Sam Schmakel has been playing quite a bit of chess recently. Back in October 2010 he was rated around 2000 after that he

• Tied for 1st place at the US Game 60 Championship 3.5/4
• 1st place at the 9th grade section of All Grades IL tournament 4/4
• Tied for 1st place at the 1st North American Amateur Closed tournament 6/9
• Scored 3/4 at the 2010 IL Class Championship
• Tied for 1st place in the 9th grade section of the 2010 National K12 Championship 5.5/7
• Tied for 1st place at the 1st North American Amateur open 4/5 which included a win over IM Florin Felecan
• A strong 3/5 at the Denker Invitational which indluded wins over NM's Eric Rosen and Trevor Magness
• 1st place at the Scott Silverman Memorial tournament 4/4 which included 2 wins over Masters

The question is not if Sam Schmakel will become a Master, the only question now is when?

I myself have lost to Sam twice of late and I give him a lot of credit for all his hard work in chess and his fantastic achievements thus far. I'm sure I will be writing about another Sam Schmakel winning performance again soon