Five teams and ten other Illinois students are heading to the 2016 US Chess K-12 Nationals beginning Friday in Atlanta, GA.

Naperville North High School has entered 19 players in multiple sections. Coach Jeff DiOrio says he was "nervous about the logistics of the trip, but excited about the tournament." Taking that many high school players on a plane can be "an adventure". But this is not Coach DiOrio's first rodeo: "Once we get there, I will relax."

DiOrio says the trip is both a reward for the efforts of the season which has preceeded this as well as preparation for the following year.

"We use this as a fun trip and a good way for the kids to kickoff their off-season training.  We usually bring home quite a bit of hardware because of the numbers we take and the kids love to be together, so we always have a blast."

Other high schools sending squads include 2016 IHSA Champions Whitney Young which has registered 11 players, Highland Park sending 15, and New Trier with 10. Richards High School of Oak Lawn has four players entered.

While four players make up the possible team score, there is no rule requiring a full team. Wheaton North has sent a pair of ninth graders: William Richards and Jack Wakeman while individual high school entrants include Alex Bian of Stevenson (Lincolnshire), Nate Holzmueller of Evanston and Hanson Hao of Bloomington and Junior Anshul Adve of Champaign.

There is also no rule that says one has to be in high school to compete at this event and Illinois is represented by sixth grader Stefan Mueller of Naperville / Lisle, third graders Natalie Wisniowski of Chicago and Vrishank Ramnath of Naperville and 2016 Illinois K-8 Champion Ishaar Ganesan of Evans Junior High School,

Advanced registrations can be seen on the US Chess site.

461 teams from 38 states are registered so far.