Ashburn Chess Club is No. 1 in DC Area

The emergence of Ashburn Chess Club as one of the strongest clubs in the Washington, DC, area is now stamped with approval.

Ashburn's Open and Amateur teams each recently won their respective division titles in the DC Chess League, a tournament that pits the best talents in chess from around the Maryland/DC/Virginia region. The league has operated since the 1950s and has been running consistently since the 1970s. 

The achievement came as a surprise of sorts since the Ashburn club is barely two years old, but the talents behind the club are no surprise at all. Members have competed against long established clubs in the region such as the 57-year-old Arlington Chess Club to hone their skills.

FIDE master, or FM, Anton Paolo del Mundo, currently the Northern Virginia Open champion and a winner in the 2007 U.S. Open, manned Board 1 of the Open Team. Board 2 was ably represented by another FIDE master, Dov Gorman, who is the reigning Virginia State Champion.

The two FMs were supported by national masters, experts and other higher rated players, including Ian David Schoch, Shawn Hoshall, Amit Mayabhate, Andrew Tichenor, Deodato N. Obregon, Raymong Duchesnes, Raymond Atkins, Ramesh Balasubramanian, Levon Bagramian, and Cezar Serban. The team coordinator was national master Shawn Hoshall.

The Amateur team's outcome was unexpected since the club fielded an array of players, including the youngest ones in the league and lowest-rated players in the division. The team started with a developmental goal of getting exposure for its players, and not with the ultimate objective of winning the championship.

Ramakrishna Gundala, Matthew Dibeneditto, Ramesh Balasubramanian and Raymond Duschesne led the Amateur team. The Amateur team members included 12-year-old Jonathan Cao, 11-year-old Alvin Cao, and 11-year-old Justin Lohr. The young lads got some wins and draws that contributed significantly to the team's wins. Other players that made the Ashburn Amateur team the strongest in its division were: Carlo del Mundo, Ryan Keifer, Bhaswar Bhattachargee, VJ Sajja, Steve Ward, Robert Lowe, Muhammad Imaadullah, Amit Karnik and Victor Guzman. Team coordinators were Scott Knoke and Herky del Mundo.

The club now has about 252 members in meetup.com, but when factoring in family members, the number climbs to an estimated 500 members. The growing club is moving to its new headquarters by July, located at 44927 George Washington Boulevard, Suite 120, in Ashburn, which is beside , which will permit more tournament and training activities. Check the Ashburn Patch calendar for chess club meeting times.