For the first time since David Peng enjoyed a short spell atop the official ratings, Illinois has a top-rated player in the US.

As previously reported in the Greater Midwest Class write-up, Aydin Turgut is now the highest-rated nine year old in the country!

Aydin earned expert status with a 2063 rating, doing well at the Greater Midwest event as well as earning a share of the championship at Decatur's Anderson Memorial in early December. At the latter event, Aydin shared top honors with Springfield's Tianlu Peng and Bloomington area's Pete Karagianis.

Daniel Bronfeyn surpassed the magic 2000-mark for the first time, with a 62 rating-point bump from the Greater Midwest Class and a strong showing in the 11th Grade section at the 2013 National K-12 in Florida.

As of the official January date, Aydin and Daniel are two of Illinois' dozen junior experts, along with masters Sam Schmakel and Jonathan Kogen. Other top 10 Illinoisans include 10-year old Peng (second), 17-year old Schmakel (fourth) and 18-year old Kogen (ninth).

8-year old Jeffrey Lin entered the top 100 lists for the first time, with a 157-point ratings bump from a Kings and Queens event December 13.

Also entering or returning to the lists this month are 7-year old Arthur Xu, 8-year old Jai Mahajan, 10-year olds Emmett Madigan and David Wallach, and 13-year old Nicholas Bartochowski.

Shayna Provine enjoyed a 96-point increase from the Greater Midwest Class, with her 1813 rating giving her the highest rating among Illinois junior females.

Adam Bareket also enjoyed a 96-point enhancement due largely to a strong showing at the December Joliet Junior College Quads. Adam was co-champion of his section with venerable Rudy Padilla. (Although a few years passed his junior status, Rudy has now surpassed 800 rated events since 1991).

Adam has subsequently celebrated a birthday and became the answer to an important trivia question: who won the first USCF-rated tournament in Illinois during 2014?

According to USCF specifications, ratings as of December 18 were used for this report and the top 100 lists were published on January 17.

 

January Top 100 Youth

US Rank	Name	Rating
Age 7 and under
15	Aaron Gan	1558
50	Arthur Xu	1082
Age 8
11T	Stefan Musikic	1725
46	David Zimmermann	1433
48	Adam Bareket	1426
83	Jeffrey Lin	1281
97T	Jai Mahajan	1228
Age 9
1	Aydin Turgut	2063
74	Brian Gong	1512
83T	Advaith Prabu	1488
Age 10
2	David Peng	2174
31	Edward Zhang	1780
32	Jason Daniels	1776
45	Shreya Mangalam	1728
64	Ricky Wang	1635
71	Tom Bareket	1609
73	Emmett Madigan	1598
97	David Wallach	1533
Age 11
18	Vincent Do	1993
66	Marissa Li	1714
69	Tej Rai	1708
Age 12
30	Matthew Stevens	1967
32T	Hanson Hao	1952
41T	Akhil Kalghatgi	1917
60T	Jonathan Tan	1829
73T	Miranda Liu	1803
81	Jacob Furfine	1778
84T	Nikhil Kalghatgi	1775
Age 13
26	Zhaozhi Li	2098
31	Alex Bian	2086
52	Daniel Bronfeyn	2016
55T	Anshul Adve	1992
65T	Jack Curcio	1935
80	Andrew Fei	1879
85	James Wei	1874
97	Nicholas Bartochowski	1835
Age 14
29	Zachary Holecek	2048
48	Spencer Lehmann	1993
Age 15
90	Jonathan Hrach	1900
Age 16
27T	Nathan Kranjc	2140
47T	Gavin McClanahan	2073
86	Penny Xu	1966
98	Eli Goering	1934
Age 17
4	Sam Schmakel	2394
37	Max Zinski	2033
49T	Joe Fennessey	2004
57	Jimi Akintonde	1974
67	Timothy Zhou	1946
74	Duncan Shepherd	1924
Age 18
9	Jonathan Kogan	2271
35	Robert Moskwa	2087
47	Chengliang Luo	2032
75	Charles Swan	1933
76	David Korobov	1928
88	David Paykin	1883
Girls Under 16
39	Shayna Provine (13)	1813
40T	Miranda Liu (12)	1803
58	Shreya Mangalam (10)	1728
62	Marissa Li (11)	1714
Girls Under 13
12	Miranda Liu (12)	1803
20	Shreya Mangalam (10)	1728
23	Marissa Li (11)	1714