As of the March 2017 official ratings, 7-year old Aren Emrikian has given Illinois a top-in-age-group distinction for the first time since David Peng briefly held that honor. Aren's 1864 rating is 42 points higher than the number two seven-year old from Arizona. 

Ekansh Mehrotra is the number two Illinois 7-year old (ranked 41 in the US). Yuvraj Chennareddy is the number three Illinois 7-and-under -- and in fact is still only 6 years old!  He is the fifth highest-rated six-year old in the country.

Arthur Xu is number two in the country for nine-year olds. Arthur is 17 points shy from becoming a US Chess Expert -- with a higher rating than any Illinois 10 or 11 year old -- or 12 year old other than Aydin Turgut.

With Aren and Arthur, Illinois has six top-eight rated players across the youth age groups. (Dimitar Mardov & David Peng are #4, George Li #5, Aydin #8).

Illinois has 48 Top 100's this month -- compared to 19 for Wisconsin, 16 for Minnesota, 3 for Iowa, 4 for Indiana. In fact, WI, MN, IA and IN combined represent 21 million residents, 64 percent more than Illinois' 12.8 million population. Those four states combined have 42 Top 100's compared to the Land of Lincoln's 48.

Of our northernly surrounding states, only Wisconsin's Awonder Liang (#1 US 13 year old), Minnesota's Andrew Tang (formerly of Illinois -- #2 US 17 year old), Minnesota's Andrew Titus (#10 US 15 year old), and Iowa's Joseph Wan (#18 US 15 year old) are in the top 20 for their respective age group.

By comparison, Illinois hosts 11 players in the Top 20's at this time.

Illinois has three females among the gender-irrespective Top 100's: recent Illinois K-8 Champion Shreya Mangalam, Marissa Li and Miranda Liu, all US Chess Experts.

From the aforementioned states, Wisconsin sisters Divya & Ritika Pandey are top 100's as are siblings Susanna & Rachel Ulrich. Wisconsin's Anupama Rajendra is also a top 100 as are Minnesota's Alice Lee and Natassja Matus. Rachel, Anupama and Natassja are Experts.

Rank		Name	Rating
Ages 7 & Under
1		Emrikian, Aren C (15766785)	1864
41		Mehrotra, Ekansh (15991103)	1214
86		Chennareddy, Yuvraj (15944053) -- Age 6	1025
Age 8
4		Mardov, Dimitar (15205818)	1910
12		Yong, David (15273720)	1707
58		Plotnick, Jacob (15823530)	1408
Age 9
2		Xu, Arthur (14968896)	1983
18		Zhao, Alex (15335115)	1802
26		Wang, William (15270976)	1714
84		Zhang, Owen (15459921)	1475
Age 10
100		Kaplan, Avi Harrison (15263943)	1590
Age 11
42		Zheng, Peter (15075977)	1858
44		Rao, Patrick (14855075)	1826
Age 12
8		Turgut, Aydin (14284734)	2203
64		Bareket, Adam (14949325)	1892
80		Gong, Brian Hope (14663750)	1847
Age 13
4		Peng, David Tianjian (14195454)	2370
22		Daniels, Jason Scott (14107163)	2099
26		Wang, Ricky (14403974)	2077
38		Mangalam, Shreya B (14385521)	2004
43		Zhang, Edward (14685367)	1990
55		Acharya, Siddharth (15165476)	1925
57		Jay, Neel (14803101)	1917
90		Carey, Aidan M (14949435)	1840
Age 14
48		Li, Marissa (14468490)	2030
57		Bareket, Tom (14949310)	2000
Age 15
11		Furfine, Jacob (13089315)	2295
23		Do, Vincent (13666696)	2198
30		Kalghatgi, Nikhil (13797221)	2167
36		Kalghatgi, Akhil (13797215)	2133
62		Hao, Hanson (13858968)	2052
71		Venkat, Abhyudhaya (14519152)	2025
78		Liu, Miranda (14042343)	2010
Age 16
17		Bian, Alex (13257335)	2314
36		Stevens, Matthew James (13788934)	2195
40		Bartochowski, Nicholas J (13216472)	2173
43		Bronfeyn, Daniel (13720325)	2162
50		Curcio, Jack Thomas (13451367)	2122
60		Narayanan, Rishi T (13949428)	2093
Age 17
5		Li, Zhaozhi (13646954)	2430
32		Adve, Anshul (13296020)	2194
62		Fei, Andrew Yueyang (14064411)	2026
67		Denby, Caleb Sean (14361200)	2019
96		Starkman, Eric Chandler (14556452)	1919
Age 18
16		Lehmann, Spencer (13457744)	2274
30		Hrach, Jonathan Matthew (14094872)	2204
78		Holecek, Zachary (12933315)	2014
90		Parker-Turner, Phillip (12954448)	1965