With three wins, a loss and a pair of draws in the last two rounds, recent Whitney Young graduate Sam Schmakel's remarkable high school chess career came to a close at the 2014 Denker Championships in Orlando.

With 4.0/6, Sam finished in an eight-way tie for 6th, placing 7th on tiebreaks. His loss came at the hands of California's Nicky Korba who finished third. Sam entered the invitiational event as the top-rated player, 18 points higher than the outright champion, Christopher Gu of Rhode Island.

Miranda Liu also posted a fantastic 4.0/6 in the 44-player Girls' Invitational finishing in another eight-way tie for sixth, also placing 7th on tiebreaks.

Along the way she defeated co-champion Jessica Regam of Pennsylvania in the third round, and triumphed in the second round over the second-highest rated entrant, Carissa Yip of Massachusettes. Both Regam and Yip entered the tournament rated in the 2170's, over 330 rating points higher than Miranda. 

California's Annie Wang entered the event with the only master-level rating (2222) and Miranda outpointed her 4.0 to 3.5.

In the Barber K-8 Championship, Illinois' David Peng posted a 3.5/6, starting with two wins before drawing in three of the final four rounds. The 48-player section featured nine masters with David's rating as the third-higest in the event. Just a half-point more would have also given David a tie for sixth. As was, he finished in a six-way tie for 14th, placing 15th on tiebreaks.

The Illinois trio earned their trips to Orlando during invitational qualifying competition held in March at Chess IQ in Skokie. Their trips to the Nationals were made possible in part through a generous grant from the Walter Mander Foundation.  See article elsewhere on this site for details on the qualifier.

The complete results for the Denker can be found here with easy access from there to the Barber, the Girls' and the other events taking place this week at the 2014 US Open.