January 2014 Chess Roundup

Some highlights from the world of chess include: Grandmaster Rogelio Antonio Jr. who won the National Rapid chess championship at the Philippine Sports Commission dining hall. Saina Salonika won the under-10 title at the World Youth Chess Championship.  For the Under 14 year old girl section, Stavroula Tsolakidou from Greece won the World Individual Championships.  Polish Grandmaster Radoslaw Wojtaszek took first place at the 37th Christmas Zurich Open.

In December some of the happenings in chess in the U.S. included, in Lubbock, Texas, Webster University won the PanAm Chess Championships. The same championship where the University of Illinois finished in the Final Four. In Las Vegas there was an eight way tie for first at the North American Open. 

In Illinois here are the tournaments and results that took place:

November 29 to December 1:  The Greater Midwest Class Championships in Roesmont, IL had 128 players and 6 sections.  The M/X Section had 43 players and after 6 rounds Yury Shulman and Joshua Friedel tied for first with 5 out of 6 points.  The Class A Section had William Blackman edging out Todd Freitag for first place.  In the Class B Section, three players (Nicholas Bartochowski, Shayna Provine, and Masoud Khadem) tied for first.  In the Class C Section, Jacob Butcher swept all 6 rounds.  In Class D Section, Andy Soukal finished in first with 5 out of 6 points.  The Blitz tournament had seven rounds and once it was over there was a three way tie between Eric Rosen, Gopal Menon, and Mesgen Amanov.  Crosstables.

December 7:  The 4th Gerald Anderson Memorial Tournament in Decatur, IL had 29 players.  After Petros Karagianis and Aydin Turgut drew each other in the last round, it turned out Tianlu Peng tied with the two of them for a three-way tie for first.  Crosstable.

December 7: The HP Scholastic and Rated Dec. 2013 Tournament had 16 players in Highland Park.  Adrian Calinescu swept all five rounds.  Crosstable.

December 7: The ChessIQ December Game 60 Tournament Event in Skokie had two sections and 32 players.  In the Open Section, Anuj Dahiya swept all four rounds.  In the U1500 Section, Natanel Monosov finished with 3.5/4.0 points. Crosstables.

December 7:  The Benjamin Scholastic Event in West Chicago had three sections and 116 players.  In the Junior High Section, Abhinav Shankar went undefeated.  In the Elementary Section, Siddhartha Kyaw finished 5 for 5.  In the Primary Section, Vrishank Ramnath won five rounds and gained 42 points.  Crosstables.

December 8:  Glenwood Open December 2013 Tournament had 2 sections and 22 players.  In the Open Section , Charles Coffman swept all four rounds.  In the Reserve Section, Kenneth Windmon accomplished the same feat.  Crosstables.

December 8:  The 96th Quest Tournament in Northbrook, IL had 4 sections and 100 players.  In each section, there was one player who finished with an undefeated record.  They were Philip Engstrom (Open), Alexander Presman (U1400), Nicholas Chen (U1000), and David Shargorodsky (U600).  Crosstables.

December 13:  The Kings and Queens Chess Challenge Tournament in Wheeling, IL had three sections and 55 players.  In the Open Section, Vincent Do, Mark Korin, and Alec Feygin finished in a three-way tie for first.  In the Adv Section, Huaye Lin swept all five rounds.  In the Beg. Section there was a five way tie for first between Yashwanth Gangavarapu, Jackie Christiansen, Benjamin Finkelshteyn, Anthony Safonov, and Michele Pankov.  Crosstables.

December 14:  The Hawthorne Woods 2013 Tournament had three sections and 61 players.  In the Primary Section, Advitya Batta swept all five rounds and gained 209 provisional rating points.  In the Elementary Section, there was a four-way tie for first place between Jeeven Srivastava, Madhav Parthasarathy, Connor Wang, and Liam Starnes.  In the Open Section, Krishna Sadhu took first place and gained 224 provisional rating points.  Crosstables.

December 14:  The JJC December 2013 Quads had 19 players in Joliet.  In the A Section, Carl Lehmann won all four rounds.  In B Section, SE Henderson Jr. went 3 for 3.  In the C Section, there was a tie for first between Rudy Padilla and Adam Bareket.  In the Swiss Section, Richard Lewis beat David Cimbalista in the last round to clinch first place.  Crosstables.

December l4:  The ChessIQ Game 90 Fall II Tournament in Skokie, IL had 4 players.  Ricky Wang took first place.  Crosstable.

December 15:  The Naperville Scholastic Open - 7 Tournament had 12 players and two sections.  In the U500 Section, Maxinus Hogan won all six rounds in first rated tournament to get a provisional rating of 1132.  In the Open Section, Alex Zhang went undefeated to get first place and raise rating 281 points.  Crosstable.

November 25 to December 16:  The Winter Qualifier in Peoria, IL had 21 players.  Michael Leali finished 4 for 4 for first place.  Crosstable.

December 3 to 17:  The Illowa December 2013 Tournament in Moline had 18 players.  Daniel Medrano, Mark Flowers, and Ben Wolf all tied for first place.  This is after Daniel and Ben drew each other in the last round and Mark won his last game.  Crosstable.

December 21:  The Iexcell December Christmas Open Tournament had two sections and 30 players in Bloomington, IL.  In the Under 600 Section, Niroop Krishnakumar lost to Gowtham Krishnakumar in the fifth round for the two of them to end up tying for first with Sreeansh Vakiti and Rahul Vudaru.  In the Open Section, Mihir Bafna finished with 3.5 points out of 4.0.  Crosstables.

December 21:  The 62nd Kumbaya Scholastic Tournament in Skokie drew 59 players.  In the 1200 Above Section there was a two way tie for first between Fredrich Yuan and Vikram Dara.  In the U1200 Section, Simon Lequar finished 4 for 4.  In the U700 Section, Jacob Robins swept all four rounds raising his provisional rating 308 points to 617.  Crosstables.

December 21:  The ChessIQ Dec Quads in Skokie, IL had 16 players.  In Quad 1, Matthew Pullin finished in first place.  In Quad 2, Vytautas Vitkauskas and Nathan Holzmueller tied for first.  In Quad 3, Avi Schneider finished in first with 2 out of 3 points.  In Quad 4, Sevan Muradian won all three rounds.  Crosstables.

December 28:  The '13 Home for the Holidays Open Tournament in Dekalb, IL had 26 players.  In the Open Section, Vincent Do swept all four rounds.  The same feat was accomplished in the Reserve Section by Clifford Adams.  In the Booster Section, Aarish Patell finished with 4.0 points and gained 230 rating points.  Crosstables.

December 29:  The Dupage County Chess Championship in Lisle, IL had 98 players.  In the Championship Section, Bennett Joseph beat and drew with two higher rated players  to gain 70 rating points.  In the U1600 Section, Akash Mattu swept all four rounds.  In the U1400 Section, Aidan Carey and Minkee Lee tied for first.  In the U1200 Section, Nate Olejnik finished in first after winning all four rounds, Anthony Anodenko accomplished the same feat in the U1000 Section.  In the U800 Section, Vrishank Ramnath finished first with 4.0 points. Crosstables.

December 27 to 29:  The ChessIQ Club Championships in Skokie, IL had 18 players.  Dusan Tutush and Jonathan Zhou tied for first with 4/5 points.  Crosstable.