Aren Emrikian may have skipped First Grade -- but he hasn't missed a beat at the chess board!

The Wilmette wunderkind recently turned seven and is now the number two "7 & Under" in the US. He is just over 100 points away from the number one at that age -- from New Jersey. Aren's rating is more than 600 points greater than the second highest Illinois "7 & Under".

Six other talented Illinois youth are in the top 10 of their respective age groups as of January's official US Chess supplement including Dimitar Mardov (3), Arthur Xu (4), Aydin Turgut (6), David Peng (3), Jacob Furfine (9) and George Li (10).

 

US Rank		Name	Jan 2017 Rating
Ages 7 & Under
2		Emrikian, Aren C (15766785) -- Age 6	1835
40		Li, Michael (15752152)	1223
48		Mehrotra, Ekansh (15991103)	1172
98		Pham, Linda (15464538)	937
Age 8
3		Mardov, Dimitar (15205818)	1920
8		Yong, David (15273720)	1713
51		Chen, David Baokang (15324980)	1448
61		Elgat, Adam (15552450)	1381
Age 9
4		Xu, Arthur (14968896)	1949
36		Zhao, Alex (15335115)	1685
39		Wang, William (15270976)	1676
93		Ramnath, Vrishank (15137342)	1470
Age 10
No Illinois players in US Top 100 at this time
Age 11
34		Zheng, Peter (15075977)	1893
42		Rao, Patrick (14855075)	1854
94		Ladan, Nicholas John (15092641)	1669
Age 12
6		Turgut, Aydin (14284734)	2204
67		Bareket, Adam (14949325)	1870
82		Gong, Brian Hope (14663750)	1831
Age 13
3		Peng, David Tianjian (14195454)	2390
23		Daniels, Jason Scott (14107163)	2090
29		Wang, Ricky (14403974)	2055
39		Bareket, Tom (14949310)	2011
46		Mangalam, Shreya B (14385521)	1986
59		Zhang, Edward (14685367)	1928
61		Acharya, Siddharth (15165476)	1925
74		Jay, Neel (14803101)	1862
93		Carey, Aidan M (14949435)	1824
Age 14
21		Do, Vincent (13666696)	2198
48		Li, Marissa (14468490)	2034
Age 15
9		Furfine, Jacob (13089315)	2295
23		Stevens, Matthew James (13788934)	2199
28		Kalghatgi, Nikhil (13797221)	2166
33		Kalghatgi, Akhil (13797215)	2141
57		Hao, Hanson (13858968)	2052
78		Liu, Miranda (14042343)	2010
89		Venkat, Abhyudhaya (14519152)	1974
Age 16
10		Li, Zhaozhi (13646954)	2402
20		Bian, Alex (13257335)	2286
34		Adve, Anshul (13296020)	2194
41		Bartochowski, Nicholas J (13216472)	2179
49		Bronfeyn, Daniel (13720325)	2140
60		Narayanan, Rishi T (13949428)	2089
64		Curcio, Jack Thomas (13451367)	2072
84		Fei, Andrew Yueyang (14064411)	2026
Age 17
25		Lehmann, Spencer (13457744)	2214
63		Denby, Caleb Sean (14361200)	2019
Age 18
26		Hrach, Jonathan Matthew (14094872)	2204
62		Chen, John (13728578)	2045
68		Holzmueller, Nathan (13899472)	2029
70		Holecek, Zachary (12933315)	2014
81		Parker-Turner, Phillip (12954448)	1965