Vincent Do wins 2013 Illinois K-8

Nearly 600 chess-playing youths competed at the 2013 K-8 Illinois Championships March 9-10 in Normal, IL.

Fifth-grader Vincent Do of Rockford, playing up in the Junior High section (Grades 6-8) achieved the only 7.0/7 perfect score of the tournament.

Fourth-grader, Edward Zhang, Third-grader Aydin Turgut and First-grader Aaron Gan were the other section champions.

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Thomas Middle School Chess Tournament

Thomas Middle School in Arlington Heights held its 5th Annual
Middle School Chess Tournament on Saturday, February 23, 2013.
The tournament was open to any middle school student.
The tournament was directed by USCF (United States Chess Federation)
directors Jeff Wiewel and Matthew Wiewel.  This year, all the trophy winners were
7th graders from Thomas MS.

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USCF Top 100 List as of February 2013

Nine-year old phenom David Peng has claimed the number one ranking of his age group, barely edging out frequent Illinois tournament participant Awonder Liang of Wisconsin. Awonder has since regained a higher rating, but as of the January 18th date when the official bi-monthly rankings were generated, David had the upper hand.

Aydin Turgut (3rd in age 8), Sam Schmakel (7th in age 16) and Adarsh Jayakumar (4th in age 18) are the other Illinois players in the top 10 of their respective age groups.

Aged 18 years or younger, Illinois currently boasts three masters, Sam, Adarsh, and Jonathan Kogan (age 17), along with eight experts.

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Outstandin Longtime Chess Volunteer

Kyle Groters

Senior Kyle Groters is a Charter Member of the Timothy Christian School Chess Club in Elmhurst, Illinois. In high school, Kyle continued his involvement as a leader by attending all club meetings, advising younger players, preparing students for tournaments and teaching on occasion. His service as a member of our leadership team has been an invaluable as the team meets each week to promote chess in our school. Kyle’s dedication and service to our club has been a model of volunteerism in the scholastic chess community.

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25th Annual MLK Day Chess Tournament in Normal, IL

260 children played in this tournament which was also picked up by local news.

Tournament Crosstables.

Clear winner in Lower Primary - Matthew Paul Alexander 5-0.

In Upper Primary - four tied with 4.5 points - Advaith Prabu, Vishal Chandraesekar, Nuha Fatima Mozumder, Neal Adam Sundaram.

Elementary - Cassie Parent with 5-0.

In Jr High - Co-champions Sam Heil and Andrew Yueyang Fei with 4-0.