After a year absence, Whitney Young has once again won the IHSA state team chess championship. Despite losing on first board, Whitney Young defeated Stevenson (Lincolnshire) 42.0 to 26.0 in the final round to claim the championship with a perfect 7.0. 

With a large faction of the tournament hall gathered around Fourth Board and the team score at 33.0-26.0, Nikhil Kalghatgi offered a draw to his Stevenson opponent, Conrad Oberhaus. The 4.5 points would have been enough to secure the team championship, but would have cost Nikhil his own perfect score. When the offer was rejected, Nikhil went on to secure the win in a thrilling end game. 

Stevenson was one of five squads winding up with 6.0/7, taking second place with the highest tiebreak in the score group.

Based on tiebreaks, Illinois Math and Science Academy (IMSA) based in Aurora took third place and Highland Park took fourth place, with both squads compiling identical 354.5 cumulative individual scores.

Hinsdale Central and Maine South (Park Ridge) took fifth and sixth places respectively, again on tiebreaks.

Finishing just outside the overall team awards with 5.5 scores were Evanston Township and Northside Preparatory (of Chicago) which drew 34.0-34.0 in the final round. Evanston's cumulative individual tally of 356.0 was actually higher than IMSA's, although a different tiebreak method was used for ordering within score groups.

21 teams posted 5.0/7 scores, all from upstate high schools with the exception of Bloomington High School (22nd) and Normal Community High School (24th). All nine top-finishers were from the Chicago area.

The two-day 2015-2016 IHSA championship concluded February 13 at the Peoria Civic Center.

Whitney Young has now won the prestigious event four of the last six years, with the exception of 2011-2012 (Niles North) and 2014-2015 (Naperville North).

This year's squad, again coached by Paul Kash, featured three freshmen on the top four boards: Matthew Stevens (1st), and twins Akhil and Nikhil Kalghatgi (3rd & 4th Boards). Freshman Ricky Roman played five rounds on Board 8 (scoring four wins and a draw). To repeat next year, the team will have to replace a lot of experience with seniors Philip Parker-Turner (2nd), Stephan Horvath (5th), Caelan Burke-Kaiser (6th), Chris Rupprecht (7th) and Benny Chiang all graduating. 

Despite the graduation of Allen Guo (Board Two), Stevenson promises to be formidable for the next couple years with the return of sophomores Alex Bian and Conrad Oberhaus (Boards 1 and 4) and freshmen Miranda Liu (Board 3), Jack Xiao (Board 6), and Shashank Bala (Board 7).

Lest one thinks chess players devote all their studies to 64 squares of real estate, Oberhaus is a two-time Illinois Geography Bee champion and was the national runner-up before returning to chess last year.

Individual Top Scores

Three players finished with perfect 7.0 scores on first board: Alex Bian of Stevenson, Hanson Hao of Bloomington and, for the second year in a row, Yuki Nojima of Hersey High School (Arlington Heights).

Also going undefeated with six wins and a draw were Jonathan Hrach of Highland Park, Jack Curcio of Maine South and Nino Dakhundaridze of Belleville West.

On Board Two, only James Wei of IMSA was 7.0, with 6.0's achieved by Jonathan Lee of Northside, Tyler Tompkins of Hinsdale Central, Abe Sun of New Trier (Winnetka) and Krystian Tomasik of Fenton (Bensenvile).

Of Board Threes, Akhil Kalghatgi of Whitney Young and Harrison Loh of Naperville North posted the only perfect 7.0's. Pranav Sriram of Lincoln Park, Preston Bellini of Sterling and Rudy Krastin of Shepard (Palos Heights) all had 6.0's.

Nikhil Kalghatgi (Whitney Young) and Vlad Pirozek (Reavis High School in Burbank) were 7.0 scorers on Fourth Board. 

David Fletcher of West Chicago had the lone perfect score on Board Five. Three players had 6.5's: Kenny Kotowsky (Maine South), Byron Chin (Glenbrook North) and Ian Seegers (Evanston).

Two players were 7-for-7 on Board Six: Peter Ren of Hinsdale Central and Zak Mackovitch of Oak Lawn Community. Sevan Tamazian of Neuqua Valley (Naperville) compiled six wins before drawing in the seventh match to achieve a 6.5.

There were no perfect scores on Board Seven, but Neuqua Valley's Vikram Dara, a freshman, posted a 6.5 with a third-round draw and six wins.

Wheaton Warrenville South's Ryan Odle had the lone perfect score on Board Eight. Naperville North's Ajay Balaraman and Naperville Central's Sam Rosensweig both tallied 6.5.

With substitutions by alternates, 255 different individuals played at least one game on Eighth Board, while 195 took their chances on Board Seven.

All totaled, 1334 players participated in the event, once again making the uniquely-formatted IHSA Championship the largest Illinois chess event of the year and one of the largest in the US. In the past year, the only larger tournaments included the National Elementary (2259) held in Nashville, TN, the National K-12 (1766) held in Florida, and the National High School Championship (1519) held in Columbus, OH. 

Complete crosstables are posted on the IHSA website.

The Illinois Chess Coaches Association (ICAA) provides additional awards based on school size. Those results are posted on the ICCA site.

Class winners (beyond the top 6): 6A - Evanston Township (5.5); 5A - Lincoln Park of Chicago (5.0 with top tiebreak); 4A - Glenbrook North of Northbrook (5.0 with top tiebreak); 3A - Northside Prep of Chicago (5.5); 2A - Riverside (5.0 with top tiebreak); 1A - University High School of Urbana (4.0 with top tiebreak).

 

Board Four Medalists 

Board Six Medalists