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 28^th and 29^th and last game on 30^th. 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.