February is popular in Illinois lore as the month of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, one half the dynamic duo which prompted our modern “Presidents Day”. Considering the 16th president wasn’t even born in the Prairie State, perhaps we might expand the birthdays we honor in the second calendar month. Look no further than the 11 Illinois Youth in the top 100 who observed birthdays last month. 

Vincent Do, Jonathan Tan, Spencer Lehmann, Gavin McClanahan, Penny Xu, Eli Goering, Joe Fennessey, Duncan Shepherd, Zhaozhi Li and Anshul Adve all have transitioned to the next age group for purposes of the USCF monthly top 100. Happy birthday to you all!

Alas, a February birthday also means that long-time list member, Expert (aka Candidate Master) Robert Moskwa, has aged out of the report after turning 19.

March 2014 Lists Can Be Viewed Here.

What are the odds of 11 birthdays out of 54 occurring in the same month?  Coincidence or something in the water? I’ll let the reader decide.

Due to birthdays, Marissa Li has become the state's top 11-year old in Illinois and Alex Bian, the top 13-year old in Illinois.

Aydin Turgut retains his #1 ranking among all American 9-year olds by two rating points over a fellow-Expert from Ohio. David Peng remains at #2 among US 10-year olds while Sam Schmakel slides into the four-spot among 17-year olds.

Re-entering the lists after brief absences are Jonah Karafiol and Advaith Prabu.

Entering these lists for the first time is 8-year old Martin Stukan. Martin has been doing quite well at a number of Illinois tournaments this past year, most recently winning the K-9 section of the Greater Chicago Scholastic.  Although still registered with the Russian Federation, Martin now has an Illinois residence on file with the USCF, qualifying him for a special top 100 list “Regardless of Federation”. He comes in at #15 among all eight-year olds active in USCF-play nationwide. Welcome, Martin!

Arthur Xu saw his rating climb 190 points during late-January, early-February as he becomes the fifth-rated 6-year old in the US. Arthur also climbed to 33rd on the 7-and-under list to qualify for Warren Junior Scholar participation as of next year.

Others with exceptionally nice rating movement from February to March official ratings include:

• David Zimmermann eclipsed 1600 with a 187-point enhancement; 
• Jonah Karafiol’s rating rose 173-points largely due to a strong showing in the Greater Chicago Scholastic’s K-12 section;
• Adam Bareket jumped 99 rating points, above 1500;
• Shreya Mangalam went up 84 points, above 1800;
• Jonathan Tan’s rating surged 74 points, above 1900;
• Ricky Wang elevated his rating 74 points, above 1700;
• Jai Mahajan added 71 points to his rating, largely due to winning his MLK Day section; 
• Jacob Furfine’s rating climbed 69 points; and 
• Jack Curcio saw a 50 point improvement, to the brink of 2000.

As the 25th-rated 8-year old in the US, David qualifies for future participation in the Warren program. His ascent above 1500 would have done the trick, too, but just to be on the safe side, he smashed the 1600-mark! With March supplement ratings above 1500, nine-year olds Adam and Jonah also qualified for future Warren inclusion.

This month Illinois has four 10-year olds among the American top 35 (and seven among the top 100), four 17-year olds in the top 35 (and eight in the top 100!), and three Under 13 females among the top 25. We also host seven of the top 100 in ages 12, 13 and 18. Not too shabby considering Illinois has only 4% of the population statistically.

If you want to see the charts, feel free to scroll down, but I'd be remiss if I didn't report on the aforementioned President Lincoln and his chess history:

While I’m uncertain if Honest Abe played as a child, as an adult he was no stranger to chess. According to a New York Times article of 1860, “Lincoln plays a very fair game, but not a first-rate one.” Apparently the Great Emancipator had an affliction common among players even today: “While playing chess, Mr. Lincoln seems to be continually thinking of something else. Those who have played with him say he plays as if it were but a mechanical pastime to occupy his hands while his mind is busy with some other subject…”  Sound familiar?

Nonetheless, those who had faced him found Lincoln to have a somewhat consistent style: “He plays what chess-players call a “safe game.” Rarely attacking, he is content to let his opponent attack while he concentrates all his energies in the defense…” I wonder if that translated to his style away from the board.

Ratings as of February 19th were used to develop the lists which were published by the USCF on March 17.

** Represents ranking in the listing without regard to Federation.

US Rank	Name	Rating
Age 7 and under
19	Aaron Gan	1523
33	Arthur Xu (6)	1393
Age 8
15**	Martin Stukan	1750
25	David Zimmermann	1603
72T	Jai Mahajan	1315
86T	Jeffrey Lin	1281
Age 9
1	Aydin Turgut	2031
36T	Stefan Musikic	1684
65	Adam Bareket	1565
78	Jonah Karafiol	1517
79T	Brian Gong	1512
Age 10
2	David Peng	2174
30	Shreya Mangalam	1812
33	Jason Daniels	1783
34	Edward Zhang	1781
51	Ricky Wang	1704
75	Emmett Madigan	1632
98T	Advaith Prabu	1565
Age 11
55T	Marissa Li	1744
Age 12
19	Vincent Do	2027
29	Matthew Stevens	1967
37	Hanson Hao	1947
44T	Akhil Kalghatgi	1900
64	Jacob Furfine	1845
81T	Nikhil Kalghatgi	1799
83T	Miranda Liu	1783
Age 13
31	Alex Bian	2086
42	Daniel Bronfeyn	2020
48	Jack Curcio	1985
77	Jonathan Tan	1903
83	Andrew Fei	1879
87	James Wei	1874
96	Nicholas Bartochowski	1845
Age 14
29	Zhaozhi Li	2100
57	Anshul Adve	1992
Age 15
47	Zachary Holecek	2048
50	Spencer Lehmann	2036
88T	Jonathan Hrach	1924
Age 16
	None From Illinois
Age 17
4	Sam Schmakel	2406
12	Nathan Kranjc	2203
28	Max Zinski	2100
33	Gavin McClanahan	2073
56T	Jimi Akintonde	1974
61	Penny Xu	1966
70	Timothy Zhou	1946
76	Eli Goering	1934
Age 18
11	Jonathan Kogan	2273
53	Chengliang Luo	2032
57	Joe Fennessey	2018
70	David Korobov	1980
83	Charles Swan	1933
89T	Duncan Shepherd	1915
100	David Paykin	1883
Girls Under 16
41	Shayna Provine (13)	1813
42	Shreya Mangalam (10)	1812
48T	Miranda Liu (12)	1783
58	Marissa Li (11)	1744
Girls Under 13
15	Shreya Mangalam (10)	1812
17	Miranda Liu (12)	1783
23	Marissa Li (11)	1744