109 Players Face Off in Champaign-Urbana Chess Fest

23 schools and over 100 players met up on April 3 for the 2016 Spring Chess Fest, hosted at Jefferson Middle School in Champaign.

The tournament featured five rounds of non-elimination competition.

Although crosstables and scores were not reported, grade level winners included Leonardo Ludaescher (8th), Charles Hong (7th) and Jaden Wang (6th).

Other champions included Ari Lerman (5th), Savindi Devmal (4th) and Jazz Anders (3rd).

David Yong was the second grade winner.

Emil LeBauer had the high score among first graders and Daniel Zhang was the kindergarten champion.

According to pre-event coverage posted on the News-Gazette website, the event has been occuring bi-annually since 2004 with as many as 174 participating. 109 competed this spring.

An excellent picture of kindergartner Daniel Zhang (NOT the one from Chicago) was featured on the News-Gazette site.

Thanks to Rachel Artemis Schechter of Dr. G's for her help pulling together information for this article.