Nearly 600 chess-playing youths competed at the 2013 K-8 Illinois Championships March 9-10 in Normal, IL.

Fifth-grader Vincent Do of Rockford, playing up in the Junior High section (Grades 6-8) achieved the only 7.0/7 perfect score of the tournament.

Fourth-grader, Edward Zhang, Third-grader Aydin Turgut and First-grader Aaron Gan were the other section champions.

To earn his individual championship, Vincent needed a fifth-round victory over Jonathan Tan and a sixth-round triumph over Daniel Bronfeyn. Sixth-grader Jonathan claimed second place honors on tiebreak while seventh-grader Daniel placed third, both with 6.0/7 results.

Eighth-graders Alec Feygin, Colton Longstreth and Tyler Tompkins also achieved 6.0's and placed fourth through sixth respectively in the section. Vincent defeated Rishi Narayanan in the final round to fulfill his perfect score. Sixth-grader Rishi took clear seventh with a 5.5/7 tally.

By defeating Thriambak Giriprakash in the first round and Anjali Toly in the third round, Vincent also helped his team, Thurgood Marshall School of Rockford, earn the first place trophy. Marshall edged Thriambak and Anjali's school, Chiddix Junior High of Normal, 18.0 to 17.5. Vincent's older brother Steven's strong 5.0 performance (fourth among all eighth-graders) along with contributions from Kirkland Shun and McKinley Torre, sealed the team junior high championship.

With a seventh-round draw against Vishal Chandrasekar, Edward achieved a 6.5/7 score, edging out Jason Daniels, Marissa Li, Shreya Mangalam, Jacob Furfine and Vishal, all who finished 6.0/7. Edward had to defeat both Jason (fourth round) and Shreya (sixth round) along the way to claim the Grades 4-5 championship. With tiebreaks, Jason placed second and Marissa took third. Jason and Vishal's Grove Elementary School of Normal won the section's team championship, with Abhiru Raut and Rishav Sinha also contributing.

By defeating Jack Bradley in the final round, Aydin Turgut won the Grades 2-3 section, going 6.5/7. Aydin's only blemish was a sixth-round draw with Stefan Musikic. Jack took second with tiebreaks, edging out Suraj Ramanathan, Advaith Prabu, Brian Hope Gong, Jai Mahajan and Aria Hoesley who also posted 6.0/7 scores. Jai had the top second-grade result in the competition.

Avery Coonley School of Downers Grove claimed the team award in the Upper Primary (Grades 2-3) section based on tiebreaks over Benjamin Elementary of Bloomington. Both achieved 20.5 (out of 28) scores, but Coonley fared better on the tiebreaks. William Tan, Darsh Patel, Aaron Kim and Christian Turk all posted strong plus-scores for the Coonley team. Advaith lead the Benjamin team, with Mihit Garlanka, Arnav Sriram and Akhil Pallem contributing.

With seventh-round victories and a sixth-round draw face-to-face, Aaron Gan and David Zimmerman both finished with 6.5/7 scores in the Lower Primary section. Aaron was awarded the championship on tiebreaks with David placing second. Jayant Maheshwari and Bruce Tang posted 6.0 scores, with Jayant taking home the third-place trophy and Bruce fourth. Bruce achieved the highest score of all kindergartners participating.

David's performance helped his school, Hindsdale's Monroe Elementary, win the section team championship assisted by William Kusak's eighth-place finish (5.5/7). Harrison Hughes, Evie Galassi and Patrick Burke all contributed 4.0/7 scores, with two of those counting towards the winning team tally for Monroe.

The ICA-sanctioned event was held at the Bone Center on the campus of Illinois State University.

Bloomington Normal Area Scholastic Chess was the host affiliate for the event.

The results are posted at bnasc.info and USCF Crosstables. .

The 2014 K-8 Illinois Championship will be held at the Hyatt Regency in Schaumburg, Illinois March 14-16, 2014.