess community, one move at a time! Come join us for our next event and be part of the magic! ✨

12/21/23 to 1/1/24 WINTER CHESS CAMP: It was a huge success. Super excited to see so many young players enjoying our 2023-WINTER CHESS CAMP! Hats off to Aleksey Kazakevich for his hard work and commitment to the program!!

12/08/23 : Sharing some pics from our November Thursday Grand PRIX trophy ceremony!! Both the Championship and Reserve Sections winners were awarded with well-deserved trophies. Congratulations to Aryansh (championship) and Simon Lu (reserve) for the best scholastic performance. Kudos to all Nov winners and all the participants who made this event in November a great success! For December Grand Prix, we are planning a special celebration as our 2023 wrap up and more details to follow. Stay tune!!!

09/08/23 : Hats off to Subhash, for your leadership in overseeing our Thursday Grand Prix Chess Tournament yesterday!! As the chief Tournament Director, he conducted an outstanding event. Big thanks to Bikram for stepping up voluntarily to assist Subhash. You both are truly amazing! Another fantastic lecture by our National Master Lev! Young players eagerly absorbed his chess wisdom. Lev’s passion for teaching chess is a blessing to us all!!

8/24/23 – – Master Card Donation: What a fantastic day! We would like to express our gratitude to Mastercard for their generous $200 donation!!! This is made possible as a part of their 1:1 Matching Gifts Program, where Mastercard matches eligible employee donations up to $15K a year. We also want to thank all the parents/players who are Mastercard employees in St. Louis for making this happen!!! Together, we can build a strong chess community that promotes accessibility, diversity, and inclusivity. Your donations are tax-deductible & 100% of all proceeds will be used for attaining Chess Cardinals overall mission in promoting chess.

8/17/23 – Quick update on our last Thursday night events! A huge shoutout to Lev, National Master, for delivering an outstanding lecture on the topic: “3 Clicks” at Chess Cardinals Center. The turnout was fantastic with players of all skill levels joining in and thoroughly enjoying the session. Lev is a Ballwin native, >2400 USCF-rated, and a former New York State Champion (2018). This lecture is designed for chess players of any skill levels and learn how to see tactics over the board. If you are looking to improve your chess skills and take your game to the next level, join us for an exciting evening of chess education.

8/4/23 – Chess Cardinals Summer CAMP-2 was a huge success. Super excited to see so many young players enjoying our wonderful summer chess camp!! Hats off to coach Aleksey Kazakevich for his great efforts!

7/2/23 – 🌟 Chess Cardinals Fundraising T-Shirt Sale for Kids🌟 We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our generous patrons, Matthew Gross, Mukil Marthandan, and Bindia Mukil, for their invaluable contribution of 60 T-shirts (different sizes available) for this fundraiser. The funds raised from this sale will enable us to organize more affordable tournaments, provide free weekly beginner introductory classes, and actively promote girls’ participation in chess. By supporting this initiative, you will directly contribute to the growth and development of our programs, fostering a love for chess among children in our community.

6/30/23 – What a thrilling Finale night for our monthly Grand Prix Chess tournament! Thanks to all the participants and parents for their valuable support. 🏆🤩 This month, we had a turnout of 81 distinct players in our Thursday tournament. The competition was fierce. We also want to thank everyone who has donated to our Trophy Fund (https://givebutter.com/Oze1m4). The Grand Prix Thursday Tournament is truly our collective win!! In the Championship section, reserved for players with a peak rating >700, Neerav emerged as the grand champion with an impressive score of 25 points! Anu secured the 2nd position, followed by Suman in 3rd, Liam in 4th, and Dhakshan & Satish sharing the 5th spot. In the Reserve section for players with a rating of 700 or below, Tanish claimed the grand champion title with even more impressive 27.5 points and his brother Kavish narrowly missing the top honor with 27 points. Rithvik came in 3rd, Prajith in 4th, and Akshaj in 5th.

5/26/23 – 🌟🏆📚 What an incredible evening it was at Chess Cardinals May Grand Prix Finale! 🎉🏆📚. We witnessed an exhilarating finish to the Thursday Tournaments, and it wouldn’t have been possible without your overwhelming support! We also want to thank everyone who has donated to our Trophy Fund (https://givebutter.com/Oze1m4). Now, let’s give a round of applause to our remarkable winners! 🏆🎉 Mira claimed the GRAND PRIX CHAMPION trophy with an impressive 20.5 points!!! Rising Girl Power in Chess!!! closely followed by Liam in second place. Shrinithi, Tanish, Sai, Jaden, Dhakshan, and Tejas also demonstrated their exceptional skills, securing well-deserved spots in the top rankings. Congratulations to the winners of the top sections as well! Dennis, Aryansh, Suman, Aryan, Vinay, Harjas, Nishant, Hithesh, and Diya. Keep up the great work!

5/22/23 – Quick ‘Serious Sunday Swiss75’ update for everyone. Congratulations to Divish, Sparsh & Evan on winning prize money in “Above 1000” section!! 🤩🤩. U1000 section had a clear winner with Sai winning all four games. Runner up trophy was shared by Aryan and Satish. Thanks everyone for participating!

4/27/23 – Hey everyone! We had an amazing Grand Finale Night for the APRIL Grand Prix Thursday Night with 42 players in attendance. We want to give a huge shoutout to Robert Hudson for donating notation books as prizes, it was much appreciated! We also want to thank everyone who has donated to our Trophy Fund (https://givebutter.com/Oze1m4). The Grand Prix Thursday Tournament is truly our collective win!! We would like to extend our congratulations to our overall Champion Eshaan and runner-up Nishant! Additionally, we gave out a lot of additional prizes, with the 3rd prize being shared between Gokul and Prajith. This time, we also gave trophies to the top section runner-up, which was shared by Suman and Kapleeswar! Last but not least, congratulations to the 6 players (Tanish, Sai, Dhakshan, Aryan, William, and Diya) who received Notation Books for their great performance over this month!! We also had a free lecture by Sujay, which went extremely well. U1100 players got to understand the pawn endgames and discussed various interesting scenarios. Shout out to Sujay for his amazing lecture!

4/8/23 – 10 additional tournament sets! Super excited to note and appreciate Tarandeep Singh for your generous donation to Chess Cardinals! We got 10 additional sets of boards and pieces today!!! We had 50 participants during our last Thursday Night Tournament. More boards & pieces really help. Thanks a ton!!!

4/2/23 – APRIL 2nd Serious SUNDAY SWISS!!!! 16 players participated today at our Sunday Serious Swiss! Sparsh won the OPEN section with 2.5 out of 3 and donated part of his winning back to the club! U1100 section had a clear winner with Neerav scoring 4 out of 4!!! You guys rock! Remember to sign up for next week.

3/27/23 – SUMMER CAMP ANNOUNCEMENT!!!! Announcing our first Summer Camp!!! Inviting players with either peak USCF rating of 800 or more OR, chess.com regular rating of 1100 or more. Aleksey Kazakevich & Gaaya will be our instructors for this camp. Details provided below on the flyer. 🙌🙌🙌 SPACE IS LIMITED; please sign up fast!

3/27/23 – In-kind Donations!!!! We just received 10 more new clocks!! Many thanks to Abirami Sureshkumar & family whose donation to Chess Cardinals Club made this possible!! For last few weeks, we have many more new players at our chess club and honestly, we were struggling to run Thursday nights smoothly. This donation was so timely and much appreciated!! Thanks a ton!! We also some more tables and some great comfy chairs from Edward Jones (in-kind donation)!!! Thanks Jose, it means a lot and much appreciated 😍😍🙌🙌🙌

3/27/23 – March GRAND PRIX FINALE!!!! It was the March Grand Prix finale night yesterday and 45 players participated in this final event! Max attendance for any event at Chess Cardinals. Grand Prix Winners for the month of March were 1st place & Grand Champion: Meghna; 2nd place: Karthikeya; 3rd place: Anagha; 4th & 5th place shared: Eshan. P & Gokul. Kudos to all the winners 🏆🏆🏅 you guys showed up every week and played really wonderful chess!!! Hope everyone who played at least one Thursday night enjoyed the ambience and spirit! We sincerely thank all the donors who contributed to our chess trophy-fund & made this event possible. You have brought immense joy to these kids. Much appreciated. We want to continue this every month. Here is the link once more. https://givebutter.com/Oze1m4 Also, what an amazing class by Sujay Sureshkumar yesterday night! This was his third chess lecture and we loved to see kids enjoying & engaging in discussions. Concurrent 1:1 chess for absolute beginners by Abirami Sureshkumar was also wonderful. Thanks a lot for volunteering!!!

3/27/23 – March Monday Knight Finale! A great finish to our March Monday Knights!! 20 players in total. Kudos to Adithya Ganesh for winning all 4 rounds and getting a free entry for the next April Monday Knights. Scores are updated on the USCF website. Sparsh Panja who drew against a higher-rated opponent and reached a new rating high of 1387!! Evan Jin who defeated a higher-rated opponent and reached a new rating high of 1202!

3/16/23 – FREE CHESS Lecture Night: Great presentation by Sujay! U1000 players had a wonderful interaction with the speaker during the lecture. We also run 1:1 introductory training for complete beginners and people loved it! kudos to our parent volunteer who helped out our newbies! We have more volunteers signed up for taking free lectures. Stay tuned! We also saw an increase in attendance for Thursday night tournament (44 players). Thanks to Bikram Sahoo for the snacks! Kids loved it 😍.

3/12/23 – Chesterfield Serious Swiss: Some great games at Today’s Chesterfield Serious Swiss!! Brooks won the OPEN section while Tejas won the U1100 section. Congratulations to all 18 players who came to the club and played some serious chess!! Sparsh Panja who had a great tournament today (hosted by the Chess Cardinals Club) ! He defeated a higher-rated opponent and reached a new rating high of 1284!

3/2/23 – Thursday Grand Prix: We are going to start a “Thursday Grand Prix”. Based on all the “Thursday tournaments” in a month, we will tally up points and give trophies to reward improvement in chess skill and encourage participation. For each night’s attendance, you get 3 points for showing up, and for each Win 1 point, each Draw or 1/2-Byes 0.5 point (we will use the USCF cross-table for the event). We will seek volunteers who can help us maintain this spreadsheet. You can view the current tracker here. Regardless of which sections you played, prizes include: Top Prize 1st (Champions Trophy) and 2nd Prize trophy for each Month.

We do not want to increase the $2 entry fee for this tournament. In order to meet the expense for this Grand Prix and adding other trophies/medals, we have to seek separate donations/sponsorships from local businesses or corporations who have community-building grants/funds. If you are willing to donate to this cause, you could contribute to GiveButter Trophy fund campaign.

3/2/23 – Inaugural CHESS LECTURE: An amazing Thursday night! Started with an excellent chess lecture on “Elimination of the defense” by Sujay Sureshkumar! And followed by our biggest Thursday attendance so far. Record 43 players played a fantastic 3 round G/25; d5 2-section format tournament. Thanks to players and families who brought back-up clocks! It definitely takes a village!!

2/26/23 – Chesterfield Serious SWISS75 Tournament!!! Exciting finish to a very Serious Swiss!! Abishek won the Open section, beat higher rated players & took home $75. There was also a crazy 4-way tie for second place. Krish took home the first place U1100 trophy. Way to go! Vihaana got second—girl power 💪!

2/23/23 – 50th Tournament Milestone!!! Busy Thursday night for the 50th tournament for Chess Cardinals and total 30 players at yesterday’s “Thursday G/25; d5 dual-rated open tournament”. Welcome to all new players! Jacob, Abheer, Sandeep and Sujana. Happy to see new adult players! Hope more parents to follow suit!

2/19/23 – Inaugural Chesterfield Sunday Serious Swiss (G/75). We started a new longer-duration format chess starting today with Prize Money and Trophies!!! 16 players and some really amazing games. National Master Julian won the OPEN section and the $100 top prize. Vihas secured 3 wins in the U1100 section closely followed by Aaryan (2pts). Congratulations to everyone who participated!

2/16/23 – It’s only $2 for 3 rounds of G/25; d5 (3SS) and OPEN to everyone. Young or adult. Scholastic or non-scholastic. 37 players played tonight!!! If you like this, please support us & spread the word.

2/12/23 – A great start to our “Inaugural CHESTERFIELD OPEN,” USCF-rated, G60/d5, 4SS tournament this Sunday (2/12/23). FREE ENTRY for everyone this week! 31 players played in two sections. https://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202302120582.0-0xXJ7vPmOjDo7ZBkXFTdZCLCCOXrfTrHxUNCg

2/09/23. This was our first Thursday G/25 tournament at the new location. 33 players played tonight. Congratulations to Nawneet and Charles for winning the TOP and RESERVE sections respectively! We definitely have space to accommodate more. Please spread the word! Special mention & thanks to Jitesh Gupta and Mukil Krishna Marthandan for helping out!

2/6/23 – What an eventful first tournament at Chesterfield Mall. 14 players registered and started playing and halfway through everyone had to evacuate because of a Fire-Alarm🔥. We lost an hour waiting outside for Fire Dept clearance and finally everybody agreed to cancel this round. We will continue this tournament from next Monday.

2/1/23 – Happy to inform everyone that Chess Cardinals has a new official club location at Chesterfield Mall, an open 3600 sq ft space now!! Thanks to Staenberg Group (TSG) for donating the space to us! We are relocating all our Chess Club activities to Chesterfield Mall (Unit#156) from next Monday onwards (2/6/2023). The club is on the ground floor, near Arch Pickleball/Badminton Courts. We recommend parking near the Cheesecake Factory and take escalator or elevator down to ground floor.

1/30/23 – A perfect end to our JANUARY MONDAY KNIGHTS! Total 18 players played in our G/60;d5 format. Congratulations to Alvin and Devanshi for scoring 3.5/4 this month. Scores are updated. https://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202301304042

1/26/23 – Another busy Chess Cardinals-Thursday night! 26 players. Congratulations Suman for winning the top section! Out of total 8 girls yesterday, 4 played in the top section!! Scores are updated. https://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202301261522.0

1/19/23 – Wonderful turnout last Thursday at YMCA Chesterfield. Congratulations to Avy, Kevin and Joseph for winning all 3 games! It was Joseph’s first over the board tournament and what an amazing start! http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202301121622.0

1/12/23 – Happy New YEAR!!! completed 41st Tournament last night. 23 players played yesterday. Congratulations to Steven for a big rating jump! Rating is now available on USCF. http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202301121622.0

12/26/22 – DECEMBER Series of Chess Cardinals Monday Knights is completed. Kudos to Alvin for a great performance!! Glad to see a total of 17 players this month. Happy Holidays & Cheers!!

12/15/22 – BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir (temporary location): YMCA had to cancel our Thursday Tournament due to conflicting Theatre Rentals, but heartfelt thanks to our friend Dharmesh Sharma who has offered us an alternative space for two weeks to conduct Thursday Chess Tournament (12/8/2022, and 12/15/2022). It is a beautiful facility (BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir) in Bridgeton, MO with a big auditorium, plenty of tables/chairs, and a big parking lot in the front. Address: BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir, 12305 Natural Bridge Road, Bridgeton, MO 63044. Rating is now updated (Series I and Series II)

11/28/22 –Most players in G/60 format! November Chess Cardinals at McDonald’s is completed and 18 players played this month in a G/60; d5 format. Kyle, Alvin and Devanshi shared the top with 3 points each. Jason played his first USCF rated tournament and did great! We encourage all new players to start playing over the board chess with us!

11/14/22 –1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY….yippee!!! We completed our 1-year anniversary as a USCF chess affiliate. Last year on Nov 14, we organized our first ever tournament at Chesterfield Firehouse Sub with just 4 players! One year later, we have now conducted 32 tournaments, and 113 players from Chesterfield/St. Louis area played at Chess Cardinals. Thanks everyone!

11/03/22 –Another good week with 33 players including 11 girls! It is wonderful to see more girls participating now and this is just a beginning! Thanks to all the players who arrived early and brought their own clocks/sets, even though we didn’t use them. YMCA gave us two additional tables and chairs and we have now capacity to hold up to 40 players. See you all next week!

10/27/22 –Age is just a number! the best is yet to come! We welcome our 3 new adult players tonight! Joshua, Mukil and Robert… hope you had a great first over-the board experience! We had the best turnout so far, with 36 players including 10 girls and we continued to split the games into TOP section and RESERVE section. Gaaya did some multitasking playing in the top section along with helping Ben TD tonight!

Please remember that we are here to play chess, learn something new, make good friends and have lots & lots of fun! We learn how to take win or loss gracefully, over the board and in life in general as a natural extension and we urge parents to encourage kids/scholastic players to be at their best etiquette. Yes, USCF points matter but few points upset will not matter in long-run. Chess is not a 100 m Race but is more like a marathon!

10/24/22 –Happy Diwali! We concluded our OCTOBER series of Monday Knights today and what a fantastic month it turned out to be! We had a total of 14 players with 6 players >1500 rating. We played 4 rounds of chess and congrats to Kyle who won 3.5 out of 4.0! All our scholastic players did really well. Next week is Halloween and we will not have our Monday knights but we will resume on 07NOV2022 for our NOVEMBER series.

10/13/22 – Fall is here and what a great joy to see colors changing! We had 28 players and some great chess games tonight. Welcome to all new players who joined us tonight including three beginners. Two players with 3 wins each, kudos to Divish and Adithya! Well played. Parents are insisting that we create two sections instead of one big open format and looks like we may have to! Stay tuned for more updates next week.

09/26/22 – Wrapped up Sept Series of Monday Knight. We played the last game of this series tonight and congrats to Yashaswini for winning 3/4 games and reaching peak USCF rating. We had 14 players showed up altogether this month including Adults and Scholastic players. http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202209266102 We will start our OCTOBER series from 03OCT onwards and looking forward to seeing everyone back!

09/22/22 – What an amazing turnout tonight!!! Army of Chess Cardinals at YMCA, Chesterfield. 32 players excluding Ben, making it the best attendance so far. We encourage players to bring clocks if they can while we try to fundraise for more. Thanks to everyone who volunteered and helped in running this tournament without any chaos!

08/31/22 – No More Monday Blues!!! Monday Knights (August Series) has concluded at the LAMP & LANTERN McDonald’s, and everyone wants more of this Monday series! William topped the August Series with 4 wins out of 5 games. Kudos! We had 16 players showed up altogether this month including Adults and Scholastic players. http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?202208292552-30522598. We will start our SEPT series from 05SEPT onwards and looking forward to seeing everyone back!

08/011/22 – Once again, 26 players including 2 new novice players joined tonight at Chess Cardinals weekly YMCA Thursday Open (G/25; d5). $2 dollar to YMCA was strictly implemented upon YMCA’s request. Thanks to all the parent-volunteers who helped with receipt verification and overall conduct of the tournament!! Highest rated player was >2000, which is a first in our club and hopefully inspire more high-rated players to show up. If it happens, we will start a separate TOP section for them.

08/04/22 – 26 players including 3 new novice players joined tonight at Chess Cardinals weekly YMCA Thursday Open (G/25; d5). This is a new record attendance at our club. We are building a pipeline for future and yeah, future seems bright! Spread the word please!

07/25/22 – Successfully completed the “Monday Knights” for the month of July 2022! This series is restricted to scholastic players above 1000 rating and adults with any rating. Total 14 players played this series. We had a surprise visitor, “The Chess Traveller & Pioneer” and our good friend, Mike Abron played here tonight! Please note that the next Monday Knight series starts on 01AUG2022. One game a week (time control G/60; d5). The Monday Chess Cardinals Knights tournament runs for the month and has a weekly round every Monday night (01Aug, 08Aug, 15Aug, 22Aug & 29Aug). Games are submitted to the USCF at the end of month.

06/30/22 – Gaaya was at WashU for summer STAR research program. “In her absence”, Ben coordinated the tournament for the first time. 4 first-time players at Chess Cardinals in today’s tournament (Ashton, Kevin, Aditya, and Sparsh).

06/02/22 – Today was the last day of school at Parkway School District. More than a dozen players played tonight! YMCA confirmed that they may not be able to provide more table/chairs than what is allocated now, and we may have to find an additional space outside of YMCA.

05/26/22 – 16 players played tonight and 6 girls! We will need to ask YMCA for more space/tables for our next week’s games! Tournament Director, Gaaya also implemented board numbers to facilitate smooth chess games and avoid fuss & running around to find an empty board to play! Martin, first timer at Chess Cardinals played wonderfully tonight, and it is a delight to see a growing scholastic interest in our community. Hope everyone got some good practice to play at St. Louis Chess Club-“Show Me Classic” over this coming weekend! Good luck

05/12/22 – Thanks to St.Louis Chess Club for donating a chess set & clock! Much appreciated! Devanshi C won all her 3 games and kudos! #chessqueen

05/05/22 – Did you plead or played the 5th on Cinco de Mayo? A fun night to remember!! Congratulations to Karthik D for emerging as the clear winner with 3 wins! TD Gaaya had a great photoshoot with kids! Go Chess Cardinals!

4/28/22 YMCA Tournament: Amazing turn out tonight and Congratulations to Pritish who won all his 4 games! Awesome champ!!

4/21/22 Casual YMCA Play. YMCA provided nice tables/chairs for our Chess Tournaments, though it is little challenging for small kids! Hopefully it wouldn’t deter our young players from playing at Chess Cardinals.

4/14/22 Casual YMCA Play

11/14/21 – Firehouse Subs Tournament