Justus Williams wins 2021 Illinois Open - Jack Heller and Kevin Velazquez named state co-champions

Article written by James Hodina and edited by Bill Buklis

Justus Williams dominates at Illinois Open. Jack Heller and Kevin Velazquez named Illinois State Co-Champions.

Justus Williams went a perfect 7-0 at the Illinois Open during Labor Weekend of September 3-6 taking home the $1,500 first-place prize. As Justus is from Missouri, the runner up players from Illinois became the Illinois State Co-Champions. Jack Heller and Kevin Velazques both tied for second place with scores 5.5 points. Aitegin Akmatbekov also dominated the Reserve section with a perfect 7-0 score.

The four-day 7 round tournament saw 136 players participate in the Open (70) and Reserve sections (66) at the newly renovated Delta Hotel by Marriott (formerly known as the Crowne Plaza) in Northbrook. Additional action took place on Saturday with a 45 player scholastic event, won by Millan Whittier for U1200 and Ridhima Bembey for U700, and a 22 player blitz tournament on Sunday, won by IM Eric Rosen.

The dual FIDE / US Chess rated event was organized by Kevin Bachler of Caveman Chess, LLC. James Hodina was the Chief Arbiter and Bill Buklis was the pairing chief. Yassir Atlas also supported the organization of the tournament and was Section Chief for the scholastic event.

There were three schedules: a 4-day, a 3-day, and 2-day. The 3-day merged after round two but it was only after round 4 that all sections merged. A few Grandmasters tried to sweep in on the two-day schedule playing the first four rounds at G/30 and then round five at G/90;+30 all in one day. That was a tough thing to do even for players of that caliber. In the end, after some upsets none of the GMs stuck around for the final two rounds on Monday.

It would be easy to highlight every game played by Mr. Williams but that would fall short of demonstrating the amazing chess played by the field. Round 3, Justus Williams showed he was in fine form with a nice win over Aakash Meduri, who finished with a nice score of 5 wins and 2 losses.

Round 4 saw some interesting games. Despite not being 100%, GM Gurevich tried to bear down and play through only to fall in Round 4 to Nicholas Bruha.

Williams continued his dominance over the field in round 4, beating Nicholas Ladan, who, like Meduri, also finished with 5 wins and 2 losses.

There were some new faces in the crowd. John Drippe, a self-taught junior from Kansas, took up a recommendation to come to Chicago for a top-level tournament. We expect that we will see a lot more from him in the future.

Gopal Menon was perhaps the most successful player from the 2-day schedule. Menon drew GM Mitkov in Round 4 before the merge in Round 5. Menon showed no fatigue in the fifth game of the day with a nice victory with the Black pieces.

Showing how hard it is to pull off the 2-day schedule, GM Mitkov drew his fifth game in a heated battle, his second draw of the day.

The breakthrough performance of the tournament may have been John Heller who finished second overall and became this year’s Illinois state co-champion tying for highest finishing Illinois player. This Class A player finished undefeated with four wins and three draws.

Heading into Round 7, many top-rated players no longer in contention for prize money withdrew. That left fighting chess for those who had persevered all week. Kevin Velazquez final win pulled him even with Jack Heller as Illinois’ other state co-champion. Kevin finished with 5 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss.

Everything was set up for the Menon - Williams board 1 finale. Williams had “draw odds” with a half-point lead going in.

Once again, congratulations to Justus Williams, our overall 2021 Illinois Open Champion and to our two state co-champions Jack Heller and Kevin Velazquez.