Points matter. Sometimes even half a point can be a big deal.
With a seventh round triumph over neighboring city rival Jason Daniels, Ishaar Ganesan earned the 2016 Illinois K-8 Individual Championship. Ganesan was the sole competitor with 6.5 points, a half-point ahead of four players with 6.0's: Vincent Do, Ed Zhang, Aidan Carey and Neel Jay.
Jason's Chiddix Junior High (of Normal) team reprised their recent IESA 7th grade championship by winning the top team honors with 21 points from their top four scorers.
Jason's 5.5 was complemented by the same score from Tejas Katam and 5.0's from Abhiru Raut and Naaman Rivera.
Wilmette Junior High was second with 19.5, Thurgood Marshall (of Rockford) was third with 18.5, and Ishaar's Evans Junior High (of Bloomington) was fourth with 14.5.
Six individuals tied for sixth place with 5.5's including Jason (7th) and Tejas (8th): Siddharth Acharya (6th), Aria Hoesley (9th), Alex Hsia (10th) and Joey Buklis (11th).
The Avery Coonley School (of Downers Grove) won two team championships, the K-1 and the Grades 4-5 sections. Decatur Classical (Chicago) won the Grades 2-3 section.
Elijah Platnick posted the lone perfect score in the Grades 4-5 section with seven wins in seven games. Six players tied for second with 6.0/7: Nicolas Bruha, William Tan, Spencer Vincent, Ignace Bielobradek, Deepak Salian and Christian Turk.
For the second year in a row, a second grader won the Grades 2-3 section with Dimitar Mardov posting a 6.5/7. On tiebreaks, Kindergartner Aren Emrikian took second place ahead of four others with 6.0/7. Dimitar closed out the tournament by defeating Aren in an exciting match to claim the championship. Aren chose to play up in a higher section after winning the National Kindergarten championship at the 2015 K-12's in Orlando.
The others with 6.0 points were Adam Elgat (3rd Place on tiebereaks), William Cahill (4th), Eduard Danilyan (5th) and Vrishank Ramnath (6th). Seven players tied for seventh place with 5.5's including David Yong who drew Dimitar in the penultimate round. David had the top tiebreak of the 5.5's to receive the 7th place trophy.
Additional information -- and pictures -- will be added to this article as time permits. If you have pictures to contribute, please send them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
US Chess crosstables are posted here. That posting is in RATINGS order which does not reflect the trophy order.
The TIEBREAK order report -- which aligns with trophies -- is available on the organizer's website. A table of all trophy winners will be added here for posterity.
The event was organized by Glenn Panner of Chess Weekend, assisted by the late Sevan Muradian. Panner made a point of thanking all his staff and volunteers who worked to bring the event off with only minor issues.
| Place | Grades K-1 | Grades 2-3 | Grades 4-5 | Grades 6-8 | ||||||||
| 1 | Julian Wang | 7.0 | Dimitar Mardov | 6.5 | Elijah Samuel Platnick | 7.0 | Ishaar Ganesan | 6.5 | ||||
| 2 | Ryan Kong | 6.0 | Aren Emrikian | 6.0 | Nicholas Bruha | 6.0 | Vincent Do | 6.0 | ||||
| 3 | William Wang | 6.0 | Adam Elgat | 6.0 | William Tan | 6.0 | Edward Zhang | 6.0 | ||||
| 4 | Luke Faxon | 6.0 | William Cahill | 6.0 | Spencer Vincent | 6.0 | Aidan M Carey | 6.0 | ||||
| 5 | Anshul Shetty | 5.5 | Eduard Danilyan | 6.0 | Ignace Bielobradek | 6.0 | Neel Jay | 6.0 | ||||
| 6 | Pragyan Misra | 5.5 | Vrishank Ramnath | 6.0 | Deepak Salian | 6.0 | Siddharth Acharya | 5.5 | ||||
| 7 | Austin Lok | 5.0 | David Yong | 5.5 | Christian Turk | 6.0 | Jason Scott Daniels | 5.5 | ||||
| 8 | Arul Shegaonkar | 5.0 | John Bielobradek | 5.5 | Nathan Melnikov | 6.0 | Tejas Katam | 5.5 | ||||
| 9 | Hudson Lutfiyya | 5.0 | Andrew Friedman | 5.5 | Nicholas Ladan | 5.5 | Aria Hoesley | 5.5 | ||||
| 10 | Saatvik Kailasj | 5.0 | David Sun | 5.5 | Peter Zheng | 5.5 | Alexander Yu Hsia | 5.5 | ||||
| 11 | Shuban Baheti | 5.0 | Alex Zhao | 5.5 | Sohan Anup Bendre | 5.5 | Joseph Buklis | 5.5 | ||||
| 12 | Declan Reenan | 5.0 | Zalan Gyorgy | 5.5 | Advait Vijay | 5.5 | Emmett Madigan | 5.0 | ||||
| 13 | Kavin Bendre | 5.0 | Max Gurinas | 5.5 | Annika Geiersbach | 5.5 | Henry Curcio | 5.0 | ||||
| 14 | Mohit Bayarapu | 5.0 | Aaron Rugg | 5.0 | Leon Rapoport | 5.5 | Kevin Ho | 5.0 | ||||
| 15 | David Liu | 5.0 | Avi Kaplan | 5.0 | Pierce McDade | 5.0 | Abhiru Raut | 5.0 | ||||
| 16 | Liam Murray | 5.0 | Daniel Skeels | 5.0 | Ved Kommalapati | 5.0 | Naaman Rivera | 5.0 | ||||
| 17 | Alan Khesin | 5.0 | Sohum V Mehta | 5.0 | Sam Fayn | 5.0 | Adam Wallach | 5.0 | ||||
| 18 | Shane Asbra | 4.5 | Owen Zhang | 5.0 | Anusha Nadkarni | 5.0 | Jack Bradley | 5.0 | ||||
| 19 | Kiyan West | 4.5 | Andrey Novikov | 5.0 | Sarah May Lin | 5.0 | Daniel Y Zhang | 5.0 | ||||
| 20 | Rohit Darbhakul | 4.5 | Sadkrith Malladi | 5.0 | Kamalesh Sureshkumar | 5.0 | Brenden D Gran | 5.0 | ||||
| 21 | Kai Fan | 4.5 | Vikram Oberai | 5.0 | Rahul Bammid Bhavan | 5.0 | Alan Wei | 5.0 | ||||
| 22 | Sam Christos | 4.5 | Ricardo Padilla | 5.0 | Surya Abhinav Nookarapu | 5.0 | Buvinnash Vinothasha | 5.0 | ||||
| 23 | Harshvar Bhangale | 4.5 | Bruce Tang | 5.0 | Sreeansh Reddy Vakiti | 5.0 | Justin Weinzwieg | 5.0 | ||||
| 24 | Rajeeth Ganesan | 4.5 | Ethan Ding | 5.0 | Adithya Acharya | 5.0 | Adrian Calinescu | 5.0 | ||||
| 25 | Nathan Wong | 4.5 | Adam Ozsvath | 5.0 | Gabriel Panner | 5.0 | Ivan Nikola Mitkov | 5.0 | ||||