Nine-year old phenom David Peng has claimed the number one ranking of his age group, barely edging out frequent Illinois tournament participant Awonder Liang of Wisconsin. Awonder has since regained a higher rating, but as of the January 18^th date when the official bi-monthly rankings were generated, David had the upper hand.

Aydin Turgut (3rd in age 8), Sam Schmakel (7th in age 16) and Adarsh Jayakumar (4th in age 18) are the other Illinois players in the top 10 of their respective age groups.

Aged 18 years or younger, Illinois currently boasts three masters, Sam, Adarsh, and Jonathan Kogan (age 17), along with eight experts.

Ages 7 and under

US Rank	Name	Rating
61	Aaron Gan (age 6)	1123
67	Jai Mahajan	1105
78	Kelebrant Hays	1065
93	James Zhang	1007

Age 8

3	Aydin Turgut	1841
54	Stefan Musikic	1365
64	Brian Hope Gong	1314
68T	Suraj Ramanathan	1291
96	William Zhu	1203

Age 9

1	David Peng	2106
16	Jason Daniels	1715
67	Shreya Mangalam	1432
79T	Ricky Wang	1403
82T	Michael Geohas	1392

Age 10

None from Illinois

Age 11

12	Matthew Stevens	1974
20	Vincent Do	1929
43	Akhil Kalghatgi	1794
45	Hanson Ho	1776
54	Nikhil Kalghatgi	1745
60	Miranda Liu	1725

Age 12

18	Alex Bian	2038
51	Abe Sun	1874
68T	Jack Curcio	1802
71	Daniel Bronfeyn	1794
84	Blair Hu	1760
94	Jack Xiao	1728
100	Andrew Fei	1714

Age 13

11	Zhaozhi Li	2131
48	Anshul Adve	1886
64T	Bryce McClanahan	1842
84	Ian Gilchrist	1792

Age 14

45	Zachary Holecek	1975
63	Spencer Lehmann	1897
70	Jonathan Hrach	1875

Age 15

None in Illinois

Age 16

7	Sam Schmakel	2283
31	Gavin McClanahan	2056
35	Max Zinski	2027
43	Nathan Kranjc	1993
70	Penny Xu	1906
74	Jimi Akintonde	1888
97	George Ruan	1823

Age 17

16	Jonathan Kogan	2226
72T	Charles Swan	1960
77	Chengliang Luo	1940
100	Christian Kavouras	1871

Age 18

4	Adarsh Jayakumar	2349
18	Matthew Wilber	2183
25	Kent Cen	2110
44	Robert Moskwa	2048
58T	Josh Dubin	1977
61	Rafeh Qazi	1968
81	Benjamin Stern	1927

Girls Under 16

52	Miranda Liu	1725
86T	Shayna Provine	1582

Girls Under 13

18	Miranda Liu	1725
38	Shayna Provine	1582
57T	Cassie Parent	1460
61	Anjali Toly	1433
62	Shreya Mangalam	1432
98	Shvetali Thatte	1282

Miranda and Shreya remain in the top 100 of their age groups, irrespective of gender. Miranda is also 82nd among all U.S. females under 21.

Penny Xu turned 16 in January (Happy Birthday, Penny!) but is still ranked in the top 100 females under 21 (37th). Congratulations to Penny for winning first place on first board at the recent IHSA state high school team championship in Peoria. Penny went a perfect 7.0 out of 7 for her Urbana High School squad. Alas, as IHSA events are unrated, this impressive accomplishment had no impact on her USCF rating.

Under 21

Overall nationwide in under 21 rankings, Eric Rosen is 27th, Adarsh is 38th, Sam is tied for 64th and Jonathan Kogan is tied for 95th.

According to USCF specifications, ratings as of Jan. 18, 2013 were used for this report and the top 100 lists were published Feb. 20.