Jonathan Kogen crowned state champion at 2024 Illinois Open State Championship

The Illinois Chess Association is proud to congratulate Danial Wilson from Wilson Chess and Bill Buklis from King Registration for their amazing job at organizing our 2024 Illinois Open State Championship, at the Doubletree Hotel in Lisle, from August 30, 2024 to September 2, 2024. 

 

The tournament consisted of six sections: Major, Under 2100, Under 1900, Under 1700, Under 1500 and Under 1300. This tournament exceeded previous years with a record of over 250 participants playing, as well as additional players in the scholastic tournament, of which there is a separate article. From there, the Illinois Chess Association wants to thank all the players for playing in the tournament and supporting our organization.

 

illopen

 Image of the main playing hall (Regency Ballroom) during the final round. By Abdallah Aldweik

 

The State Champion title goes to the Illinois resident with the highest point total. The player with the highest point total was Awonder Liang with 6.5 out of 7. Alexander Velikanov tied for second with Jonathan Kogen with 5.5 points. But, because Awonder and Alexander are both not Illinois residents they are not eligible to be the State Champion, therefore Jonathan Kogen is this year's state champion.

 

Major

 

Awonder Liang won the section with 6.5 points out of 7. Then, as previously mentioned, Alexander Velikanov and Jonathan Kogen tied for second with 5.5 points. After that, Ochirbat Lkhagvajamts  and Spencer Lahmann tied for fourth with 5 points.

 

Linked here are the top games from the 6th round.

illopen games

Under 2100

 

Andrei Skorobogatykh and Aradh Kaur tied for first place with 5.5 points. For third place, four players, Rebecca Cortez, Dario Pjevic, Gurugrahan Gurumoorthi and Gaofei Wang, tied with 5 points.

 

Under 1900

 

Adam Walker was the outwrite winner with 6.5/7 points. His only draw came in the last round against Elizabeth Xia who finished uncontested in second with 5.5 points. After that, Amarjargal Ganbaatar and Shivani Manimaran tied for third with 5 points.

 

Under 1700

 

In an exciting finish in the U1700 there were two players, Joshua Flores and Nomay Piparia played each other in a tie for first place with 5 points out of 6. They drew and ended up tied for first place with 5.5 out of 7 points. Four other players tied for third with 5 points: Lucas Silverstre, Alex Giris, Christian Walls and Sanjay Advani

 

Under 1500

 

Four players tied for first place with 5.5 points: Amy Zhan, Patrick McDonnell, Sean Gao and Jack Witman.

 

Under 1300

 

Joseph Rozenblat won outright with 6.5/7 points. Aarnav Sheth finished uncontested in second with 6/7 points. Jim Alop and Anthony Dimonte tied for third place with 5.5 points.

 

Linked here is a complete cross-table for the event, courtesy of King Registration, and the US rating report.

 

Once again, we want to congratulate everybody who participated and gave their best in the tournament and to congratulate Wilson Chess and King Registration for running the tournament so smoothly on behalf of the Illinois Chess Association.

2024 Illinois Scholastic Tournament

 

The Illinois Chess Association is happy to congratulate Danial Wilson from Wilson Chess and Bill Buklis from King Registration for their amazing job at organizing our Illinois Scholastic Tournament, at the Doubletree Hotel in Lisle last week, on August 31, 2024.

 

The tournament had three sections: Under 1200, Under 800 and Under 500. Across the entire tournament, there were over 150 players.

 

With that, the Illinois Chess Association wants to thank all the scholastic players for playing in the tournament and supporting us. Keep up the good work and we hope to see many of you being part of our Warren Scholars program in the future.

 

Under 1200

 

Rishik Abbaraju finished as the outright winner in the U1200 section with a perfect 5 out of 5 wins. Coming in a close second, Pranv Prabhu finished outright in second with 4.5/5 points. However, four players tied for third with 4/5 points: Krithin Arunkumar, Paul Hogan, Shravan Sabarish and Tate Daniels.

 

A child holding a trophyDescription automatically generated

Rishik proudly holding his first-place trophy



The top seven players received trophies:

 

1 Abbaraju, Rishik

2 Prabhu, Pranav

3 Sabarish, Shravan

4 Arunkumar, Krithin

5 Hogan, Paul Joseph

6 Daniels, Tate                           

7 Senthilkumar, Eyal 

 

Several other players tied for seventh, but did not receive a trophy due to tiebreakers, instead they received a medal for their amazing performance:

 

8 Senthilkumar, Vidyut

9 Blanka, Daniel 

10 Kumar, Eesha 

11 Vijayaraghavan, Pradhyum 

12 Li, Ethan 

 

Under 800

Sean Pepper was an outright winner with a perfect 5 points. An additional seven players tied for second with 4 points, which are listed below,

sean

Sean proudly holding his first-place trophy

 

There were trophies awarded to the top seven players:

 

1 Pepper, Sean

2 Ruhullah, Yaqub Uzair

3 Khanbutaev, Evgenii 

4 Jain, Shourya Nirmal

5 Behl, Nina 

6 Memon, Essa Ahmed

7 Divekar, Viraj 

 

The following player got a medal instead of a trophy based on tiebreakers:

 

8 Sendhilkumar, Shivasanjith 

 

Under 500

 

Similarly to the other sections, George Baron won outright with 5 points. After that, there was a nine-way tie with 4 points, all of whom are listed below,

george

George proudly holding his first-place trophy

 

These seven players were awarded trophies:

 

1 Baron, George 

2 Divekar, Vihan 

3 Brown, Noah G 

4 Wu, Alexander 

5 Jiao, Yumu 

6 Xie, Vincent 

7 Patel, Shoobh 

 

The following players were tied for second place and did not receive a trophy due to tiebreakers.  Still, they were all awarded with a medal for their triumphs.

 

8 Agarwal, Vedansh 

9 Lal, Aariyana 

10 Dimasacat, Princess Euniece Cabales 

 

We are also proud to congratulate the following players across all sections for increasing their ratings by over 50 points and wish them the best of luck to perform as well in their next tournaments as they did in this one:

U1200:

George Baron

Noah Brown

Vihan Divekar

Yumu Jiao

Vincent Xie

Shoobh Patel

Vedansh Agarwal

Vilok Puppala

Yash Gawas

Shreya Gawas

Joseph Chiang

Mia Chiang

Darren Pinto

Frankie Kirkman

Emilio Villegas

 

U800:

Rishik Abbaraju

Pranav Prabhu

Daniel Blanka

Vidyut Senthilkumar

Eesha Kumar

Kaiden Gomez

Ansh Jiandani

Arnav Shah

Sahasvath Indla

Akhil Nandakumar

Anya Chakida

 

U500:

Sean Pepper

Shivasanjith Sendhilkumar

Shourya Jain

Yaqub Ruhullah

Essa Memon

Nina Behl

Evgenii Khanbutaev

Viraj Divdkar

Vedant Sharma

Phani Surikuchi

Angela Rivas

Kellen Shibayama

Krishiv Singh

Ayansh Tata

Suveer Reddivari

Nicole Wishniowski

Lohith Gongati

Aadya Adusumalli

Issac Mendoza

Jaden Livingstone

Aniket Panicker





Linked here is a complete cross-table for the event, courtesy of Wilson Chess, and the US rating report.

 

Once again,  we want to congratulate everybody who participated and gave it their best in the tournament and to congratulate Wilson Chess and King Registration for running the tournament so smoothly on behalf of the Illinois Chess Association.






Illinois Makes a Splash at 2024 US Chess Invitationals

Just over two months ago, in late May of this year, the Illinois Chess Association ran our Youth and Senior Invitationals – used to determine the strongest player in their respective age section to represent Illinois in the US Open Championship Invitationals. The five players representing Illinois are pictured below: Larry Cohen (Irwin-Senior), Rebecca Corez (Haring-Girls), Avi Kaplan (Denker-High School), Anjaneya Rao (Barber-Grades 6-8) and Aiden Li (Rockefeller-Grades K-5). 

 

A group of people posing for a photo

From left to right: Rebecca, Larry, Aiden, Anjaneya, and Avi.

 

In the combined state team category, there was a four-way tie for first between Connecticut, Texas, Illinois, and Arizona. Based on tiebreaks, Illinois was awarded third place. Each player played a total of six games in their respective tournaments, their individual results are below:

 

Rebecca Cortez scored 3.5 points.

Avi Kaplan scored 5.0 points and finished as co-champion

Anjaneya Rao scored 5.5 points and finished as champion

Aiden Li scored 4.0 points

Larry Cohen scored 3.0 points



Below are the results of all of the teams who tied for first:

 

 Place  Code    Name                                           Score  TBrk[M]  TBrk[S]  TBrk[C] 
  1    1-4  CT      CT (2167.0)                                     21.0       72    110.5     78.5 
                    IM Maximillian Lu (2479) 4.5                  
                    Jasmine Su (2241) 4.5                         
                    Lilianna Gao (1931) 4.5                       
                    Lacey Wang (1961) 4.5                         
                    Mikhail Koganov (2223) 3.0                    
  2         TX      TX (2177.8)                                     21.0       70    104.5       75 
                    IM Eric Chang Liu (2446) 5.0                  
                    FM Sharvesh R Deviprasath (2540) 5.0          
                    Ellery Zhang (1821) 4.0                       
                    Oscar Yihang Zhang (1997) 3.5                 
                    Scott Alan Elliott (2085) 3.5                 
  3         IL      IL (2074.4)                                     21.0       69      102       75 
                    Anjaneya Sripathy Rao (2205) 5.5              
                    Avi Harrison Kaplan (2319) 5.0                
                    Aiden Linyuan Li (2024) 4.0                   
                    Rebecca Cortez (1824) 3.5                     
                    Lawrence S Cohen (2000) 3.0                   
  4         AZ      AZ (2166.6)                                     21.0       66       98       73 
                    IM Sandeep Sethuraman (2479) 5.0              
                    Roshan Sethuraman (2223) 4.5                  
                    Aishwarya Lakshmi Ganapathy (1844) 4.0        
                    Sharvesh Arul (1959) 4.0                      
                    FM Robby Adamson (2328) 3.5                

Click here to view the results of all teams who competed.

 

To help cover fees to travel to the tournament, all scholastic representatives received a $250 travel stipend from the Illinois Chess Association. In addition, Anjaneya Rao received a $5000 scholarship and Avi Kaplan received a $3000 scholarship to the colleges of their choice for their performance in their sections. 

 

The Illinois Chess Association would like to congratulate all of our players for their amazing performance at the Championship Invitationals and extend our greatest appreciation for representing our state at such a great level. 

Jeff Smith recognized as TD of year for 2024 by US Chess

The most memorable part of any chess tournament is a powerful tactic during your game or talking with friends after your games, but none of that would be possible without the careful orchestration and management from tournament directors. These individuals play a vital role in ensuring that tournaments run smoothly, fairly, and efficiently – making them indispensable to the success of any event. Due to their supreme importance, every year at the US Open, one tournament director is awarded the designation as the Tournament Director of the Year.

 

jeffsmith.png

 

With that, the Illinois Chess Association would like to congratulate one of our own TD’s – Jeff Smith – who received this prestigious award at the US Open this year. Jeff has worked in over 750 sections across the country since 2005. Beginning in 2007, where he worked the Illinois All Grade, Jeff has been a major part of Illinois Chess. Since 2009 Jeff has worked at many national events, the first of which was the Supernationals of that same year. Just in 2018, Jeff finally became a National Tournament Director. More recently, you may have seen him working at many IHSA and IESA tournaments.

On a personal note, Jeff is an amazing person and an excellent addition to the Illinois and US chess communities, as well as chess as a whole. The ICA is proud to say that this excellent director is one of our own and we are deeply proud of him for receiving this award. This award is well deserved and best of luck to Jeff as he continues to help our great community into the future.

High School Team Victorious in Romania

Congratulations to the Waubonsie Valley chess team for their victory in the The International School Chess Festival last week from July 2nd to July 6th. Waubonsie Valley sent five players – Anjaneya Rao, Aryan Shrigadi, Arnav Karthikeyan, RIa Raj, and Christan Cheng – as well as their coaches Dr. Mikhail Korenman and Robyn Whitlock.

 



Nineteen teams, representing seven countries competed at the Festival. Waubonsie went a perfect 8-0 in the tournament, the only team to do so. The team from Israel came in a close second with 7 points followed by Ukraine with 6 points. Here is the final ranking after 8 rounds(for specific information pertaining to each team click on their respective name).

 

Rk.

SNo

Team

Games

  + 

  = 

  - 

 TB1 

 TB2 

 TB3 

 TB4 

1

1

Waubonsie Valley High School, Aurora, Chicago

8

8

0

0

16

0,00

31

123

2

2

Green Village School (Israel)

8

7

0

1

14

0,00

25

135

3

4

Lyceum No. 9 Odessa (Ukraine) (U12)

8

6

0

2

12

0,00

21,5

136

4

5

Liceul Teoretic Ion Creanga Tulcea

8

5

0

3

10

0,00

19

141

5

15

Lic. Teh. Vasile Gherasim Marginea

8

4

0

4

8

0,00

17,5

108,5

6

7

Polgarstraße Vienna (Austria)

8

4

0

4

8

0,00

16,5

142,5

7

11

Lic. Teh. Vasile Gherasim Marginea (U12)

8

4

0

4

8

0,00

16

142

8

12

Liceul Simion Stolnicu Comarnic 2

7

3

0

4

8

0,00

16

109

9

9

Liceul Simion Stolnicu Comarnic 1

8

4

0

4

8

0,00

15

143,5

10

18

Sc. Gim. Nr. 2 Poiana Comarnic (U12)

6

2

2

2

7

0,00

16

88

11

10

Lic. Teh. Constantin Cantacuzino Baicoi 1 (U1

8

3

1

4

7

0,00

13,5

117,5

12

14

Lic. Teh. Constantin Cantacuzino Baicoi 2 (U1

7

1

3

3

7

0,00

13,5

99

13

8

Kazakhstan

4

3

0

1

7

0,00

12

73,5

14

13

Sc. Gim. Toma Caragiu Ploiesti 1 (U12)

7

2

0

5

6

0,00

12

105

15

6

International Team

8

1

4

3

6

0,00

10

112

16

16

Liceul Simion Stolnicu Comarnic (U12)

7

1

2

4

6

0,00

10

110

17

17

Lic. Teh. Constantin Cantacuzino Baicoi 3 (U1

7

1

1

5

5

0,00

9,5

83,5

18

3

Kyrgyzstan (U12)

4

0

4

0

5

0,00

9

62,5

19

19

Sc. Gim. Toma Caragiu Ploiesti 2 (U12)

7

0

1

6

3

0,00

6

92

 

On July 4th, the day off the competition, the team participated in Bucharest at the Torch Ceremony for the 100th anniversary of FIDE. It was the first experience for WVHS to play in Europe and the team enjoyed the trip. Dr. Korenman greatly appreciated the families who traveled with students to participate in the event. Pictured below is the WVHS team with FIDE Executive Director GM Victor Bologan.