Chess Zone News December 2025
Brush with greatness at Chess Zone
World Champ Visits Chess Zone!
GM Susan Polgar, Women’s World Champion from 1996-1999, visited Chess Zone on November 15 for a lecture, Q&A, and book signing.
Table of Contents
This Month in CZN
Game of the Month!
Coach Bella Annotates
Bella Belegradek is the 3rd highest-rated woman to ever live in Georgia, with a peak rating of 2107. She is a long-time Kid Chess coach and has led many Eastside Elementary teams to state titles. Chess Zone News welcomes her as our new Game of the Month and Tactics columnist. If you want her to consider one of your games or if you have an interesting tactic to share, please send your pgn file to bella.belegradek@kidchess.com.
Make sure to see the new Tactics column from Bella further down!
Susan Polgar Visits Chess Zone
Chess Zone was thrilled to host the legendary Susan Polgar on Saturday, November 15 for a special members-only event at Chess Zone. We had a full house of close to 60 attendees. Her powerful and inspiring message during a lecture featuring game analysis and a rousing Q&A session left both our young and adult players motivated and full of passion for the game. She signed copies of her book Rebel Queen: The Cold War, Misogyny, and the Making of a Grandmaster, addressed personally to attendees. There are additional signed copies available at Chess Zone for $20–make sure to pick up a copy on your next visit. (They also make great holiday gifts!)
Chess Zone Tactics
Coach Bella highlights tactics from games played at Chess Zone the past month. Some directly arise from the game, some are interesting possibilities from the path not taken.
Upcoming Chess Zone Events
Sunday, December 14th – ACTION G/60+5
Saturday, December 20th – SCHOLASTIC G/25d5
Sunday, December 21st – Generations G/60+5 with GCA
Saturday, December 27th – Holiday Quads G/60+5
Sunday, December 28th – RAPID G/10+5 Championship
Sunday, December 28th – BLITZ G/5+2 Championship
Chess Zone News is edited by Dan Lucas with contributions from Bella Belegradek, Doug Cox, Matthew Hardman, and Chess Zone staff. Thank you to Paul Truong for the photos of the Polgar event.
CZN: Summer 2025 Recap
Chess Zone News: September 2025
GM Susan Polgar Coming to Chess Zone on November 15
Chess Zone & Kid Chess are excited to announce that we will host former Women's World Champion
Susan Polgar for a lecture, Q&A, and book signing on November 15th--Save the Date! Her book is Rebel Queen: The Cold War, Misogyny, and the Making of a Grandmaster.
The event will be open to all Chess Zone members. Further details to come, but the lecture will be Polgar discussing and analyzing one of her favorite games or two.
Chess Zone News returns after our summer break! We're now resuming our coverage of Chess Zone events on a monthly basis--please send items of interest to dan.lucas@kidchess.com.
Click here for all Chess Zone crosstables
Click here for this month's LiChess game downloads
In the photo above, Alex Rutten is shown after winning the Chess Zone Rated Blitz in August with an amazing 9.5 out of 10. Only in round six did Chris Chambers manage to nick him for a draw. We're saying goodbye to Alex--who was a two-time Georgia representative at the Denker Tournament of High School Champions and a popular Kid Chess coach for the last 2 1/2 years--for now with mixed feelings: He is now attending Columbia University in New York. We wish him all the best and hope that he plays in some Chess Zone events when he comes home during school breaks.
We had 21 players compete in two secions in our June Action event. In the Championship (1800+) Andrew Jiang and Saharsh Satosh tied for first with 3.5/4 after drawing their round 3 game. In the Amateur and Reserve section (U1800), Levon Ayrapetyan took clear first with 3.5/4. Eight players competed in a rapid event with Dhruva Movva taking first place with 3.5/4.
Crosstables: " <
We had 139 players compete in our July Game of the Week event (one game per week over five weeks with a G/60+5 time control) The game below caught the attention of Laszlo Spencer, one of our Kid Chess coaches who has annotated it for us (alongside some LiChess computer analysis utilizing Stockfish).
Crosstable: 
A Long Hot Summer At Chess Zone!
June Action and Rapid Events
Games from the June Action Event:
July Game of the Week
Chess Zone News February 2025
Streaming Comes to Chess Zone!
Welcome to Chess Zone News (CZN), a monthly offering from your home for rated tournament chess in metro Atlanta. Please send your games and photos from Chess Zone events for possible inclusion in a future edition of CZN to Dan Lucas. You can send full games or simply interesting tactical or strategic positions. PGN preferred.
Events covered this month:
Featured Event: Chess Zone February Sunday Classic
Dean Bowler Wins Chess Zone MLK Rapid
Featured Event: Chess zone february sunday classic
On February 23, 19 players competed in three sections in a G/75+30 event Please click here for the crosstables.
Arjun Garg won the Championship Section with 2.5 out of 3, and jumping from Class B to Class A in the process. Arjun started the tournament with a 1794 rating but closed with a jump to 1833.
Jonathan Lian, Jr. had a perfect 3.0 in the Amateur Section, also jumping a full class level by simply rearranging the digits in his rating from 1246 to 1426.
In the Reserve Section, the provisionally-rated Alex Kay took 3.0 in only his eighth over-the-board event ever to now sport a four-digit rating: 1023 (P25). As this was his 25th rated game, after his next one his rating will now be an established one.
But the reason this event is our featured one this month is because of an exciting development: The introduction of streaming. Allysa Sullivan, who streams on Twitch under the name GremlinPlaysChess, used our brand new DGT board to not only stream all three of her games in the Reserve Section, but also to stream casual games between rounds. You can see the stream here:
Streaming will continue at select events. Please follow Gremlin’s schedule page on Twitch and also follow her on Instagram.
We hope to begin streaming from our top boards soon as well. Stay tuned!
More Action from the February Classic:
Dean Bowler Wins Chess Zone MLK Rapid
Kid Chess coach Dean Bowler continues his torrid streak of late by taking the Chess Zone MLK Rapid event by a full point over Chris Chambers and Richard Jones. 20 players competed in the G/15+10 event on January 19. In this game annotated by Arturo Imberno, Bowler’s French Defense holds up against Chambers’ Alapin Gambit:
More Action from the MLK Rapid:
Coach Arturo Annotates Selected Games
Arturo Mesa Imberno is a Kid Chess coach. Originally from Cuba, he has a FIDE rating of 2106. If you’re interested in having your Chess Zone game annotated by Coach Arturo, please send it as a PGN file or LiChess study to Dan Lucas.
Chess Zone TV!
Herman ‘Mr. Checkmate’ Jones takes on Lee Creel ‘The Real Deal’ at Chess Zone! Who wins game 2 of this exciting blitz match? (See last month’s newsletter for game 1.)
Chess Zone News is edited by Dan Lucas. Contributors include: Arturo Mesa Imberno, Zac Bolton, Ryan Darling, Doug Cox, Jane Baxter, Sarah Pak, Michael Farris.
Chess Zone News January 2025
Welcome to Chess Zone News (CZN), a new monthly offering from your home for rated tournament chess in metro Atlanta. Please send your games and photos from Chess Zone events for possible inclusion in a future edition of CZN to Dan Lucas. You can send full games or simply interesting tactical or strategic positions. PGN preferred.
Events covered this month:
Featured Event: December 2024 Holiday Action Quads
Featured Event: December 2024 Holiday Action Quads
In between Christmas and New Years, we had 35 players show up for our Chess Zone Holiday Action Quads. The event on December 29 was divided into 7 quads and a small Swiss. Please click here for the crosstables.
The top quad ended in a three-way tie between Damian Krotov (2104), Dean Bowler (1972), and Sourish Uday Kavalae (1886). Each player had two draws and a win.
Also notable was in Quad 5, where Isabelle Chelladorai earned a perfect 3.0. She started the event at 1424 but tells CZN that she is excited to now be over 1500. (Her post event rating is 1520.)
Our CZ team was able to gather a number of games from the event, which you can play through below. Send us your games, preferably annotated and as a PGN file or a link to a LiChess study, by clicking this button (CZ photos too!):
Quad 1
Damian Krotov, Dean Bowler, Sourish Kavale (l-r)
Quad 2
Daniel Shapiro (not pictured: Joseph Francis)
Quad 3
Ryan Sceusi
Quad 4
Siddarth Basavaraju (not pictured: Jane Baxter)
Quad 5
Isabelle Chelladorai
Quad 6
Matia Zapata Sanchez
Quad 7
Sarath Chadalawada
Small Swiss
Alex Zheng
Championship Section
Alex Zheng
U1200 Section
Vadym Orlov
On Sunday, January 5, we had 22 players turn out for the Championship Section and 19 in the Reserve (U1200) section. Please click here for the crosstables.
In the game below, Alex Zheng, with a provisional rating of 1451 (based on seven games), used a Dutch Defense against the event’s top seed Damian Krotov who entered the event with a 2094 rating. After winning the tournament, Zheng’s new provisional rating jumped all the way to 1756.
October Rapids and Blitz
Rapid: First
Dean Bowler
Rapid: 2nd-3rd
Bradley Roberson
Rapid: 2nd-3rd
Sanjay Ghatti
Blitz: Champion
Saharsh Santosh
Kid Chess coach Dean Bowler took clear first place in our October Rapid event on October 20 with a perfect 4 out of 4. Dean became a Class A level player after this performance with a new rating of 1822 (but as of December 29 he is approaching Expert level with a rating of 1986).
In the Blitz Championship, Saharsh Santosh dominated the 15-player field with a perfect 10 out of 10. The two tied for 2nd-3rd place were a distant 3.5 points back at 6.5, Sanjay Ghatti and Vish Jonnalagadda.
Please click here for the Rapids crosstables.
Please click here for the Blitz crosstable
We only snagged one game from the Rapid event, a round three victory by Ram Movva with a Sicilian Riossolimo:
Chess Zone TV!
Herman ‘Mr. Checkmate’ Jones takes on Lee Creel ‘The Real Deal’ at Chess Zone! Who wins game 1 of this exciting blitz match?
Chess Zone News is edited by Dan Lucas. Contributors include: Zac Bolton, Ryan Darling, Doug Cox, Jane Baxter, Sarah Pak, Michael Farris.
Recent Comments