2012 Illinois Tour standings

Here are the complete standings with one event to go, the 2012 Illinois Class.

NM Tenzing Shaw and GM Nikola Mitkov lead the Open section with 22 points.  GM Dmitry Gurevich is right behind with 21½ points, and NM Jonathan Kogen and NM Sam Schmakel remain with striking distance of the title at 21 points.

Jim Froehlich seems very close to clinching the Reserve title at 28 points.  Joe Delay (23) and Michael Penway (22) are most likely battling for second.

And here are the leaders in the Reserve Scholastic section:

Andrew Fei										29.0
Maximilian Zinski										23.5
David Peng										22.0
Jason Daniels										21.0
Akshay Indusekar										20.0
Caeley Harihara										20.0
Ethan Brown										19.0
Aydin Turgut										18.5
Aakash Meduri										18.0

You still have time to change your fate (or, less dramatically, move up a couple notches in the standings): enter the Illinois Class!

Games from IHSA State Tournament

In the first round, Prospect's Robert Moskwa had the Black pieces against Benet Academy's 1968 rated Max Zinski.  By a somewhat circuitous route, the players wound up in a Sicilian Dragon with White playing the system with Bc4, h3 and 0-0.  Max played the opening well and put Robert in a very cramped position by landing a White pawn on f6.  However, Robert defended well and as often happens in the Sicilian, if White cannot find a way to convert his space advantage into an attack on Black's king, he often finds himself over extended and vulnerable.

This win turned out to make the difference in the competition for the the top medal on first board as Max didn't lose another game and finished 5.5-1.5.  As none of Eric Rosen or Matt Wilber's opponents finished with scores that good, Robert ended up getting the edge on tie break points.

In the last round, Robert played White against Stevenson's 2043 rated senior Kent Cen.  Again Robert found himself in a tough position out of the opening, and again he defended well.  The game wound up in a king and pawn ending where Kent played an instinctive move with less than ten seconds on his clock that turned out to be the losing move.

Black to play and draw.  Kent instinctively played to get his king in front of the White pawns with the natural looking 56...Ke4?? which lost to 57.Kc4 Ke5 58.Kb5 Kd6 59. Kxb6.  He could have drawn with 56...Ke2! 57.Kc4 Kd2, when White has nothing better than 58.Kb5 Kc3 59.Kxb6 Kb4=.

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).

All Grade results (6th, 7th, and 8th grades)

There was a three-way tie for first in the 42-player 6th-grade section: Alec Feygin, Akash Mattu, and Colton Longstreth, all with 4-0 scores.  Steven Do, Brayden Estes, Riley Brands, Nate Tracy-Amoroso, Matt Szarkowicz, Abraham Cornejo, Barry Brookins, and Harrison Burns tied for fourth with 3-1.

Joey Bikus and Allen Guo tied for first in the 47-player 7th-grade section.  Phillip Parker-Turner, Jason Kitson, Samuel Heil, Ryan Toepfer, Justin Wang, Jonathan Hrach, Niresh Kuganeswaran, Narayan Karthik Karra, Elliana Faletsky, Alexander Pilia, Mark Jungo, and Michael May all scored 3-1 to tie for third.

Maximilian Zinski and Chase Walbert went 4-0 to tie for first in the 8th-grade section, which drew 48 players.  Nathaniel Kranjc and David Dlott drew each other in the final round to finish with an undefeated 3½-½.

More photos:

Kids Making Trouble

Kent Cen and Maximillian Zinski, both of whom are somewhat younger than I am, won the Gold Section of yesterday's Evanston Chess Club's 3x3.  The presence of NM Jon Burgess added a touch of class.  Evan Spiegel and Matthew Stevens won the Silver section, and Keith Amman and Dennis Doyle won the Bronze Section. 

Ryan Chiu and Maret Thorpe directed for the Evanston Chess Club.  You can find crosstables here!

Illinois players at National Junior High School - final results

Several Illinois players tied for fifth place in the National Junior High School championships in Minneapolis last weekend.  Congratualtions to Maximillian Zinski (who's gained 199 rating points in the past ten days), Gavin McClanahan, and Jimi Daniel Akintonde (who knocked off a player rated more than four hundred points higher in the last round!).  All three players are seventh-graders with one more shot at the title....

St. Michael's School in Wheaton (Zinski, Nathaniel Kranjc, Grant Kozeny, and Joseph Ives) took 11th place 

Results are here: click on "K-8 Championship."

Good luck to Maximillian Zinski

Max (a 7th grader at St. Michael's in Wheaton) is tied for the lead in the K-8 section of the National Junior High School Championship, going on this weekend in Minneapolis.