A fourth-round draw with FM Eric Rosen secured the 2014 Illinois Class championship for FM Aung Zin. The long-time Illinois registrant had won his three prior games at the event held November 23 in Lisle, IL.

For FIDE puproses, Zin is a Myanmar registrant, earning his FIDE Master title in 1995. He ranks in the top 20 of players from his native country. Zin was the co-runner up at the 2013 Illinois Class won by GM Nikola Mitkov.

Rosen had previously drawn GM Dmitry Gurevich, compiling a 3.0/4 result and tying with Gurevich as runners-up.

In addition to his third round draw with Rosen, Gurevich drew National Master Audrius Macenis in the fourth round. Macinis finished in a five-way tie for fourth place in the 15-player Experts and Masters section, all with 2.5/4. Macenis is FIDE-registered with Lithuania, earning his National Master certificate from the USCF in 2009. 

The culimination of the 2014 Illinois Chess Tour was hosted at the Hilton Lisle/Naperville, was organized by ICA President Carl Dolson -- who also played in the event -- and was directed by ANTD Jeffrey Smith and Senior TD Maret Thorpe.

Whitney Young's Jimi Akintonde earned the Class A Championship with a 3.5 tally after he drew Wisconsin-registered Anupama Rajendra in the fourth round. Rajendra participated in a three-way tie for second at 3.0/4 with James Condron and Ishaar Ganesan. 

Naperville North's Mark Reed claimed the Class B Championship also with a 3.5 result, drawing Rick Lutze in the final round and defeating Leslie Bale in the third round. Lutze and Bale were co-runners up in the 15-player section, both with 3.0 results.

Thomas Baumann was perfect in the Class C section, defeating Vishal Chandrasekar in the second round, Jonah Karafiol in the third round and Rudy Padilla in the final round. Chandrasekar, Karafiol and Padilla finished in a six-way tie for second, along with Aidan Carey, Mario Bartocci and Peter Williamson, all with 2.5.  The section fielded 15 players.

Bolortuya Tumurbaatar posted the top score in Class D to earn the championship with 3.5 points. Joey Buklis, David Chu and Toby Yang were runners up in the 19-player section, all with 3.0 results. Collegian Sean Burnette had won all three of his games when it was discovered that his official pre-event provisional rating of 1429 was actually 29.01 points too high for section eligibility. His opponents were given half-point results for tournament purposes but the games were rated from a USCF perspective. Burnette is now 11 wins, 3 losses and 3 draws in his four USCF events.

Siblings Eliza and Bob Baumann posted the lone perfect scores in the 29-player Under 1200 section. This was the largest section of the event as was true in 2013. Due to the crafting of the official TLA, the Baumanns were Class F co-champions, with Eric Martin, Andrew Zaleiski and Zalan Gyorgy perhaps earning the Class E Championship with 3.0 scores. 

Mursaleen Ahmad and Nathan Frommelt also had 3.0/4 but Ahmad is Wisconsin-registered and Frommelt took third place honors for Class F competitors. 

Three players tied for the highest scores among Under 800 competitors, all with 2.0/4. George Ford, Matthew Fales and Sreyansh Mamidi all earned awards although tiebreak order was not available at presstime. Ford, Fales and Mamidi were Class G co-champions.

One trophy and two medals were available for each of the levels in the combined section: Class E, Class F and Under 800 competitors.

Also with 2.0/4, Raymond Wieser had the top score for previously unrated players but no specific award was distributed.

Nimrod Bareket, Ashwin Balaraman, Rahul Bhavan Bhavan and Anish Deshpande could be considered co-champions of the Class H designation. Ivana Musikic was the Class I Champion.

All totaled, 113 competed. 14 more than did in the previous year.