Competing in five rated sections, Illinois players brought home an impressive array of trophies from the 4th Ice Harbor Scholastic held May 13-15 in Dubuque, Iowa at the Grand Harbor Resort.

In the K-12 Open section St. Charles East's Ryan Chimienti and Naperville North's Richard Zhang both posted 4.0/5's to tie for second place. Ryan gave section champion Abhy Shukla his lone blemish with a fifth round draw. Richard overcame an opening match loss, posting four subsequent wins. 46 players competed in the section. On tiebreaks, Ryan collected 4th place hardware while Richard was awarded fifth.

Rockford's Kamalesh Sureshkumar tied for third with 3.0/5 in the K-6 Open while Shorewood's Christian Turk placed ninth with a solid 2.5 performance.

Christian's Avery Coonley teammate Aadit Bhavsar achieved the best score of players rated Under 1000 in that section. Together, Aadit and Christian took second place as a team in the K-6.

16 competed in the K-6 Open.

Brothers Vikram and Adi Oberai both finished in a five-way tie for fourth place in the K-3 Open with 4.0/6 scores. Vikram's two losses were both to top three finishers. Adi also fell victim to the section champion, Rishav Bhattacharyya from Wisconsin, as well as Minnesotan Jordan Timm who was another 4.0-point finisher. 24 played in the section.

Vikram and Adi were also champions of the Ice Harbor Reserve Bughouse competition. Way to go, boys!

In the K-12 Under 1200 section, Wheaton's Sarah Grandy was the clear winner with a perfect six wins in six games. Her rating climbed a whopping 201 points!

DeKalb County's Austin McMurtrie tied for fourth place with 4.0, placing fourth on tiebreaks. Sengdao Inthavong from Rockford was also in that score group, nabbing fifth place on tiebreaks.

Gabe Panner nabbed 8th place hardware with 3.0/6 despite not playing his final round.

Bloomington-Normal area 7th Grader Jade Bates also posted a 3.0 score, and was awarded the trophy for the second highest among players rated U900 in the section.

In the K-6 Under 800, Anisha Oberai (a triplet with the aforementioned Vikram and Adi) tied for fourth place with 4.0/6. Anisha had a wonderful game against champion Wisconsin's Rohan Yethiraj, succombing in the endgame. Her first-round loss was marred with controversy involving a disputed piece placement. Nonetheless, Anisha overcame her disappointment to win four in a row... and improve her no-longer-provisional rating by 30 points!  Way to go, Anisha!

Sibling Tarika Oberai won a trophy for having one of the best scores for players rated under 300 in the K-6 U800 with 3.0/6. Tarika raised her rating 112 points with her solid effort.

Anisha and Tarika finished first and second respectively in the K-6 Unrated Blitz held Friday night, with Anisha achieving a perfect score!

Peyton Feist placed third in the K-6 Unrated with 4.0/6.

Combining these five sections, 27 players from Illinois competed with 15 walking away with individual trophies in the main tournament in addition to team and side event awards.

Planning is already underway for the 2017 event -- which has become the de facto midwest scholastic championships. The dates have been announced as April 28-30, a driveable warm up event for Illinois players who may be competing at the 2017 SuperNationals -- or even a closer alternative. 

After doubling its attendance from 2015, can the Land of Lincoln double its participation again in 2017? Rose Grandy, coach of Wheaton Christian Grammar School and proud mother to the K-12 U1200 section winner, praised the conditions of the event and suggested the tournament "should easily have 200-plus players and a strong Illinois showing."

A Masters / Experts section included players from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Texas -- but none from Illinois owing to the conflict with the Denker and Barber Qualifiers that same weekend.

According to Organizer and Chief TD Jim Hodina, "Excluding states with just one player, Illinois had the highest percentage of trophy winners with 56%."

"Overall, Iowa players won the most trophies with 31 in all. But Wisconsin dominated the first place standings, winning 4 of the 7 sections. Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota each had one first place finish."