This Illinois Chess Tour enters the homestretch this weekend with the eighth of nine Tour events, the 21^st Annual Midwest Class Championships in Wheeling, IL.  Leading all scorers is the most dedicated of Tour participants, scholastic player Andrew Yeuyang Fei.  Andrew has played in all seven tournaments and leads the Reserve – Scholastic section with 25.5 points.  He’s also earned three participation awards, including a $25.00 Illinois Open discount and a $50.00 CCA tournament discount; and is on the verge of snaring a $100.00 chess merchandise gift certificate.

A group of six scholastic players are chasing Andrew with point totals in the 17-20 range: Akshay Indusekar, Maximilian Zinski, Ethan Brown, Aakash Meduri, David Tianjian Peng and Jason Daniels.  Of these, Ethan leads in average score, netting 4.75 per event.

In the Reserve – Adult section, Jim Froehlich leads with 23.5 points, followed by Joe Delay (20.0), Michael Penway (18.5), Gregory Bungo (16.0) and Charles Craigmile (15.5).

In the Open Section, Tenzing Shaw (22.0) has a formidable 4.5 point lead over Jonathan Kogen (17.5).  Sam Schmakel, along with GMs Dmitry Gurevich and Nikola Mitkov, share third place with 17.0.

A total of 22 players have already earned a participation prize!  These can be viewed by following the “Participation Prizewinners” link to the left of the Tour page.

The 2012 Illinois Chess Tour will conclude with the Illinois Class tournament November 17-18^th.  The Illinois Chess Association Annual Meeting and Luncheon will be held on the first day (Saturday) of the tournament.  See www.illinoisclass.com for details.