With the largest field in six years, the Illinois K-8 Championships crowned outright winners in three sections.

With perfect 7.0/7 scores, Shreya Mangalam took Grades 4-5 and Vrishank Ramnath won the Grades K-1 group. James Zhang topped the Grades 2-3 section with a 6.5/7 tally.

Also with 6.5 scores, Jack Curcio and Matthew Stevens earned the Grades 6-8 co-championship with Jack taking the first-place trophy on tiebreak points.

Event crosstables can be reviewed here.

684 players competed in the March 15-16 event held at the Hyatt Regency Schaumburg. Glenn Panner of Chess Weekend served as the chief organizer, with Sevan Muradian as Chief TD and Wayne Clark in the role of Chief Floor Director. Muradian's ChessIQ donated the iPad mini's which were awarded to the four section winners.

Of the 2014 champions, only Shreya was the top-rated player in her respective section when play began. To earn her Grades 4-5 title, Shreya defeated three Warren Scholars including Advaith Prabu, Ricky Wang and Brian Gong. 

Joey Buklis was the clear second-place winner finishing 6.5/7.

Fourth-Grader Advaith finished in a five-way tie for third along with Jason Daniels, Aidan Carey, Edward Zhang and Jonah Karafiol. Jason (2010 and 2012) and Edward (2013) were prior K-8 Champions.

Ricky and Brian were among an eight-player pack tied for eighth place with 5.5/7, along with 2nd-grader Aaron Gan, Emmett Madigan, Ryan Wong, Nathan Chang, Alex Turk and Michael Geohas.

In sweeping her seven matches, Shreya's USCF rating climbed to 1818 which should qualify the 10-year old as the top Illinois female Under 16 as of the official April ratings. In the United States, she is the third-rated girl aged 10-and-younger as of the March ratings. The 4-5 section was the tournament's largest with 209 entrants.

In the Grades 2-3 section, James Zhang needed a seventh-round victory over previously undefeated Patrick Rao to earn the championship. Only a fifth-round draw against top-rated David Zimmermann kept James from a perfect score. With 6.0/7, Patrick and David both finished in an eight-way tie for second-place along with Pierce McDade, Jai Mahajan, Peter Zheng and Avery Coonley teammates Christian Turk, William Tan, and Darsh Patel.

Also in the 2-3 section, four players tied for tenth place with 5.5/7 scores: Junliang Liu, Elija Platnick, Bryson Turner and Ignac Bielobradek.

Vrishank Ramnath showed no mercy on the Kindergartner-First Grade section, sweeping all seven matches including a fifth-round defeat of top-rated Arthur Xu. Arthur tied for second place with Dimitar Mardov, with Kindergartner Dimitar edging Arthur on the third-level tiebreak formula. Tying for fourth-place with 5.5/7 were Alex Zhao, William Cahill, John Bielobradek, Ethan Ding, and Nikhil Gangavarapu.

Vrishank also won the weekend's Puzzle-Solving Competition for players rated Under 1000.

In the Grades 6-8 section, Jack Curcio defeated top-rated entrant and defending co-champion Vincent Do in the final round to earn his spot in the co-championship. Matthew's sole blemish was a fifth-round draw against fellow-Warren Scholar Akhil Kalghatgi.

Tying for third place in the section was Nikhil Kalghatgi and Marissa Li with 6.0/7's.

In a nine-way tie for fifth-place, Vincent had the top tiebreak. Also tying for fifth were a pair of third-graders, Stefan Musikic and Martin Stukan, along with Jacob Furfine, Miranda Liu, Andrew Fei, Maxwell Jong, Yiliang Li and Shayna Provine. Of the top baker's dozen, all but Yilang and Maxwell have qualified as Warren Junior Scholars so far.

The field was full of former K-8 Champions: Matthew had claimed the Grades 2-3 championship in 2010. Vincent had won this section in 2013 as a fifth-grader, and the K-1 section in 2009. Miranda had won the 4-5 section in 2012 in Rockford while Stefan had won the K-1 Championship at that event.  

Team results will be posted in a companion story.