Ten new players have entered (or returned to) the pantheon of top 100 youth in their respective age group nationwide. Say hello (or welcome back) to Sam Fayn (7), Adam Bareket (8), Adam Pastor (9), Edward Zhang (10), Nathan Sobery (11), Andrew Fei (13), Oliver Natarajan (16), David Paykin (18) and Matthew Yang (18), along with Shvetali Thatte (U13 Girls).

Aydin Turgut (1st in age 8), David Peng (2nd in age 10), Adarsh Jayakumar (now 3rd in age 18), Sam Schmakel (5th in age 17), and Jonathan Kogan (9th in age 17) remain the Illinois players in the top ten of their respective age groups in the country.

Players newly achieving the top slot in Illinois for their respective age include Ricky Wang (9), Matthew Stevens and Akhil Kalghatgi (tied for age 12), Jonathan Hrach (15) and Max Zinski (16). Shayna Provine and Miranda Liu have broken the 1700-barrier with Shayna remaining our top female under 16, while Miranda becomes the top girl under 13.

Aged 18 years or younger, Illinois currently boasts three masters, Sam, Jonathan and Adarsh, along with ten experts.

With new personal bests, several youth have achieved ratings sufficient to qualify for Warren Scholars activities including Tej Rai, Eli Goering and David Korobov. Jonathan Hrach has met the magic 1900 mark, but has yet to play the required ten games against all-age competition this year.

By contrast, in just the past six months, Tej has entered all-age tournaments in Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana as well as in his home state. (He's also played in scholastic events in Florida and Tennessee in the past year). Talk about a roving chess ambassador!

According to USCF specifications, ratings as of August 17 were used for this report and the top 100 lists were published September 16.

 

September Top 100 Youth

US Rank	Name	Rating
Age 7 and under
32	Aaron Gan	1292
60	Jai Mahajan	1139
87	Sam Fayn	1031
Age 8
1	Aydin Turgut	1938
29	Stefan Musikic	1578
80	Adam Bareket	1307
Age 9
43	Ricky Wang	1595
51	Advaith Prabu	1565
58	Brian Gong	1552
93	Emmett Madigan	1429
96	Adam Pastor	1422
Age 10
2	David Peng	2151
27	Jason Daniels	1786
45	Shreya Mangalam	1693
82	Ishaar Ganesan	1591
91T	Edward Zhang	1567
Age 11
12	Vincent Do	2018
39	Hanson Hao	1840
48	Tej Rai	1783
64	Miranda Liu	1710
99	Nathan Sobery	1614
Age 12
24T	Matthew Stevens	1985
24T	Akhil Kalghatgi	1964
39	Daniel Bronfeyn	1891
50	Abe Sun	1874
53	Nikhil Kalghatgi	1816
69	Jonathan Tan	1853
Age 13
20	Zhaozhi Li	2098
22	Alex Bian	2086
41T	Anshul Adve	1977
69T	Jack Curcio	1896
71	James Wei	1874
86	Ian Gilchrist	1815
95	Andrew Fei	1797
Age 14
34	Zachary Holecek	2031
66T	Spencer Lehmann	1893
89	Phillip Parker-Turner	1835
Age 15
64	Jonathan Hrach	1900
Age 16
30	Max Zinski	2089
34T	Gavin McClanahan	2072
39	Nathan Kranjc	2060
57	Penny Xu	1966
77T	Timothy Zhou	1946
90T	Eli Goering	1908
97T	Jimi Akintonde	1850
100	Oliver Natarajan	1843
Age 17
5	Sam Schmakel	2373
9	Jonathan Kogan	2257
68	Duncan Shepherd	1971
76	Joe Fennessey	1954
Age 18
3	Adarsh Jayakumar	2386
37	Robert Moskwa	2087
49	Chengliang Luo	2032
69T	Charles Swan	1939
72	Benjamin Stern	1925
81T	David Korobov	1906
89	David Paykin	1883
99	Matthew Yang	1836
Girls Under 16
55T	Shayna Provine (13)	1717
57	Miranda Liu (11)	1710
62	Shreya Mangalam (10)	1693
Girls Under 13
17	Miranda Liu (11)	1710
21	Shreya Mangalam (10)	1693
50	Marissa Li (10)	1531
97	Shvetali Thatte (12)	1314

18 years old is hardly ancient. Alas, in chess years it can feel like a long time. In this case, it means that three Illinois stalwarts among the top 100 youth in America have aged out of this report.

As of the August compilation, Matthew Wilber was rated 2183, Kent Cen was rated 2086. Rafeh Qazi was rated 1936. I will miss typing their names each and every month and charting their ever-increasing ratings.

In the immortal words of one of my chess heroes: continued good chess to this impressive trio and I hope each finds a way to keep active with this magnificent game despite increased demands on their time.