Just over a week remains until the 2017 Illinois K-8 Championships, this year hosted by the Bloomington Normal Area Scholastic Chess group.
Although the early registration discount has evaporated, a $50 registration for a two-day state championship is still an amazing offering -- available through 9pm on Friday, March 10.
The weekend kicks off with blitz and bughouse side events on Friday night... with the main event beginning Saturday morning at the Marriott Hotel and Convention Center in Normal.
More than 500 players and countless teams have registered for the four-section, seven-round scholastic event. Check out BNASC.org for complete details -- or to register.
The event is closed to residents from outside the state to assure an Illinois champion is crowned in each of the four sections.
As we've seen in countless K-8's, pre-event ratings are no guarantee of success.... but certainly impact seedings.
In the Grades K-1 section, top-rated players registered include: Akshith Narava, Hudson Lutfiyya, Anshul Shetty, and Pragyan Misra, all in the high 800's. Anshul, Pragyan and Hudson all finished in the top 10 in this section last year.
In the Grades 2-3 section, Owen Zhang and Adam Elgat are both rated above 1350 -- with 157 players registered! Elgat finished third in the section last year, based on tiebreaks, with Zhang tying for 14th place.
With 148 entries in the Grades 4-5 section, Avi Kaplan leads the pre-registrants with a 1600 rating, with Sam Fayn and William Cahill both over 1400. Both Kaplan and Cahill competed in the 2-3 section last year with Fayn posting 5.0 in the 4-5 section, tying for 14th place.
116 players have signed up for Grades 6-8 with two Experts on board: Jason Daniels and Shreya Mangalam. Neel Jay, Kevin Ho and Aidan Carey are Class A players registered in that top section. Jay and Carey finished with 6.0's last year, tying for second place with 6.0, with Daniels a half-point back at 5.5.
Proceeds from the event will benefit the BNASC, the ICA and the Warren Scholars & Rising Stars programs.