Category: Uncategorized

The 2025 Toronto Rapid Chess Championship was held at Hart House on April 27th with 118 participants. The winners were IM Mark Plotkin in the Crown section, Justin Yuan in U1800, and Fred Chun in U1400. Photos by Jay Bhadreshwara.

Photos from the Canadian Chess Federation Newsletter (John Upper) are available here.
Photos from the Club’s photographer Jay Bhadreshwara are available here.

---

The Hart House Chess Club is proud to host the 2025 Toronto Rapid Championship at Hart House on Sunday, April 27th, 2025. The tournament is a 7-round Swiss Tournament with a time-control of 10 minutes plus 5 seconds per move increment.

The Hart House Chess Club successfully hosted the 2024 Toronto Rapid on April 20th, 2024 with 140 participants. We are looking forward to hosting the tournament again and welcoming back the community to Hart House. 

Tournament Details

• When: Sunday, April 27th, 2025, 10 am – 4 pm
• Format: 7-round CFC-rated, FIDE-rated, Swiss Tournament
• Location: 7 Hart House Circle, Toronto, ON M5S 3H3 Music Room, Burwash Room, Debates Room (analysis/parents)
• Time Control: 10 mins + 5  secs/move increment
• Capacity: 125 players
• Rounds:  10:00 am, 10:45 am, 11:30 am, lunch, 1:00 pm, 1:45 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:15 pm 
• Sections:  Crown, U1800, U1400 (rated CFC Quick in all sections, FIDE rated top-two sections) 
• Equipment: HHCC will supply all chess equipment
• Prizes: $3200 based on 120 fully paid entries. Trophies to winning player in each section.
• Entry Fees: $40 by April 1st at 11:59 pm, $45 afterwards, free entry for IM/WIM by April 1st at 11:59 pm. $20 discount for HHCC members
• Registration: online registration or in-person at the Hart House Information Hub by Friday, April 25th at 11:59 pm. No onsite registration.
• Arbiters: FA Victor Zheng, NA Deepanshi Matai
• Organizers: Hart House Chess Club – Victor Zheng, Deepanshi Matai, Cindy Qiao, Bingfei Wang

Announcements

April 16: Please note the following road closures in the morning of the event for the 2025 BumRun race happening on the University of Toronto campus.

Detailed Schedule

Round 1: 10 am (no check-in required)

Round 2: 10:45 am

Round 3: 11:30 am

Lunch: no food provided, options available here

Round 4: 1 pm

Round 5: 1:45 pm

Round 6: 2:30 pm

Round 7: 3:15 pm

Trophy Ceremony: 4 pm

Additional Information

Byes: Up to one 1/2 point bye for rounds 1-6 can be requested by emailing us by Fri. April 25th at 11:59pm.
Endorsement: Tournament is endorsed by the Greater Toronto Chess League (GTCL)
CFC Memberships: Registrants must be current CFC members. All memberships should be paid and renewed online at https://chess.ca/membership-fees. Full year $48 for adults, $32 for juniors ($12 for adults, $6 for juniors for single-tournament). Foreign players $8.
Unrated Players: Review our New To Tournament Guide for expectations before playing in your first tournament.
Photography: By signing up, you permit HHCC the ability to take and use photos from the tournament on its social media. If you would not like your photo used, please email us at hhchess@studentorg.utoronto.ca.
CFC Active or CFC Regular: this tournament will use CFC Active/FIDE Rapid for section eligibility. Up to TDs discretion.
Foreign Ratings: all participants must disclose all foreign ratings at time of registration or via email.
Accessibility and Visitor Information: Hart House is a accessible building and conveniently located. For further details, visit Visitor Information and Accessibility.
Food and Restaurants: Hart House is located in Downtown Toronto, just minutes from most major restaurants and eateries, including Tim-Hortons, McDonald’s, and Starbucks. In addition, sit-down restaurants are located throughout the area on Bloor, College, Spadina, Bay and Yonge Streets. All are within 15 minutes of walking distance.

Venue

Hart House, University of Toronto, 7 Hart House Circle, Toronto ON, M5S 3H3

The tournament will be hosted at the historic, neo-gothic building, Hart House, at the University of Toronto. Hart House is regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful student centers and is a visual icon of the University of Toronto. The grand interior of Hart House is designed with high arched ceilings that vary from room to room.

Since 2008, the venue has hosted two of the largest annual Toronto chess events, the Hart House Holidays and Hart House Reading Week Open.

Contact

Any questions can be email to: hhchess@studentorg.utoronto.ca

Pre-Registered, Standings, Pairings

Chess Results updated April 26

• Crown Section
• U1800 Section
• U1400 Section

Pre-Registered list below updated April 26

Starting Rank	Player’s Name	CFC ID	CFC Rating	CFC Membership	FIDE ID	Section	Byes	Notes
1	Mark Plotkin	141086	2520	Valid	2611651	Crown
2	Max England	155135	2407	Valid	2622602	Crown
3	Nicholas Vettese	154199	2360	Valid	2620090	Crown
4	Christopher Knox	136503	2358	Expired	2607549	Crown
5	Max Chen	155238	2273	Valid	2622440	Crown
6	Michael Dougherty	100294	2230	Valid	2601559	Crown
7	Michael Barron	134840	2191	Valid	2605120	Crown
8	Younan Ishow	162160	2153	Expired	7601727	Crown
9	Brendan Tan	157922	2064	Valid	2650401	Crown
10	Kola Venkat Karthikeya Reddy	176220	2055	Valid	2643278	Crown
11	Shon Lazarev	167627	2014	Valid	2636999	Crown
12	Nihad Mammadov	189770	2008	Valid	13456210	Crown
13	Wajdy Shebetah	148432	2003	Expired	11500131	Crown
14	Julian Pan	171946	1976	Valid	2654555	Crown
15	Heye Gao	166066	1975	Valid	2638223	Crown
16	Brendan Cater	161454	1974	Valid	2632535	Crown
17	Riyaan Lakhani	177989	1955	Valid	2648270	Crown
18	Shabd Dembla	175704	1937	Valid	33403899	Crown
19	Yurii Husti	N/A	1900	Required	14180880	Crown		FIDE Rapid used
20	Levi Lim	168079	1884	Valid	2634325	Crown
21	John Upper	101925	1875	Valid	2606437	Crown	Round 4
22	Quentin Ma	177463	1858	Valid	2655756	Crown
23	Sarvesh Saravanan	185027	1857	Valid	88105040	Crown
24	Mervyn Sit Yee	103744	1854	Valid	2658577	Crown
25	Haneul Park	183754	1846	Valid	4907485	Crown
26	Slava Lukinykh	174578	1840	Valid	2648130	Crown
27	Austin LIn	173895	1825	Valid	2640783	Crown
28	Dhruv Murali	166162	1778	Valid	329218174	Crown
29	Usman Minhas	167900	1768	Valid	2634180	U1800
30	Kola Venkata Saket Reddy	176221	1764	Valid	2643260	U1800
31	Elon Wang	166791	1751	Expired	2635020	Crown
32	Khai Le	180765	1735	Valid	2664950	U1800
33	Diganth Anish	174427	1731	Valid	2648105	U1800
34	Joseph Nguyen	143214	1730	Valid	2648458	U1800
35	Justin Yuan	176166	1726	Valid	2645947	U1800
36	Shafkat Ali	149142	1724	Valid	2613441	U1800
37	Viktor Zivojinovic	186939	1718	Valid	2661390	U1800
38	Oscar Cheung	171229	1706	Valid	2653079	U1800
39	Yifu Cai	188986	1700	Valid	8633959	U1800
40	Sasha Ioffine	177593	1698	Valid	2653141	U1800
41	Omkar Baraskar	184408	1673	Valid	33446660	U1800
42	Jeffrey Ye	189074	1663	Valid	0	U1800
43	Lawrence Ju	151370	1662	Valid	0	U1800
44	Bhavik Chhatralia	172737	1659	Valid	2640317	U1800
45	Aaryan Kovuru	177787	1658	Valid	2650762	U1800
46	Artham Bhoutika	178192	1631	Valid	2667991	U1800
47	Hanna Wehbeh	194553	1629	Valid	1667564	U1800		FIDE Rapid used
48	Andrew Yang	173795	1626	Valid	2640953	U1800
49	Jaime Xiang	178788	1623	Expired	2648407	U1800
50	Warren Feng	188536	1621	Expired	0	U1800
51	Tom Leschinski	182035	1605	Valid	2653150	U1800
52	Gabriel Saimovici	175468	1591	Valid	2649055	U1800
53	Pranav Emani	178827	1587	Valid	2653664	U1800
54	Koby Savage	175293	1580	Valid	0	U1800
55	Heidi Gay	175381	1579	Valid	2656825	U1800
56	Joseph Dawood	178070	1578	Expired	2656671	U1800
57	Dylan Shanmugadhasan	169045	1571	Valid	2635127	U1800
58	Nayal Raza	184243	1567	Valid	2662850	U1800
59	Jacob Jones	137940	1563	Valid	2652447	U1800
60	James Mourgelas	108540	1559	Valid	2613816	U1800
61	Jayden Lee	188907	1558	Valid	2672529	U1800
62	Shannon Zhao	179928	1557	Valid	2659654	U1800
63	Ken Kurkowski	104537	1555	Valid	2613719	U1800
64	Shashwath Raaghav Krishnamurthi	174534	1546	Valid	2668084	U1800
65	Christopher Charles	125496	1546	Valid	2668009	U1800
66	Su Bo Ruei (Marcus)	184338	1540	Valid	6005535	U1800
67	Adhrit Chattopadhyay	187196	1529	Valid	2670097	U1800
68	Zhibo Zhang	177508	1525	Valid	0	U1800
69	Frankie Huang	187398	1518	Valid	2671778	U1800
70	Nathan Wang	180140	1505	Valid	2663635	U1800
71	Nilaanujan Gowrishankar	179931	1499	Valid	0	U1800
72	Jesus Molina	191770	1491	Valid	0	U1800
73	Frank Helwig	105788	1486	Valid	2642344	U1800
74	KAPILAASH KAMALAKANNAN	194481	1474	Valid	25955217	U1800		FIDE Rapid used
75	Luke Ma	179464	1471	Valid	2655748	U1800
76	John, Nguyen	180674	1456	Valid	2665026	U1800
77	Max Ling	184952	1444	Valid	2658216	U1800
78	Todd Westcott	160473	1438	Valid	0	U1800
79	Hassan Sattar	185178	1438	Valid	0	U1800
80	Youssef ishow	176145	1437	Expired	2646927	U1800
81	Maisen Li	183963	1425	Valid	2662426	U1800
82	David Love	155014	1416	Valid	2661977	U1800
83	Joshua Lagatta	184236	1413	Valid	2663848	U1800
84	Calvin DeVries	167257	1408	Valid	2662744	U1800
85	Alex Velazquez	156934	1407	Expired	0	U1800
86	Alyna Paul	185425	1405	Valid	2673150	U1800
87	Bosen Li	183962	1403	Valid	2662418	U1800
88	Griffin Helmka	188303	1391	Expired	0	U1400
89	Vikram Rawal	169690	1380	Valid	0	U1400
90	Jordan Cobb-Donahue	176384	1375	Valid	2646870	U1400
91	Etienne Ma	179465	1372	Valid	2655730	U1400
92	Andre Kuzin	167955	1371	Valid	2655721	U1400
93	Bhuvnesh Sharma	176794	1354	Valid	2658364	U1400
94	Prasanna Shankar Prabhu	190272	1354	Valid	2671492	U1400
95	JINGCHEN WU	175342	1340	Valid	2654253	U1400
96	David D’Elia	183729	1287	Valid	0	U1400
97	Leo Huang	187910	1280	NA	2671786	U1400
98	Savyan Aggarwal	192718	1273	Expired	0	U1400
99	Fred Chun	162497	1262	Valid	0	U1400
100	Lev Gawrielman	189963	1230	Valid	0	U1400
101	Saptangshu Mukherjee	190628	1096	NA	0	U1400
102	Nicholas Barnsdale	161687	1064	Valid	2649993	U1400
103	Stephen Kuzin	167624	1063	Valid	0	U1400
104	Khang Le	193345	1031	NA	0	U1400
105	Hussein Bani Khaled	193476	0	Valid		U1800
106	Yusuf Lam	N/A	0	Required		U1400
107	Utkarsh Mali	177851	0	Required		U1400
108	Vasilii Pustovoit	193930	0	Required		U1400
109	Dimitrios Tzouropoulos	N/A	0	Required		U1400
110	Daniel Murray	194088	0	Valid		U1400
111	Richard Fung	N/A	0	Required		U1400
112	Marco Yepez	194238	0	Valid		U1400
113	Zach Yu	188131	0	Valid		U1400
114	Luka Stevanovic	186663	0	Valid	2662140	U1400
115	Osama Haleemah	194592	0	New		U1400
116	Michael Gabriel Smith	N/A	0	Required		U1400
117	Barrett Buhler	193578	0	Valid	0	U1800
118	Alexandr (Sasha) Iankovski	N/A	0	Required		U1800
119	Owen Chow	194710	0	Valid		U1400
120	Shokhruz Alamkulov	193119		Valid		U1400

For more details of the 2024 Toronto Rapid Chess Championship event, see here.

Attention all First-Year Students!

An election shall be held to elect the First-Year Representative for Fall 2024.

The First-Year Representative is responsible for “working to ensure the voices of first-year students are heard and represented. The First-Year Representative may work to organize activities that are specifically tailored to the needs of first-year students, such as introductory workshops and beginner chess tournaments. The First-Year Representative serves as a mentor and resource for first-year members who may be new to chess or new to the Club. The First-Year Representative provides guidance and support to help these members feel welcomed and included in the Club, and they also help to facilitate connections between first-year members and more experienced players. The First-Year Representative plays a role in creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for first-year members and ensuring that they have a positive and enjoyable experience with the Club,” according to the Constitution of the Hart House Chess Club.

UPDATE: Please view the list of nominees here.

Eligibility

All first-year students at University of Toronto are eligible to run for election for this position.  A candidate for the position of First-Year Representative is not required to be a member of the Club for one month before the election.

All club student members have the right to vote. To become a member, students can sign up here.

Important Dates

Students interested in the First-Year Representative position are asked to email the Alumni Chair at elections@harthousechess.com expressing interest, and a short bio/background by  September 20th at 10 pm. They are asked to include [HHCC Elections] as the subject of the email.

If there are two or more candidates for a position, a vote will be held to determine the successful candidate on September 27th at 7 pm in-person in the Hart House Reading Room. The voting is done by secret ballot.

The electoral process will be administered by the club’s Alumni Chair, Ben Hahn. If you have any questions, please contact Mr. Hahn at elections@harthousechess.com, indicating [HHCC Elections] as the subject of your email.

Hart House Chess Club is an open and inclusive environment. There is no requirement to be good at the game of chess to run for the first year representative. Everyone is encouraged to nominate themselves. As a positive space we welcome and encourage members of all sexes, genders, sexual orientations, ethnicities, languages, abilities, religions and creeds to participate in the student government of the club, either as members of the executive or as volunteers! 

Thank you very much for your attention!

Bingfei is a second-year undergraduate student at U of T’s Rotman Commerce program, specializing in finance. He currently serves as the President & Secretary of the Hart House Chess Club (HHCC) and is excited to contribute to the club’s vibrant community. At age 9, Bingfei discovered chess at a youth board game center and has been hooked ever since. He plays regularly at club meetups on Wednesdays and Saturdays, constantly honing his skills.

An active member of the chess community, Bingfei began coaching fellow players when he was in Grade 9, sharing his love for the game with younger students. By 16, he was already serving as a tournament arbiter, helping to run competitions smoothly. After immigrating to Canada, he continued competing in tournaments and steadily improved his game. His dedication is reflected in his current CFC (Chess Federation of Canada) rating of 2206, and he has earned a National Master norm.

Outside of chess, Bingfei is an avid gamer and sports enthusiast. He was once ranked #46 in North America and #127 in China in the game Hearthstone. He’s a master-level player in Clash Royale. In his spare time, he enjoys playing badminton.