Despite one drop-off, with the addition of Jacob Furfine, Illinois continues to field 20 juniors at or above the Expert mark as of the third Wednesday in August -- the cut-off date for the official September USCF ratings.

Thanks to Duncan Shepherd's ascension above 2100, Illinois has three of the top 18-year olds in the country, and claims three of the top 25 in an age group for one of the rare times in recent history. Duncan joins Sam Schmakel and Jonathan Kogan.

Anshul Adve also broke 2100, giving us three of the top 35 14-year olds in the country as Anshul joins Alex Bian and George Li.

The Land of Lincoln also boasts three of the top 35 13-year olds, and a total of nine juniors in the 13-year old Top 100, whereas statistically we'd expect to have only four. That list is headed by Matthew Stevens, Jacob Furfine and Akhil Kalghatgi.

Thanks to holding his own in the Master section of the Chicago Class in late July, 15-year old Spencer Lehmann also broke the 2100-mark for the first time as of the September ratings.

Joining (or re-entering) the ranks of the national Top 100 lists this month were Dhruv Malladi, Patrick Rao, Siddharth Acharya, Ishaar Ganesan and Nicholas Bartochowski.

Posting the highest rating enhancements from the August to September lists were Brian Gong (138), Jacob Furfine (90), Jason Daniels (70), Duncan Shepherd (68), and Miranda Liu (63).

Marissa Li (50), Adam Bareket (48), Anshul Adve (44), Aydin Turgut (39), Advaith Prabu (37), Spencer Lehmann (36), Edward Zhang (also 36), and Stefan Musikic (34) all demonstrated appreciable improvements.

Celebrating birthdays as of last month were Aydin Turgut, Miranda Liu, and Hanson Hao.

A total of 57 Illinois juniors hit the lists this month, up from 55 in August.

** Represents ranking in the listing without regard to Federation. 

September 2014 Top 100 Youth

US Rank	Name	Rating
Age 7 and under
25	Arthur Xu	1312
31	Vrishank Ramnath	1264
40	Dimitar Mardov (age 6)	1205
84	Dhruv Malladi	1060
Age 8
22	Aaron Gan	1633
84	Jayant Maheswari	1269
Age 9
10**	Martin Stukan	1886
27	Stefan Musikic	1704
45	David Zimmermann	1608
54	Adam Bareket	1555
70	Patrick Rao	1496
Age 10
5	Aydin Turgut	2047
16T	Ricky Wang	1912
40	Advaith Prabu	1770
57	Brian Gong	1714
80	Siddharth Acharya	1652
Age 11
2	David Peng	2241
25	Jason Daniels	1917
44	Shreya Mangalam	1813
48T	Edward Zhang	1788
96	Tom Bareket	1682
Age 12
27	Vincent Do	2055
54	Tej Rai	1885
62T	Marissa Li	1846
90	Ishaar Ganesan	1749
Age 13
25T	Matthew Stevens	2083
28	Jacob Furfine	2077
35	Akhil Kalghatgi	2008
37	Daniel Bronfeyn	2001
44	Hanson Hao	1978
54	Jonathan Tan	1936
69	Nikil Kalghatgi	1908
73	Miranda Liu	1899
94T	Rishi Narayanan	1830
Age 14
19T	Alex Bian	2178
29	Zhaozhi (George) Li	2127
34T	Anshul Adve	2110
62T	Jack Curcio	1988
91	Andrew Fei	1876
95T	Nicholas Bartochowski	1865
Age 15
35	Spencer Lehmann	2125
48	Zachary Holecek	2059
Age 16
68	Jonathan Hrach	2026
Age 17
23	Nate Kranjc	2195
33T	Max Zinski	2136
48	Gavin McClanahan	2072
80	Timothy Zhou	1974
88	Bradley Guan	1948
89	Eli Goering	1947
99T	Jimi Akintonde	1926
Age 18
5	Sam Schmakel	2410
11	Jonathan Kogan	2241
22	Duncan Shepherd	2110
50	Joe Fennessey	2022
89	Arjun Nandy	1896
Girls Under 21
51T	Miranda Liu (13)	1899
63	Marissa Li (12)	1846
75	Shreya Mangalam (11)	1813
84	Caeley Harihara (17)	1787
Girls Under 16
26	Miranda Liu (13)	1899
33	Marissa Li (12)	1846
41	Shreya Mangalam (11)	1813
67	Shayna Provine (14)	1729
Girls Under 13
9	Marissa Li (12)	1846
10	Shreya Mangalam (11)	1813
72	Aria Hoesley (10)	1432