1 Abbaraju, Rishik
2 Prabhu, Pranav
3 Sabarish, Shravan
4 Arunkumar, Krithin
5 Hogan, Paul Joseph
6 Daniels, Tate
7 Senthilkumar, Eyal
2024 Illinois Class Championship
The Illinois Chess Association is happy to congratulate Glenn Panner and Maret Thorpe from Chess Weekend for an impressive organization of our 2024 Illinois Class State Championship on November 24, 2024. This tournament was held in Schaumburg, Illinois.
The tournament had eight sections: the typical class sections which are Master/Expert, Class A, Class B, Class C, Class D and Class E, there was an additional two under sections, Under 1000 and Under 800. In total, there were over 250 participants, 19 of which were ICA members. The tournament consisted of four rounds of game 60 with a 5 second delay.
Players preparing to play, courtesy of Zoren Bogdanovic
Master and Expert
We had a very exciting last round with Sam Schakel leading with leading with a perfect 3 points and three players tied with 2.5 points going into the final round. The three players were Ochirbat Lkhagvajamts, Aung Thant Zin and Sachit Srinivas Rajkumar. Aung and Sachit took a bye in the last round, leaving them a total of 3 points for the event. Meanwhile, Sam and Ochirbat drew giving the Master / Expert title to Sam with 3.5 points. Ochirbat ended in second place, tied with seven other players.
Here are the players that finished with at least three points:
Class A
There was a three-way tie for first place. Two players, Aaron J Anderson and Gaofei Wang, went into the last round with a perfect 3 points and drew. At the same time, Hemanth Samayamantri won their last game – causing a tie for first.
Here are the players that ended up with at least 2.5 points:
Class B
There was a two-way tie with a perfect three points going into the last round – afterwards Bu Long and Matthew Lucas Hough drew to end up alone in first with 3.5 points. Meanwhile, three other players won their last games to end up with 3 points.
Here are the players that finished with at least 2.5 points:
Class C
Junho Park and Akshay Naik went into round four with a perfect 3 points. Then, Junho defeated Akshay to finish as the standalone winner of Class C with a perfect score of 4 points. Amy Zhan and Ethan Chen came in a close second with 3.5 points and several players ended up with 3 points.
Here are the players that ended up with at least 3 points:
Class D
Benjamin Link was the only player they had a perfect three points going into the last round. Benjamin played Kevin Peter in the final round, which he won; finalizing his perfect four wins for the tournament. At the same time, Robert Jamar Polite III and Abir Palekar both went into the last round with 2.5 points. Shortly thereafter, Robert defeated Abir to get second place alone with 3.5 points.
Here are the players that ended up with at least 2.5 points:
Class E
Three players went into the last round with a perfect 3 points: Joshua Michael Gordon, Ayaan Todi, and Neil Aditya Joshi. Joshua defeated Pratheek Gajula, who had 2.5 points, and Ayaan defeated Neil. Sean Keiya ended up alone with 3.5 points after winning his final game in a similar manner.
Here are the players that ended up with at least 2.5 points:
Under 1000
Nilan Velu won the Under 1000 with a perfect 4 points. Then, Ishaan Tanneeru and Danzan Dashdemberel came in a tie for second with 3.5 points.
Here is Nilan receiving his trophy courtesy of his parents
Below are the players that ended up with at least 2.5 point:
Under 800
There were six players going into the final round with a perfect 3 points: Michael Cronin, Shrinath Hariharan, Sohan Chamarthi, Nirali Mohapatra, Alexander Panich, Larry Furnish, Evgenii Khanbutaev, Rayansh Prasad and Aadhya Adusumalli. After an exciting final round, there was three players with a perfect 4 points. Michael won on tiebreaks, Shrinath came in second with tiebreaks and Sohan came in third via tiebreaks.
Here is Michael Cronin receiving the first-place trophy courtesy of his parents.
Here are the players that ended up with at least 3 points:
Linked here is a complete cross-table for the event, courtesy of Chess Weekend, and linked here is 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 are happy to congratulate everybody who participated and gave it their best in this tournament and to congratulate Glenn Panner and Maret Thorpe along with Chess Weekend for running the tournament so smoothly on behalf of the Illinois Chess Association. We also want to thank the 19 Illinois Chess Association members that came out and supported our Illinois State Championship.
Read More
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
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.
Nathaniel receiving his trophy; courtesy of his parents
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.
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.
Artemil receiving his trophy; courtesy of his parents
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.
Alexander with trophy; courtesy of his parents
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 receiving his award; courtesy of his parents
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 with trophy courtesy of his parents
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.
Bishrelt with trophy courtesy of his parents
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 – Courtesy of her parents
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.
Shivakumaran Minor Vellapandi – Courtesy of his parents
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.
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.
Read More
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.
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.
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.
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.
Read More
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
Read MoreAvi 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.
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
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.
Read MoreEvery 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.
Here is Anjaneya’s game for round six, where he defeated Jasmine Su from Connecticut with the French Defense:
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
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).
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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The Illinois Chess Association would like to welcome Edwin Walker as our new director of the Warren Junior Scholars program. Edwin is well known to many people in the Illinois chess community and someone I consider a friend. I am confident that he will do a remarkable job with the Warren Junior Scholars and Rising Stars scholastic programs. I would also like to thank Eric Luster, the outgoing chairman of our program, for his years of dedicated service. He has graciously offered to assist Edwin during this transition period.
Please join me in welcoming Edwin to his new position.
Stephen Plotnick
President, Illinois Chess Association