Illinois Chess Association Update

The Illinois Chess Association is pleased to provide an update on our latest developments and
introduce our forthcoming enhanced website. Earlier this year, we successfully launched the
updated ICA tour, which stands out as one of the premier program among all US Chess affiliate
associations, featuring an exceptional prize fund. We invite you to visit our website to explore
our exciting updated program.

At the beginning of the year, we approached Jacob Plotnick to assume the role of our editor,
which had been vacant for several years. He graciously accepted the position and has since
produced a commendable body of work, authoring numerous articles on tournaments and
publishing interviews to recognize notable individuals within the Illinois Chess community. If you
wish to have an article written, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..


Our Warren Junior Scholar director, Edwin Walker, has been diligently overseeing the program,
ensuring the success of the youth tournament, and is currently in the process of revamping the
program. Collaborating with several board members, he will soon present his innovative ideas,
which we hope to share with you in the near future.


Our new website is currently undergoing testing and is being developed from scratch. It will
retain all the categories featured on the previous site. As a frequently asked question from both
affiliates and members revolves around the value of joining the ICA, we aim for the new website
to provide an array of compelling reasons beyond the mere benefit of a five-dollar discount on
select tournaments or participation in the ICA tour.


The upcoming tournaments will showcase a fresh and modern look. The events page will
remain the same, with the Open and Scholastic categories intact. Additionally, we will introduce
new categories for the ICA tour and ICA Championship events. Notably, each category will
feature a carousel with prominent buttons, displaying the next ten tournaments in each
respective category. Simply click on a button to access the event details, conveniently located
on the main page.


In addition, we will implement an email blast system to inform you of upcoming tournaments,
similar to the approach used by US Chess. Weekly, a single email will be sent, encompassing
all upcoming tournaments organized by our affiliates. Rest assured, you will receive only one
email per week, preventing an influx of multiple messages.


We are also excited to introduce a free section on our website, where the ICA will post videos,
PGN games, and other related content. This section will provide a glimpse of the resources
available to our members, albeit on a limited scale.


Membership benefits will include access to an exclusive member area, offering PGN games for
analysis, PGN endgames for study, PGN puzzles, training videos, and the revival of the Illinois
Chess Bulletins (ICB). Furthermore, members will enjoy a five-dollar discount on select events.
For affiliates, the dedicated area will grant the ability to create and publish their own events on
our website, upload PGN games for publication, have their tournaments highlighted on the
home page, and advertise their tournaments in our weekly email sent to members. Additionally,
affiliates will have the option to have articles published about their tournaments.


National and state events will continue to receive prominent exposure, while the ICA Club Tour,
designed to support membership and affiliates, will reward members who participate in
tournaments organized by ICA affiliates. Points will be awarded for wins, losses, or draws, and

prizes, including trophies for Scholastic players, are currently being determined. Although no
monetary rewards will be provided, the prizes will hold significant value. A progress tracker will
also be available on our website.
We look forward to unveiling the new website and its enhanced features, providing our
members and affiliates with an improved online experience.

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Jonathan Kogen crowned state champion at 2024 Illinois Open State Championship

The Illinois Chess Association is proud to congratulate Danial Wilson from Wilson Chess and Bill Buklis from King Registration for their amazing job at organizing our 2024 Illinois Open State Championship, at the Doubletree Hotel in Lisle, from August 30, 2024 to September 2, 2024. 

 

The tournament consisted of six sections: Major, Under 2100, Under 1900, Under 1700, Under 1500 and Under 1300. This tournament exceeded previous years with a record of over 250 participants playing, as well as additional players in the scholastic tournament, of which there is a separate article. From there, the Illinois Chess Association wants to thank all the players for playing in the tournament and supporting our organization.

 

illopen

 Image of the main playing hall (Regency Ballroom) during the final round. By Abdallah Aldweik

 

The State Champion title goes to the Illinois resident with the highest point total. The player with the highest point total was Awonder Liang with 6.5 out of 7. Alexander Velikanov tied for second with Jonathan Kogen with 5.5 points. But, because Awonder and Alexander are both not Illinois residents they are not eligible to be the State Champion, therefore Jonathan Kogen is this year's state champion.

 

Major

 

Awonder Liang won the section with 6.5 points out of 7. Then, as previously mentioned, Alexander Velikanov and Jonathan Kogen tied for second with 5.5 points. After that, Ochirbat Lkhagvajamts  and Spencer Lahmann tied for fourth with 5 points.

 

Linked here are the top games from the 6th round.

illopen games

Under 2100

 

Andrei Skorobogatykh and Aradh Kaur tied for first place with 5.5 points. For third place, four players, Rebecca Cortez, Dario Pjevic, Gurugrahan Gurumoorthi and Gaofei Wang, tied with 5 points.

 

Under 1900

 

Adam Walker was the outwrite winner with 6.5/7 points. His only draw came in the last round against Elizabeth Xia who finished uncontested in second with 5.5 points. After that, Amarjargal Ganbaatar and Shivani Manimaran tied for third with 5 points.

 

Under 1700

 

In an exciting finish in the U1700 there were two players, Joshua Flores and Nomay Piparia played each other in a tie for first place with 5 points out of 6. They drew and ended up tied for first place with 5.5 out of 7 points. Four other players tied for third with 5 points: Lucas Silverstre, Alex Giris, Christian Walls and Sanjay Advani

 

Under 1500

 

Four players tied for first place with 5.5 points: Amy Zhan, Patrick McDonnell, Sean Gao and Jack Witman.

 

Under 1300

 

Joseph Rozenblat won outright with 6.5/7 points. Aarnav Sheth finished uncontested in second with 6/7 points. Jim Alop and Anthony Dimonte tied for third place with 5.5 points.

 

Linked here is a complete cross-table for the event, courtesy of King Registration, and the US rating report.

 

Once again, we want to congratulate everybody who participated and gave their best in the tournament and to congratulate Wilson Chess and King Registration for running the tournament so smoothly on behalf of the Illinois Chess Association.

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2024 Illinois Scholastic Tournament

 

The Illinois Chess Association is happy to congratulate Danial Wilson from Wilson Chess and Bill Buklis from King Registration for their amazing job at organizing our Illinois Scholastic Tournament, at the Doubletree Hotel in Lisle last week, on August 31, 2024.

 

The tournament had three sections: Under 1200, Under 800 and Under 500. Across the entire tournament, there were over 150 players.

 

With that, the Illinois Chess Association wants to thank all the scholastic players for playing in the tournament and supporting us. Keep up the good work and we hope to see many of you being part of our Warren Scholars program in the future.

 

Under 1200

 

Rishik Abbaraju finished as the outright winner in the U1200 section with a perfect 5 out of 5 wins. Coming in a close second, Pranv Prabhu finished outright in second with 4.5/5 points. However, four players tied for third with 4/5 points: Krithin Arunkumar, Paul Hogan, Shravan Sabarish and Tate Daniels.

 

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Rishik proudly holding his first-place trophy



The top seven players received trophies:

 

1 Abbaraju, Rishik

2 Prabhu, Pranav

3 Sabarish, Shravan

4 Arunkumar, Krithin

5 Hogan, Paul Joseph

6 Daniels, Tate                           

7 Senthilkumar, Eyal 

 

Several other players tied for seventh, but did not receive a trophy due to tiebreakers, instead they received a medal for their amazing performance:

 

8 Senthilkumar, Vidyut

9 Blanka, Daniel 

10 Kumar, Eesha 

11 Vijayaraghavan, Pradhyum 

12 Li, Ethan 

 

Under 800

Sean Pepper was an outright winner with a perfect 5 points. An additional seven players tied for second with 4 points, which are listed below,

sean

Sean proudly holding his first-place trophy

 

There were trophies awarded to the top seven players:

 

1 Pepper, Sean

2 Ruhullah, Yaqub Uzair

3 Khanbutaev, Evgenii 

4 Jain, Shourya Nirmal

5 Behl, Nina 

6 Memon, Essa Ahmed

7 Divekar, Viraj 

 

The following player got a medal instead of a trophy based on tiebreakers:

 

8 Sendhilkumar, Shivasanjith 

 

Under 500

 

Similarly to the other sections, George Baron won outright with 5 points. After that, there was a nine-way tie with 4 points, all of whom are listed below,

george

George proudly holding his first-place trophy

 

These seven players were awarded trophies:

 

1 Baron, George 

2 Divekar, Vihan 

3 Brown, Noah G 

4 Wu, Alexander 

5 Jiao, Yumu 

6 Xie, Vincent 

7 Patel, Shoobh 

 

The following players were tied for second place and did not receive a trophy due to tiebreakers.  Still, they were all awarded with a medal for their triumphs.

 

8 Agarwal, Vedansh 

9 Lal, Aariyana 

10 Dimasacat, Princess Euniece Cabales 

 

We are also proud to congratulate the following players across all sections for increasing their ratings by over 50 points and wish them the best of luck to perform as well in their next tournaments as they did in this one:

U1200:

George Baron

Noah Brown

Vihan Divekar

Yumu Jiao

Vincent Xie

Shoobh Patel

Vedansh Agarwal

Vilok Puppala

Yash Gawas

Shreya Gawas

Joseph Chiang

Mia Chiang

Darren Pinto

Frankie Kirkman

Emilio Villegas

 

U800:

Rishik Abbaraju

Pranav Prabhu

Daniel Blanka

Vidyut Senthilkumar

Eesha Kumar

Kaiden Gomez

Ansh Jiandani

Arnav Shah

Sahasvath Indla

Akhil Nandakumar

Anya Chakida

 

U500:

Sean Pepper

Shivasanjith Sendhilkumar

Shourya Jain

Yaqub Ruhullah

Essa Memon

Nina Behl

Evgenii Khanbutaev

Viraj Divdkar

Vedant Sharma

Phani Surikuchi

Angela Rivas

Kellen Shibayama

Krishiv Singh

Ayansh Tata

Suveer Reddivari

Nicole Wishniowski

Lohith Gongati

Aadya Adusumalli

Issac Mendoza

Jaden Livingstone

Aniket Panicker





Linked here is a complete cross-table for the event, courtesy of Wilson Chess, and the US rating report.

 

Once again,  we want to congratulate everybody who participated and gave it their best in the tournament and to congratulate Wilson Chess and King Registration for running the tournament so smoothly on behalf of the Illinois Chess Association.






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ICA Elections - Nomination Period for 2024 Is Now Open!

The ICA is pleased to announce the call for nominations for the five Executive Board members of the Board of Directors. The President, Upstate Vice-President, Downstate Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer will take office on January 1, 2025 and serve a two-year term.

Who Is Eligible to Be Nominated?

Under the ICA Bylaws, directors must be residents of Illinois and members of the ICA. At least two at-large directors must reside in Cook County or the Collar Counties (DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will), and at least two must reside outside these counties.

Submitting Your Nomination

Any ICA member may submit a nomination. Self-nominations are also permitted and encouraged.
Nominations may be submitted by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Nominations must be seconded by 10 voting ICA members and the nominee must agree to serve. The deadline for submitting nominations is October 10, 2024.

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Dan Wilson replaces Josh Flores as Secretary

Illinois Chess Association accepts resignation of Josh Flores as secretary. Josh contacted me to inform me he was busy on Wednesdays during our meetings. Josh will be missed but is willing to assist at any time. Dan Wison has accepted the position of Secretary and will stay on as a general board member. He is committed to doing both until the end of year after our Executive Board elections. 

Please feel free to reach out to Dan and thank him for assisting the ICA with two board positions.

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2024 US Open Denker High School Invitational Winner – Avi Kaplan

Avi Kaplan travelled to Norfolk, VA to represent Illinois in the 2024 US Chess Championship national invitational. Each state sends one person. Illinois determines who to send from an Illinois Chess Association state invitational, which AVI won with a score of 4.5/5 points. 50 states + DC send their qualifying chess delegate to compete, with California sending two for northern and southern regions.

The US Open Denker Invitational is 6 rounds starting July 27th with one game, two games on 28th and 29th and last game on 30th. Time control was G90+30.

Avi was undefeated. He had four wins and two draws giving him a total of 5 out of 6 points. Two other high school players had a total of 5/6 creating a three-way tie. Avi was given second place in the tiebreakers. For his efforts, other than being co-champion of the “Denker Tournament of HS Champions” Avi received a $3000 college scholarship. Illinois Chess Association also gave him a $250 travel stipend.

Here is Avi receiving his award.

avipic.jpg

                        

The complete cross-tables can be found here.

https://www.uschess.org/results/2024/usopen/?page=STANDINGS&xsection=denker

Here is Avi’s game for round six. He had a wonderful accuracy rating of 92.4% from Chess.com

avigame.jpg

The Illinois Chess Association wants to congratulate Avi for bringing home the Denker Co-Champion and being part of the team that brought to Illinois the team co-champion.

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Anjaneya Rao Named Champion of Champions at 2024 Barber Middle School Invitational

Every year, the Illinois Chess Association runs a tournament among the best players from 6th - 8th grade to represent Illinois in the US Barber Middle School Invitational. This year, Anjaneya Rao won and represented Illinois in Norfolk, VA. Every state and D.C. sends one delegate, while this year Virginia and California sent two delegates.

 

The US Open Barber Invitational was a 6-round(G90+30) tournament from July 27th - July 30th during which Anjaneya was undefeated. He finished as the sole winner with a score of 5.5 out of 6 after 5 wins and 1 draw. As Well as being the “Champion of Champions” of the Barber Middle School Invitational, Anjaneya received a $5000 scholarship to the college of his choice from USCF.

 

Below is Anjaneya receiving his award, pictured with Dewain Barber, after whom the tournament is named.

 

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Here is Anjaneya’s game for round six, where he defeated Jasmine Su from Connecticut with the French Defense:

 

anjgame

 

The Illinois Chess Association is proud to congratulate Anjaneya for his impressive performance at the Barber Invitational this year and hope to see just how much he can achieve.



The complete cross-tables can be found here







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Illinois Makes a Splash at 2024 US Chess Invitationals

Just over two months ago, in late May of this year, the Illinois Chess Association ran our Youth and Senior Invitationals – used to determine the strongest player in their respective age section to represent Illinois in the US Open Championship Invitationals. The five players representing Illinois are pictured below: Larry Cohen (Irwin-Senior), Rebecca Corez (Haring-Girls), Avi Kaplan (Denker-High School), Anjaneya Rao (Barber-Grades 6-8) and Aiden Li (Rockefeller-Grades K-5). 

 

A group of people posing for a photo

From left to right: Rebecca, Larry, Aiden, Anjaneya, and Avi.

 

In the combined state team category, there was a four-way tie for first between Connecticut, Texas, Illinois, and Arizona. Based on tiebreaks, Illinois was awarded third place. Each player played a total of six games in their respective tournaments, their individual results are below:

 

Rebecca Cortez scored 3.5 points.

Avi Kaplan scored 5.0 points and finished as co-champion

Anjaneya Rao scored 5.5 points and finished as champion

Aiden Li scored 4.0 points

Larry Cohen scored 3.0 points



Below are the results of all of the teams who tied for first:

 

 Place  Code    Name                                           Score  TBrk[M]  TBrk[S]  TBrk[C] 
  1    1-4  CT      CT (2167.0)                                     21.0       72    110.5     78.5 
                    IM Maximillian Lu (2479) 4.5                  
                    Jasmine Su (2241) 4.5                         
                    Lilianna Gao (1931) 4.5                       
                    Lacey Wang (1961) 4.5                         
                    Mikhail Koganov (2223) 3.0                    
  2         TX      TX (2177.8)                                     21.0       70    104.5       75 
                    IM Eric Chang Liu (2446) 5.0                  
                    FM Sharvesh R Deviprasath (2540) 5.0          
                    Ellery Zhang (1821) 4.0                       
                    Oscar Yihang Zhang (1997) 3.5                 
                    Scott Alan Elliott (2085) 3.5                 
  3         IL      IL (2074.4)                                     21.0       69      102       75 
                    Anjaneya Sripathy Rao (2205) 5.5              
                    Avi Harrison Kaplan (2319) 5.0                
                    Aiden Linyuan Li (2024) 4.0                   
                    Rebecca Cortez (1824) 3.5                     
                    Lawrence S Cohen (2000) 3.0                   
  4         AZ      AZ (2166.6)                                     21.0       66       98       73 
                    IM Sandeep Sethuraman (2479) 5.0              
                    Roshan Sethuraman (2223) 4.5                  
                    Aishwarya Lakshmi Ganapathy (1844) 4.0        
                    Sharvesh Arul (1959) 4.0                      
                    FM Robby Adamson (2328) 3.5                

Click here to view the results of all teams who competed.

 

To help cover fees to travel to the tournament, all scholastic representatives received a $250 travel stipend from the Illinois Chess Association. In addition, Anjaneya Rao received a $5000 scholarship and Avi Kaplan received a $3000 scholarship to the colleges of their choice for their performance in their sections. 

 

The Illinois Chess Association would like to congratulate all of our players for their amazing performance at the Championship Invitationals and extend our greatest appreciation for representing our state at such a great level. 

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Jeff Smith recognized as TD of year for 2024 by US Chess

The most memorable part of any chess tournament is a powerful tactic during your game or talking with friends after your games, but none of that would be possible without the careful orchestration and management from tournament directors. These individuals play a vital role in ensuring that tournaments run smoothly, fairly, and efficiently – making them indispensable to the success of any event. Due to their supreme importance, every year at the US Open, one tournament director is awarded the designation as the Tournament Director of the Year.

 

jeffsmith.png

 

With that, the Illinois Chess Association would like to congratulate one of our own TD’s – Jeff Smith – who received this prestigious award at the US Open this year. Jeff has worked in over 750 sections across the country since 2005. Beginning in 2007, where he worked the Illinois All Grade, Jeff has been a major part of Illinois Chess. Since 2009 Jeff has worked at many national events, the first of which was the Supernationals of that same year. Just in 2018, Jeff finally became a National Tournament Director. More recently, you may have seen him working at many IHSA and IESA tournaments.

On a personal note, Jeff is an amazing person and an excellent addition to the Illinois and US chess communities, as well as chess as a whole. The ICA is proud to say that this excellent director is one of our own and we are deeply proud of him for receiving this award. This award is well deserved and best of luck to Jeff as he continues to help our great community into the future.

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U.S. Cadet Chess Championship 2024

The U.S. Cadet Championship is an annual invitational event which pits the eight strongest American players aged 16 and under against each other in a round-robin tournament. The first tournament was run in 1986 at the Manhattan Chess Club, where Alex Sherzer became the first champion. Since then, the tournament has taken place at a multitude of venues across the country – including Washington D.C., Nashville, TN, Rockville, MD, and Schaumburg, IL. This year's tournament took place in Lisle, IL.

 

This years competitors pictured with the organizers(Danial Wilson and Bill Buklis), courtesy of Danial Wilson

 

The 2024 Cadet Championship took place late last month from June 20 - June 23. This event featured two IMs, Bach Ngo and Ryo Chen, as well as 6 FMs: Eric Liu, Tanitoluwa Adewumi, Erick Zhao, Isaac Wang, Ryan Sun, and Zoey Tang. For pairing purposes, shortly before the beginning of the first round, playing cards – ace through eight – were drawn to seed the players by lot number rather than by rating.

 

The event was won outright with an impressive 6/7 score by the 13-year old prodigy Tanitoluwa (Tani) Adewumi, who finished last place in the same tournament the previous year. Nevertheless, he started off strong into the competition by defeating one of the strongest players in the first round:



 

dan1



This impressive performance has caused Tani’s FIDE rating to come within 20 points of the IM rating threshold of 2400, for which he recently earned his final norm. Along with the recognition of winning the tournament, he can add the $1,000 prize and $10,000 scholarship( $5,000 from the Dewain Barber Foundation and $5,000 from US Chess) to the college/university of his choice to his ever-growing list of awards.

 

Below is another of his wins from the tournament, highlighting tactical masterclass with an accuracy of 97%:

 

dan2

 



Tani accepting his award, courtesy of Danial Wilson



Congratulations to Tani for winning this event and congratulations to Danial Wilson at Wilson Chess and Bill Buklis King Registration for their third successful year of running this event and best of luck to them in the future.

 

Final standings – ranked according to lot number, courtesy of US Chess



All games from the event can be reviewed on Lichess.








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