Daniel Wright JHS wins National Elementary Title

Good news from Dallas this weekend makes Illinois moms proud.  Congratulations to Daniel Wright Junior High School in Lincolnshire, which just won the National Elementary Title (K-6th grade) by two full points!

             BIAN, Alex (5.0,1839)             
             WEI, James (5.0,1856)             
             YU, Haoyang (5.0,1595)            
             HOLECEK, Zachary (4.5,1907)       
             OBERHAUS, Conrad (4.5,1888)

You can find the full results here.  More to follow, I'm sure. 

Zachary Holecek wins 2011 Barber Qualifier

 The Illinois Chess Association held its first "Barber Qualifier," to select the Illinois representative to the USCF's new tournament of K-8 state champions, named in honor of retiring scholastic organizer Dewain Barber.  The event, held at the North Shore Chess Center in Skokie, was organized by Andi Rosen of the Illinois Chess Association's Warren Junior Program and directed by Sevan Muradian.  Sixteen of the top K-8 players in the state were invited.

Zachary Holecek and James Wei tied for first with 4-1 scores; Zachary won on tiebreaks.  Gavin McClanahan and Max Zinski tied for third with 3½-1½ scores.  Conrad Oberhaus and Day One leader Bryce McClanahan tied for fifth with 3-2 scores; Penny Xu and Nathaniel Kranjc had even scores.

Crosstable here!

 Proud father David Holecek writes:

Zachary Holecek is a five-time Illinois State Champion [...] winning his 17th place as a preschooler in K-3 section and winning his first state title in Kindergarten.  

He loves chess and keeps busy with his other activities (basketball, soccer, scholastic bowl, and assists Dave Monatelli with the Sprague elementary chess team).

North Shore Chess Center - Amateur Closed events

Jon Burgess reports on the ICA website!

Congratulations to Matt Pullin (the runaway winner of Group A), and to Aakaash Meduri, Sam Schmakel, and James Wei, the joint winners of Group B.

GM Mesgen Amanov wins Midwest Class

This was not your typical weekend Swiss: in the last three rounds, Mesgen had to beat current Illinois State Champion GM Dmitry Gurevich and four-time U.S. Champion GM Alexander Shabalov, then draw Filipino GM Mark Paragua.

95-year-old Erik Karklins tied for second in the Expert section and gained an estimated 21 rating points, for a net gain of 85 points this decade. 

10-year-old Warren Scholar Conrad Oberhaus won the Class B section with a perfect 5-0 score and is now an A player!  Warren Scholar James Wei (age 10) and grizzled veteran Zachary Holecek (age 11 or 12?) scored 3½ in the Class A section: both gained a bucket of ELO.

Crosstable here!  (USCF hasn't rated yet: I'll edit the post to add when it does.)

National champions!

Congratulations to the team from Lincolnshire's Half Day School, winners of the National Elementary (K-5) Championships in Atlanta, Georgia, this weekend. Team members Alex Bian and Conrad Oberhaus tied for second overall, while James Wei tied for seventh and Jack Xiao scored +3 to finish 38th in a 272-player field. Good job!

And congratulations to Anshul Adve of Champaign's Countryside School, who also tied for seventh.

 P.S.  All these young Illinois players are fourth-graders and eligible to compete in next year's event (except for Jack Xiao, who's a third-grader...)

No. Name                         Gr Team   St Rate Pts 
  1 Beilin, Allan                 5 CARN01 CA 1833 6.5 
  2 Arora, Mayhul                 5 WASTEV WA 1541 6.0 
  3 Bian, Alex                    4 ILL004 IL 1806 6.0
  4 Zhao, Art                     4 CASTMK CA 1693 6.0
  5 Oberhaus, Conrad              4 ILL004 IL 1676 6.0
  6 Ishikawa, Takayuki            4 NYBROW NY 1488 6.0
  7 Lim, Michael                  5 NJG002 NJ 1742 5.5
  8 Viswanadha, Kesav             5 CAC018 CA 1916 5.5
  9 Jacob, Andrew                 5 TXLAUR TX 1641 5.5
 10 Wang, Patrick                 5 WASTEV WA 1716 5.5
 11 Adve, Anshul                  4 ILCSID IL 1622 5.5
 12 Yu, Justin J                  5 WAB004 WA 1636 5.5
 13 Wei, James                    4 ILL004 IL 1805 5.5
 14 Gianatasio, Michael           5 FLB001 FL 1710 5.5
 15 Goldstein, Ben                4 NYDALT NY 1533 5.5
 16 Tao, Jeffrey                  4 CAS047 CA 1599 5.5
 17 Kalyanpur, Armaan             5 CAMSJE CA 1594 5.5
 18 Santoyo, Edgar A              5 TXBAP1 TX 1467 5.5

...

 38 Xiao, Jack                    3 ILL004 IL 1426 5.0

Illinois players at Nation High School (after five rounds)

Quick notes on the action in Columbus, Ohio.

Michael Auger (2145) was tied for the lead after four rounds, but lost in round five to top seed Shinsaku Uesugi (2370) of Maryland.  With 4 points, Michael still has a (remote) chance to tie for first; Whitney Young HS is currently in 15th place in the team standings.

Eric Rosen (2220) was upset by an A player in the first round, but he has 3.5 points with good pairing chances to finish at or above 5 points.  Niles North is three points off the team lead.  Senior Fedor Titov (1750) is having a monster event with 3.5 points.

Former and future North Shore resident Adarsh Jayakumar (2226, moving here shortly from Texas) is very much in the running for first with 4.5.

Perhaps the most notable Illinois high school result (so far!) is that of our fourth-graders (!!!). Alex Bian (1806) has 2.5 points, with only one loss, to an expert.  And James Wei (1804) has 3 points!  The scary thing (considering the extremely high level of competition at nationals) is that neither fourth-grader is having a particularly good tournament.

On the national front, Elizabeth Vicary's I.S. 318 team from Brooklyn is tied for the lead--these are junior high students competing against high school students!

I'm sure I missed stuff: please let me know....