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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 18th 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.