2024 Illinois All Grade Championship

2024 Illinois All Grade Championship

 

The Illinois Chess Association is happy to congratulate Jeff Diorio from Elite Chess for brilliantly organizing our 2024 Illinois All Grade Championship in Naperville, Illinois on November 9, 2024.

The tournament had nine sections: 2nd through 8th grade, while kindergarten was combined with 1st grade, likewise for high school(9th through 12th grade). In total, over 350 kids participated, of whom, we are pleased to see 50 new faces from last year. We had 10 ICA members play in the event. Further, we had better than expected representation from downstate, including the following four schools that won trophies:

Chiddix - Normal 7th Grade, 3rd Place

Grove - Normal 5th Grade, 2nd Place

Benjamin - Bloomington 4th Grade, 3rd Place

Thomas Metcalf - Normal 3rd Grade, 1st Place

trpphy

Trophies on display - courtesy of Elite Chess

 

Listed below are the results for the different sections:

High School

Nathaniel was the outright winner with a perfect four points. After Nathaniel, four players tied with 3 points, four players tied with 2 points and a further four tied with 1.5 points. Final order after tie-breaks for trophies are listed below.

nar

Nathaniel receiving his trophy; courtesy of his parents

 

HS

Eighth Grade

 

Gene Tcheng was the outright winner with a perfect 4 points. Avanish Ram Amarnath came in second alone with 3.5 points. Then, seven players finished with 3 points and two with 2.5 points. Final order after tie-breaks for trophies are listed below.

 

8

Seventh Grade

 

There was a two way tie for first place with a perfect 4 points, opposed to the previous outright winners. Artemii Khanbutaev won on tiebreaks, leaving Kavin Sivagnanam in second. There were ten players with 3 points. Final order after tie-breaks for trophies are listed below.

 artemi

Artemil receiving his trophy; courtesy of his parents

 

7

Sixth Grade

 

Alexander Pan was the outright winner with a perfect 4 points. Two players tied with 3.5 points, but Anisha came in second based on tiebreakers. There were a further 13 players tied with 3 points. The final standings after tie-breaks for trophies are listed below.

ALEX

Alexander with trophy; courtesy of his parents

6

Fifth Grade

 

There was a two-way tie for first place with 4.5 points. However, Lucas Silvestre won on tiebreaks and Sarang Athreya Sankrithi came in second. There were six players with 4 points and an additional four players with 3.5 points. Below you can find the final order after tie-breaks for trophies.

 

LUCAS

Lucas receiving his award; courtesy of his parents

 

5 

Fourth Grade

Krish Vignesh was the outright winner with 4.5 points. Four players had 4 points, of which Pradhyum came in second on tiebreaks. There were a further 6 players with 3.5 points. The final standings after tie-breaks for trophies are listed below.

KRIS

Kris with trophy courtesy of his parents

4

Third Grade

Bishrelt  Munkhsuld was the outright winner with a perfect 5 points. After him, six players had 4 points, two players had 3.5 points and twelve players had 3 points. The final standings after tie-breaks for trophies are listed below.

BIS

Bishrelt with trophy courtesy of his parents

3

Second Grade

Emily Jiaying Tang was the outright winner with a perfect 5 points. Following her, four players had 4 points, two players with 3.5 points and seven players had 3 points. Final order after tie-breaks for trophies (top ten only) are listed below.

EMILY
  

Emily – Courtesy of her parents

2 

 

Combined Kindergarten and First Grade

Shivakumaran Minor Vellapandi was the outright winner with a perfect 5 points. Afterwards, six players had 4 points, one player had 3.5 points and eight players had 3 points. Of which the final standings after tie-breaks for trophies are listed below.

 minor

 Shivakumaran Minor Vellapandi – Courtesy of his parents

 

k1

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.

Name

Grade

PreRating

PostRating

Minor Vellapandi, Shivakumaran

0

666

914

Amouei Torkmahalleh, Raymand

1

422

543

Biswal, Shrinika

1

146

279

Garetto, Lucca

1

108

164

Kobe, James

1

104

208

NORA MAXFIELD

1

156

278

Wang, Mason

1

198

382

Yang, Miesen

1

504

585

ADLER AKHMETOV

2

118

341

Geht, Charles

2

413

508

Gerelt Od, Robert

2

141

221

Kirkman, Frankie

2

262

345

Mehta, Ness

2

340

410

Mohan, Adhvik

2

732

782

Tata, Ayansh

2

605

698

Athira Ajeesh, Adharv

3

466

598

Banoth, Shanaya

3

840

900

Bian, Brandon

3

316

479

De Zoysa, Ryan

3

117

234

EZRA POFFENBARGER

3

672

819

Gray, Nathan

3

243

439

Lakshmi Narayanan, Vidyut

3

731

820

Munkhsuld, Bishrelt

3

1294

1363

PHILLIP WHITT

3

105

242

Raina, Ansh

3

379

555

TANISH SEN

3

816

908

Wolkowitz, Ryan

3

190

244

YASH GAWAS

3

515

644

ANDREW LEE

4

512

592

Fee, Leo

4

829

923

PEARL INFANTE

4

101

164

Vignesh, Krish

4

1050

1107

Yun, Jaden

4

363

414

Zhang, Albert

4

637

818

ERKHEMBAYAR ERDENEOCHIR

5

480

554

Huang, Sam

5

280

336

LUCAS MILLARD

5

714

771

Midha, Shivansh

5

720

773

Shikhare, Aayush

5

428

543

Vepari, Kaarthisha

5

241

300

Wiseman, Zachary

5

137

193

Wu, Isalinda

5

297

480

Bayartamir, Bill

6

855

980

Herbert, Maddox

6

149

284

Jadhav, Sameehan Nikhil

6

859

928

LOHITH REDDY GONGATI

6

727

808

Zhou, Wellington

6

239

314

Boppudi, Sahasra

7

734

926

Brown, Noah G

7

543

665

ESEN MUNKHTUR

7

952

1022

Kim, Shiloh

7

475

682

Murugan, Yugan

7

202

414

Polenska, Micah

7

283

405

Prasanna Venkatesh, Mukund Vasudev

7

664

738

SAMUEL KELLY

7

981

1055

Sienkiewicz, Luke

7

706

771

Wu, Ethan

7

488

560

Zhou, Louis

7

333

412

Amarnath, Avanish Ram

8

915

1197

Ingrum, Rylan

8

643

694

Itagi, Anish

8

963

1087

JOSIAH BOVEY

8

1154

1243

Larson, Andrew

8

344

415

VIKHYATH CHATRATHI

8

929

1036

Kane, Jack Aidan

9

706

774

GANNON BATES

11

932

1114

Borne, Gavin

12

964

1136

Jaynes, Logan

12

748

884

 

The following players are members of the Illinois Chess Association who participated. Thank you for your support.

icamem 

Linked here is a complete cross-table for the event, courtesy of King Registration, and the US rating report. Following these links, you can view the full results across any sections instead of the abbreviated standings above.

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

 

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Illinois Chess Association Update

The Illinois Chess Association is pleased to provide an update on our latest developments and
introduce our forthcoming enhanced website. Earlier this year, we successfully launched the
updated ICA tour, which stands out as one of the premier program among all US Chess affiliate
associations, featuring an exceptional prize fund. We invite you to visit our website to explore
our exciting updated program.

At the beginning of the year, we approached Jacob Plotnick to assume the role of our editor,
which had been vacant for several years. He graciously accepted the position and has since
produced a commendable body of work, authoring numerous articles on tournaments and
publishing interviews to recognize notable individuals within the Illinois Chess community. If you
wish to have an article written, please contact editor@il-chess.org.


Our Warren Junior Scholar director, Edwin Walker, has been diligently overseeing the program,
ensuring the success of the youth tournament, and is currently in the process of revamping the
program. Collaborating with several board members, he will soon present his innovative ideas,
which we hope to share with you in the near future.


Our new website is currently undergoing testing and is being developed from scratch. It will
retain all the categories featured on the previous site. As a frequently asked question from both
affiliates and members revolves around the value of joining the ICA, we aim for the new website
to provide an array of compelling reasons beyond the mere benefit of a five-dollar discount on
select tournaments or participation in the ICA tour.


The upcoming tournaments will showcase a fresh and modern look. The events page will
remain the same, with the Open and Scholastic categories intact. Additionally, we will introduce
new categories for the ICA tour and ICA Championship events. Notably, each category will
feature a carousel with prominent buttons, displaying the next ten tournaments in each
respective category. Simply click on a button to access the event details, conveniently located
on the main page.


In addition, we will implement an email blast system to inform you of upcoming tournaments,
similar to the approach used by US Chess. Weekly, a single email will be sent, encompassing
all upcoming tournaments organized by our affiliates. Rest assured, you will receive only one
email per week, preventing an influx of multiple messages.


We are also excited to introduce a free section on our website, where the ICA will post videos,
PGN games, and other related content. This section will provide a glimpse of the resources
available to our members, albeit on a limited scale.


Membership benefits will include access to an exclusive member area, offering PGN games for
analysis, PGN endgames for study, PGN puzzles, training videos, and the revival of the Illinois
Chess Bulletins (ICB). Furthermore, members will enjoy a five-dollar discount on select events.
For affiliates, the dedicated area will grant the ability to create and publish their own events on
our website, upload PGN games for publication, have their tournaments highlighted on the
home page, and advertise their tournaments in our weekly email sent to members. Additionally,
affiliates will have the option to have articles published about their tournaments.


National and state events will continue to receive prominent exposure, while the ICA Club Tour,
designed to support membership and affiliates, will reward members who participate in
tournaments organized by ICA affiliates. Points will be awarded for wins, losses, or draws, and

prizes, including trophies for Scholastic players, are currently being determined. Although no
monetary rewards will be provided, the prizes will hold significant value. A progress tracker will
also be available on our website.
We look forward to unveiling the new website and its enhanced features, providing our
members and affiliates with an improved online experience.

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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.

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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.






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ICA Elections - Nomination Period for 2024 Is Now Open!

The ICA is pleased to announce the call for nominations for the five Executive Board members of the Board of Directors. The President, Upstate Vice-President, Downstate Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer will take office on January 1, 2025 and serve a two-year term.

Who Is Eligible to Be Nominated?

Under the ICA Bylaws, directors must be residents of Illinois and members of the ICA. At least two at-large directors must reside in Cook County or the Collar Counties (DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will), and at least two must reside outside these counties.

Submitting Your Nomination

Any ICA member may submit a nomination. Self-nominations are also permitted and encouraged.
Nominations may be submitted by email to secretary@il-chess.org. Nominations must be seconded by 10 voting ICA members and the nominee must agree to serve. The deadline for submitting nominations is October 10, 2024.

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Dan Wilson replaces Josh Flores as Secretary

Illinois Chess Association accepts resignation of Josh Flores as secretary. Josh contacted me to inform me he was busy on Wednesdays during our meetings. Josh will be missed but is willing to assist at any time. Dan Wison has accepted the position of Secretary and will stay on as a general board member. He is committed to doing both until the end of year after our Executive Board elections. 

Please feel free to reach out to Dan and thank him for assisting the ICA with two board positions.

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2024 US Open Denker High School Invitational Winner – Avi Kaplan

Avi Kaplan travelled to Norfolk, VA to represent Illinois in the 2024 US Chess Championship national invitational. Each state sends one person. Illinois determines who to send from an Illinois Chess Association state invitational, which AVI won with a score of 4.5/5 points. 50 states + DC send their qualifying chess delegate to compete, with California sending two for northern and southern regions.

The US Open Denker Invitational is 6 rounds starting July 27th with one game, two games on 28th and 29th and last game on 30th. Time control was G90+30.

Avi was undefeated. He had four wins and two draws giving him a total of 5 out of 6 points. Two other high school players had a total of 5/6 creating a three-way tie. Avi was given second place in the tiebreakers. For his efforts, other than being co-champion of the “Denker Tournament of HS Champions” Avi received a $3000 college scholarship. Illinois Chess Association also gave him a $250 travel stipend.

Here is Avi receiving his award.

avipic.jpg

                        

The complete cross-tables can be found here.

https://www.uschess.org/results/2024/usopen/?page=STANDINGS&xsection=denker

Here is Avi’s game for round six. He had a wonderful accuracy rating of 92.4% from Chess.com

avigame.jpg

The Illinois Chess Association wants to congratulate Avi for bringing home the Denker Co-Champion and being part of the team that brought to Illinois the team co-champion.

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Anjaneya Rao Named Champion of Champions at 2024 Barber Middle School Invitational

Every year, the Illinois Chess Association runs a tournament among the best players from 6th - 8th grade to represent Illinois in the US Barber Middle School Invitational. This year, Anjaneya Rao won and represented Illinois in Norfolk, VA. Every state and D.C. sends one delegate, while this year Virginia and California sent two delegates.

 

The US Open Barber Invitational was a 6-round(G90+30) tournament from July 27th - July 30th during which Anjaneya was undefeated. He finished as the sole winner with a score of 5.5 out of 6 after 5 wins and 1 draw. As Well as being the “Champion of Champions” of the Barber Middle School Invitational, Anjaneya received a $5000 scholarship to the college of his choice from USCF.

 

Below is Anjaneya receiving his award, pictured with Dewain Barber, after whom the tournament is named.

 

A person and person posing for a pictureDescription automatically generated



Here is Anjaneya’s game for round six, where he defeated Jasmine Su from Connecticut with the French Defense:

 

anjgame

 

The Illinois Chess Association is proud to congratulate Anjaneya for his impressive performance at the Barber Invitational this year and hope to see just how much he can achieve.



The complete cross-tables can be found here







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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. 

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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.

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Youth chess in Chicago, as it is in many other cities, is a complicated mosaic. We outline below some of the major components.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Chess in Chicago Public Schools is under the auspice of Academic Competitions under the Office of Teaching and Learning, The Chess programs is overseen by Sylvia Nelson Jordan, Director of Academic Competitions, Nichole Mathews, full time Chess Coordinator, and David Heiser, CPS Chess Consultant.

 Chess within CPS is separated into three distinct programs:

  • Academic Chess – After-school clubs and competitive chess tournaments
  • Cops & Kids– Promoting non-violence and increase positive relationships with youth and police officers through chess center programming
  • First Moves – In the classroom program for 2nd and 3rd grade students

Academic Chess provides students from diverse communities across the city with the opportunity to learn, play, and compete in Chess at no cost. The students participate in after school chess clubs and compete in tournaments throughout the year including at the CPS Academic Chess play-offs and Championships, City of Chicago Championship, State and National tournaments.

Academic Chess provides annual stipends to chess coaches who help run school clubs. They also provide assistance with starting clubs and organize city-wide tournaments including for students at both the elementary and high school level.  CPS holds Professional Development training for Coaches and students and organizes summer chess camps.  In 2017, the Chicago Board of Education approved a 3 year expansion plan for chess and has committed additional funding for both the Academic Chess program and Cops & Kids initiative.

The CPS High School Championship is held in January, usually the weekend before the IHSA Sectionals.  The CPS Elementary Play-offs and Championship are held in March. To participate in the K-8 CPS championship, players must have played in four previous matches or two tournaments and then qualify in either a south side or north side qualifying event. There is no equivalent qualifier for the high school event. For more information, see www.cpschess.com.

Over the past 10 years, CPS students have been successfully competing on the State and National level.  At the 2017 K-12 National Championship, 22 out of the 49 players were from Illinois were from CPS schools. The Whitney Young 11th grade team came in 1st place; the only Illinois school to place in top 3 of their division. Whitney Young’s Matthew Stevens was took 1st place individual in the 11th grade division along with fellow team mates Nikhil & Akhil Kalghatgi tying for 2nd place.

The annual invitational “MVP Tournament,” sponsored by the David R. Macdonald Foundation, is open to top K-12 players from CPS through a nomination process from their coaches, and is held at the Harold Washington Library over spring break.

Some parochial and independent schools in Chicago also have chess clubs, a few of which participate in tournaments. Only three schools with kids in grades K-8 (two parochial and one independent) sent teams to the free tournaments run by YCFC (see below). One of the sixteen Illinois high school conferences, the Chicago Chess Conference, is comprised of 10 Catholic high schools in Chicago (and two in the suburbs). ICA hopes to gather more accurate data on participation levels from these schools.

Tournaments in Chicago. Scholastic players can choose from a variety of local tournaments held in Chicago and its suburbs. Most are sponsored by professional organizers, both for-profit and not-for-profit, and are listed in our Events section. The majority are USCF-rated and have entry fees in the $25-$30 range. A few others sponsored by community-wide programs are less expensive.

CPS city-wide championships for students at both the elementary and high school level are sponsored by the CPS Sports Department, usually in March. To participate in the K-8 CPS championship, players must have played in four previous matches or two tournaments and then qualify in either a south side or north side qualifying event. There is no equivalent qualifier for the high school event. For more information, see www.cpschess.com.

For the past several years, there has also been a Chicago Prep Bowl for teams involved in the Chicago Public League (the CPS conference) and Chicago Chess Conference (parochial schools). The 2009 Prep Bowl was held in December. See http://theicca.blogspot.com/2009/07/chicago-prep-bowl-dec-06-2009.html.

The Youth Chess Foundation of Chicago (YCFC) has been running free tournaments for Chicago kids in grades K-8 for approximately fifteen years. In the past, these tournaments have been held in elementary and middle schools, but attendance increased substantially during the 2009-2010 school year, and future events will be held in Chicago-area high schools. The majority of participants attend CPS schools but the events are also open to students from parochial and independent schools. YCFC’s events are listed on the ICA Events page, and tournament results are listed at www.thechessacademy.org/YCFC.html.

Two annual invitational events are also held for CPS students. The “MVP Tournament,” sponsored by the David R. Macdonald Foundation, is open to top K-8 players nominated by their coaches, and is held at the Harold Washington Library over spring break. The "Diamond in the Rough" tournament, held in late spring at Cellular Field and hosted by the Illinois Sports Facility Authority and CPS’ Office of Academic Enhancement, is open to students attending CPS Magnet Cluster schools participating in the federally-funded Voluntary Public School Choice Program.