Youth Chess News
Illinois Players Earn Hardware at 3rd Ice Harbor Scholastic, Panner Wins K-6 U800, Rockford Marshall Nabs K-12 U1200
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- Written by Bill Feldman Bill Feldman
Aidan Carey could have played it easy and entered the K-6 Open at the Third Annual Ice Harbor Scholastic. But who likes easy?
Instead the Avery Coonley School sixth grader entered the K-12 Open, beat a 1900, drew an 1800, raised his USCF rating to 1768 and nabbed the fifth place trophy.
Aidan's only loss came at the hands of Joseph Wan of Iowa, the event champion and the 2014 K-6 National Champion.
Fellow Aurora Chess Club member Vrishank Ramnath also might have vied for the K-3 Open championship, but after winning his first round, moved up to the K-12 where he won one and drew another against players twice his age.
Turgut Claims 2nd at National K-6, Daniels Ties for 5th
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- Written by Bill Feldman Bill Feldman
Dropping a game at a national tournament is never fun, but for Aydin Turgut it did not mean the end of the road.
Despite the fifth round loss to the eventual champion, Aydin rallied, won his last two games and, as things fell into place, Aydin claimed second place.
California fourth grader Andrew Hong, already a USCF master, was crowned National Champion. Aydin had the highest tiebreaks among a trio of 6.0/7's, despite having the lowest of the three pre-event ratings.
Aydin's bughouse partner, Jason Daniels had a strong finish of his own, posting 5.5/7, tying for fifth place, earning 13th place hardware on tiebreaks.
Buffalo Grove's Ricky Wang was a half-point back at 5.0, tying for 18th, 19th on tiebreaks.
Advaith Prabu Ties for 4th at National K-5, 7th on Tiebreaks
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- Written by Bill Feldman Bill Feldman
Advaith Prabu came within a half-point of the National K-5 Championship. The fifth grader finished 6.0/7, losing only to Washington's Anthony He, the second highest-rated player in the section.
Anthony drew the first and second place finishers, Tan Nguyen and Daniel Levkov, in the sixth and seventh rounds respectively. As a result, the fourth grade USCF Expert finished with the highest tiebreak among six 6.0 scorers, taking home fourth place hardware.
Advaith claimed the seventh place trophy, despite having the lowest pre-event rating among the top 10 finishers. His score paced his Benjamin Elementary (Bloomington) team to 17th place hardware. Also contributing to the Benjamin team score were Tyler Tanton (3.5), Arnav Sriram (2.0) and Owen Parker (2.0).
Aaron Gan Ties for Third at National Elementary K-3
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- Written by Bill Feldman Bill Feldman
Aaron Gan of Lincolnshire's Half Day School won six of his seven games -- including his last five matches -- tying for third place in the K-3 section of the 2015 Elementary Championships.
On tiebreaks, Aaron took home fifth place hardware from the Nashville competition which concluded May 10.
Second grader Arthur Xu had the top tiebreak among 4.5 scorers, tying for 46th place out of 255 players competing in multiple rounds.
A half-point back was Vrishank Ramnath and Sohan Bendre, both with 4.0's.
Sohan's 4.0 paced Avery Coonley School to 15th place team honors. Yash Desai (3.0), Jaden Fauske (2.5) also contributed to the 11.5 team result, along with solid tallies from Abhi Batchu and Neola Edwin.
Alex Zhao Wins K-1 National Championship, Coonley Takes 5th
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- Written by Bill Feldman Bill Feldman
Alex Zhao, a first-grader at Avery Coonley School in Downers Grove, is the K-1 National Champion!
Alex defeated Californian Sriram Krishnakumar in the final round to secure the championship after upsetting top-rated Marvin Gao (1613) and third-ranked Adrian Kondakov (1500) in the sixth and fifth rounds respectively.
Sriram was the top tiebreak in the ten-player 6.0 scoregroup, which included Illinois' Dimitar Mardov. Sriram claimed third place, Dimitar, the K-1 Illinois Champion, took fifth place. Sriram defeated Dimitar in the sixth round.
Virginia Kindergartner Ronen Wilson had a shot at the co-championship, but could only manage a draw in the last round against second-rated William Safranek (1596) of New York. Ronen finished with 6.5 to claim second place outright.