A field of 25 of Illinois' best and brightest young chess players competed February 28 to March 2 in a trio of invitational tournaments to decide the state's representatives to prestigious national competitions.

The Barber, Denker and Girls Championships will be held preceding the US Open in Orlando in late July. The qualifying event was hosted by Chess IQ in Skokie and was officiated by Sevan Muridian. Event crosstables can be reviewed here.

10-year old David Peng will represent the Land of Lincoln in the pre-high school Barber competition after running the field, 5.0/5 in the Qualifier. George Li was the runner up.

Senior Sam Schmakel needed a tiebreak to earn his invitation to the national Denker for high schoolers, after both he and Max Zinski compiled 3.5/5 tallies.

Max defeated his Benet Academy schoolmate Nate Kranjc in an exciting fifth-round match. Entering the final round undefeated with two wins and two draws, Nate would have been the Denker qualifier had he defeated Max.

Earlier, Sam had defeated Max, but managed only draws in the first three rounds, so the tournament victory was certainly a come-from-behind effort. 

As a sophomore, Sam represented Illinois at the Denker in 2012 in Vancouver, WA, tying for third (out of 48) with a 4.5/6 posting.

David had also won the Barber Qualifier in 2013 but runner up Alex Bian competed in Middleton, WI as Illinois' representative. (Alex finished tied for 6th out of 50 entrants with 4.0/5 at the August event).

In the Girls' Invitational section, Miranda Liu needed a fifth-round victory over Marissa Lii to claim top honors. That result brought both young ladies to 3.0/5 scores with Miranda claiming the tiebreak and the honor of representing Illinois this summer.

Warren Junior Scholar's Director Pattie Zinski said, "The kids played with tremendous heart and determination and the prizes were hotly contested." 

Zinski feels Sam, David and Miranda "will represent Illinois well at the national events."

She observed, "The final standings represented both joy and heartbreak, brilliance and collapse. In the end, all were exhausted, including the organizers," but Zinski is optimistic that the heat of the battle will yield way to lasting friendships.

Each of the three winners received a place on their respective competition's permanent trophy, their own keepsake trophy, a $250 coaching scholarship and a $500 reimbursement for travel expenses to the national competition.  The Walter S Mander Foundation generously funded the prizes, which should help out the recipients quite a bit considering the venue was changed from St. Louis to Florida.

Shiva Maharaj provided best game prizes for each round of the Barber and Girls events, two each of which were earned by Jacob Furfine and Marissa Li. Also earning $25 game prizes were Jason Daniels (Round 1), Miranda (Round 2), Shreya Mangalam and Jonathan Tan (Round 4), and Caeley Harihara and David (Round 5).