Aren Emrikian may have skipped First Grade -- but he hasn't missed a beat at the chess board!

The Wilmette wunderkind recently turned seven and is now the number two "7 & Under" in the US. He is just over 100 points away from the number one at that age -- from New Jersey. Aren's rating is more than 600 points greater than the second highest Illinois "7 & Under".

Six other talented Illinois youth are in the top 10 of their respective age groups as of January's official US Chess supplement including Dimitar Mardov (3), Arthur Xu (4), Aydin Turgut (6), David Peng (3), Jacob Furfine (9) and George Li (10).

 

US Rank Name Jan 2017 Rating
Ages 7 & Under
2   Emrikian, Aren C (15766785) -- Age 6 1835
40   Li, Michael (15752152) 1223
48   Mehrotra, Ekansh (15991103) 1172
98   Pham, Linda (15464538) 937
       
Age 8
3   Mardov, Dimitar (15205818) 1920
8   Yong, David (15273720) 1713
51   Chen, David Baokang (15324980) 1448
61   Elgat, Adam (15552450) 1381
       
Age 9
4   Xu, Arthur (14968896) 1949
36   Zhao, Alex (15335115) 1685
39   Wang, William (15270976) 1676
93   Ramnath, Vrishank (15137342) 1470
       
Age 10
No Illinois players in US Top 100 at this time
       
Age 11
34   Zheng, Peter (15075977) 1893
42   Rao, Patrick (14855075) 1854
94   Ladan, Nicholas John (15092641) 1669
       
Age 12
6   Turgut, Aydin (14284734) 2204
67   Bareket, Adam (14949325) 1870
82   Gong, Brian Hope (14663750) 1831
       
Age 13
3   Peng, David Tianjian (14195454) 2390
23   Daniels, Jason Scott (14107163) 2090
29   Wang, Ricky (14403974) 2055
39   Bareket, Tom (14949310) 2011
46   Mangalam, Shreya B (14385521) 1986
59   Zhang, Edward (14685367) 1928
61   Acharya, Siddharth (15165476) 1925
74   Jay, Neel (14803101) 1862
93   Carey, Aidan M (14949435) 1824
       
Age 14
21   Do, Vincent (13666696) 2198
48   Li, Marissa (14468490) 2034
       
Age 15
9   Furfine, Jacob (13089315) 2295
23   Stevens, Matthew James (13788934) 2199
28   Kalghatgi, Nikhil (13797221) 2166
33   Kalghatgi, Akhil (13797215) 2141
57   Hao, Hanson (13858968) 2052
78   Liu, Miranda (14042343) 2010
89   Venkat, Abhyudhaya (14519152) 1974
       
Age 16
10   Li, Zhaozhi (13646954) 2402
20   Bian, Alex (13257335) 2286
34   Adve, Anshul (13296020) 2194
41   Bartochowski, Nicholas J (13216472) 2179
49   Bronfeyn, Daniel (13720325) 2140
60   Narayanan, Rishi T (13949428) 2089
64   Curcio, Jack Thomas (13451367) 2072
84   Fei, Andrew Yueyang (14064411) 2026
       
Age 17
25   Lehmann, Spencer (13457744) 2214
63   Denby, Caleb Sean (14361200) 2019
       
Age 18
26   Hrach, Jonathan Matthew (14094872) 2204
62   Chen, John (13728578) 2045
68   Holzmueller, Nathan (13899472) 2029
70   Holecek, Zachary (12933315) 2014
81   Parker-Turner, Phillip (12954448) 1965