Illinois Class Championships

Emerging from a five-way tie at the end of round 3 with the only win in the score group, Sam Schmakel of Chicago not only claimed a clear victory in the Master/Expert section of the 2012 Illinois Class Championships in River Forest Nov. 17 and 18 but also leapfrogged his rivals to take first place in the Open division of the Illinois Chess Tour.

Schmakel defeated Xin Luo, a Chinese student at the University of Illinois, and Michael Chen of Saint Joseph, Mich., and drew 9-year-old Expert David Peng of Wilmette, earning a final score of 3.5/4 and the $500 first prize. IM Angelo Young, FM Albert Chow and Michael Auger of Chicago and FM Eric Rosen of Skokie, each with 3.0/4, divided the second, third and under-2200 prizes for $150 each. Peng and Karthikeyan Pounraj of Schaumburg shared the under-2100 prize, receiving $50 apiece.

Rosen, Schmakel, Auger, Chen and Peng each had 2.5 points at the end of round 3. 

As it happened, every section in the 79-player event had a clear winner. Charles Swan of Chicago earned the Class A championship title with a score of 3.5/4, squeezing past Hector Hernandez of Chicago and Sat Vijayaraghavan of Allen, Texas, who was in town on business and stayed an extra day to play. (After the tournament, he dashed off to the Blue Line to catch a flight to Dallas at O'Hare.) Miranda Liu of Long Grove swept the Class B section with four straight wins including victories over Mark Coleman of Chicago and Nikhil James of Brookfield, Wis., who split the second and third prizes with 3.0/4. Jim Froehlich capped off three straight wins with a fourth-round draw against Mario Bartocci of Westmont to win the Class C championship along with the Reserve division of the Tour; Bartocci and Anne Ulrich of Appleton, Wis., split second and third with 3.0/4. In the small but scrappy Class D/Under section, Lorenzo Sampson of Chicago came out on top with 3.0/4 over Mark Jungo of Chicago, Brian Hess of Elmwood Park and Michael Monsen of Arlington Heights, who each scored 2.5/4.

In the rated beginners' open side event, held Nov. 17, Armel Peel of Lansing followed up four straight wins with a draw to take the first-place trophy uncontested. Andrew Schauer of Nixa, Mo., who lost only to Peel, won second place; Scott G. Paul of Muncie, Ind., won third place with 3.0/5 on a modified-median tiebreak. Joshua Ray Walden of La Crosse, Wis., edged past Antonio Clavero of the Philippines on the same tiebreak to earn the top unrated trophy; Reginald Jackson Jr. of Chicago won the top under-800 trophy with 2.5/5.

The event was held at the Koehneke Community Center on the campus of Concordia University in River Forest, which has not hosted a chess tournament in recent memory. Many players expressed an interest in having more events held at Concordia.

Bad Bishop Tournament Services, the organizer of the event, thanks the Youth Chess Foundation of Chicago for providing boards and sets; chief tournament director Wayne Clark and assistants Maret Thorpe and Gary Janssen for running the event; and all participating players for their involvement. Check the Illinois Chess Tour website for annotated games from this last tournament on the schedule.  Complete crosstables and more photos will continue to be available at www.illinoisclass.com.