Spring Chess Camp Charlotte 2025: A Recap

Charlotte, April 23–25, 2025. Our second in-person training camp, and the first one in spring.

If the January camp in Charlotte was the proof of concept — can we do this, will people come, will the energy be right — the April camp answered a different question: can we build something even better the second time? I think the answer was yes.

Wednesday: arrivals and the CCC Rapid

Camp week started on Wednesday evening at Charlotte Chess Center North with a meet-and-greet. Students arrived from different cities, some returning from January, some coming for the first time, all converging on a chess club to shake hands and play some blitz.

From there, participants had the option to play in the Open CCC Rapid Tournament. Real chess with real clocks and real opponents — a good way to shake off the travel and get focused.

Thursday: a full day of chess

Thursday was the core of the camp.

The day started with a guest lecture from FM Peter Giannatos in the morning — local knowledge, sharp tactical work, exactly what you want to kick off the day. Then I took over for a lecture of my own, covering strategic themes and the thinking process ideas that run through everything we do at Russian Chess School.

After lunch, we ran a Puzzle Rush session. Competitive, fast, and a good diagnostic of where everyone's pattern recognition is. Then came one of the highlights of the camp: a Simultaneous Exhibition with GM Olexandr Bortnyk.

A Grandmaster simul — where one GM plays 15 or 20 players at the same time, walking from board to board — is one of the great experiences in chess. You get to actually play against a GM. You will almost certainly lose. You will also remember the game. A few students held on longer than expected. Bortnyk is a precise, tactical player, which made it even more instructive to watch how he handled the complications.

After dinner, GM Ashwin Jayaram delivered an evening lecture. The afterparty and blitz raffle at Hi-Wire Brewery sealed the evening — competitive chess by day, blitz and conversation by night.

Friday: finishing strong

Friday morning opened with a guest lecture from GM Kayden Troff, followed by a game review session with me in the afternoon. Game review is where a lot of the real learning happens at these camps: going through actual games from the participants, finding the moments where a different idea could have changed the outcome, talking through the thinking process at the board.

GM Ben Finegold closed out the camp with his Friday afternoon lecture. If you have never seen Finegold lecture, you are missing something — he is funny, unfiltered, and extremely good at chess.

The Charlotte ALTO tournament

One detail about the April camp that I am particularly proud of: we timed it to run concurrently with the Charlotte ALTO open rated tournament, April 25–27. This was intentional.

The idea was simple: you spend two days learning, and then you immediately apply that learning in a real rated game. For many participants, this was their first or one of their first rated OTB games. Having spent Thursday and Friday studying strategy and reviewing games, walking into the tournament hall on Saturday with that fresh knowledge — that is a different experience from showing up cold.

I was there during the tournament to support participants. That is a big deal when you are nervous about your first rated game. Having your coach in the building, able to talk to you between rounds, changes the experience completely.

What this camp is becoming

Six coaches including four Grandmasters. Two days of structured training followed immediately by a rated tournament. An afterparty at a brewery with blitz and a raffle. A group photo in front of the Charlotte wall. That is the April camp.

This felt like a community event, not just a training event. The people who came had already been around the school long enough to know each other from Discord and online classes. Putting them in the same room accelerated something.

From Charlotte, the camp series moved to Paris in May 2025. We have more events planned. If you have been thinking about coming to one of the in-person camps — the Charlotte camp is a great starting point. The chess community there is real, the venue is excellent, and the energy of doing this with other serious adult improvers is hard to describe until you have been part of it.