Shakira Luster, who took 7th place with her teammates from St. Ethelreda at the 2019 K-12 Championship in Orlando, Florida, sees her hard work pay off; coached by her dad, Sedrick Prude and Tom Murphy, the 13-year-old has gained about 500 USCF rating points over the last year.
Kudos also to Louisa Zhang, age 14, who entered 1400 territory with her excellent performance at the 4th Annual Sevan Memorial Tournament. The same tourney helped Nandini Prakash get back into the 1700s. Nandini, who is only 9 years old, is the sixth best female chess player in her age group in the country.
Many Illinois girls improved their ranking over last month, including 7-year old Mythreyi Govindarajan, from 602 to 655 (new rank 58), 10-year old Linda Pham, from 1259 to 1310 (new rank 36), and 13-year old Sruthi Bharath Kumar, from 1609 to 1666 (new rank 17), to name just a few.
There was other movement too: Sukhi, Shivani and Siri dropped off the Top 100 Girls lists – hopefully just temporarily – while Oyumaa managed to be listed again. Several girls can now be found in the next higher age bracket; happy belated birthday to Chaitra, Siri, Merrill, Anujin, Aria, Louisa, and Morgan!
The lists compiled by US Chess are based on ratings achieved and processed by the third Wednesday of the previous month, in this case December 18, 2019.
If you believe your daughter was inadvertently omitted from these lists, it may be due to US Chess rules regarding permission. If the player’s family cannot be contacted to confirm permission for using the name on one of these lists, the player is not listed. Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for assistance on connecting with US Chess.
| January | ||
| Age 7 and Under | ||
| 36 | Lee, Olivia (16643743) | 804 |
| 58 | Govindarajan, Mythreyi (16801573) | 655 |
| Age 8 | ||
| 33 | Hu, Angela (16747812) | 988 |
| 40 | Jiandani, Mehak S (16108634) | 955 |
| 61 | Madugula, Chaitra (16587196) | 856 |
| Age 9 | ||
| 6 | Prakash, Nandini (16085871) | 1705 |
| 82 | Zheng, Joyce J (16239154) | 939 |
| 99 | Lkhavgajav, Bolor Sarah (16235187) | 843 |
| Age 10 | ||
| 36 | Pham, Linda (15464538) | 1310 |
| 67 | Girish, Niyathi (16221570) | 1078 |
| Age 11 | ||
| 17 | Raj, Ria (15844590) | 1582 |
| 36 | Zhao, Sophia Ziyan (16763001) | 1407 |
| 80 | Erdenebileg, Oyumaa (16243234) | 1202 |
| 83 | Namuunbayar, Enkhjin (15863824) | 1190 |
| Age 12 | ||
| 31 | Adusumalli, Saanvi (15412194) | 1552 |
| 37 | Salian, Nisha (15767306) | 1493 |
| 44 | Lee, Merrill (15703571) | 1419 |
| 48 | Musku, Himani (15932133) | 1400 |
| 64 | Hong, Sophie (15947555) | 1266 |
| 93 | Liu, Catherine (15277304) | 1143 |
| 98 | Swan, Josephine Grace (15352778) | 1126 |
| Age 13 | ||
| 9 | Wisniowski, Natalie (15702390) | 1884 |
| 17 | Kumar, Sruthi Bharath (15879904) | 1666 |
| 26 | Luster, Shakira (15641127) | 1587 |
| 79 | Fan, Alice (14935236) | 1290 |
| 96 | Namuunbayar, Anujin (15863872) | 1168 |
| Age 14 | ||
| 23 | Lin, Sarah (15376582) | 1630 |
| 31 | Tsyganova, Margarita (15922341) | 1565 |
| 57 | Pashyan, Stella (15575165) | 1348 |
| 76 | Nadkarni, Anusha (14789160) | 1219 |
| 78 | Han, Wenjing (15882830) | 1186 |
| Age 15 | ||
| 12 | Yan, Ashley Mei (14957435) | 1963 |
| 52 | Zhang, Louisa (15746981) | 1417 |
| 55 | Rodriguez, Layla (15360516) | 1381 |
| 92 | Kothari, Devanshi (14707882) | 1063 |
| Age 16 | ||
| 3 | Mangalam, Shreya B (14385521) | 2119 |
| 6 | Hoesley, Aria (14631046) | 2088 |
| 20 | Shklover, Diana (14672010) | 1527 |
| 30 | Grandy, Sarah Ruth (14279452) | 1412 |
| 43 | Brahin, Lizzy (15698350) | 1277 |
| 55 | Phillips, Rebecca (16628621) | 1195 |
| Age 17 | ||
| 8 | Li, Marissa (14468490) | 2074 |
| 61 | Bates, Jade (15332430) | 1120 |
| 67 | Thadani, Lavina (14686878) | 1022 |
| 68 | Pankov, Michelle (14224844) | 1009 |
| Age 18 | ||
| 50 | Riley, Morgan V (15404544) | 643 |