Youth Chess News
Illinois boasts another female expert: Congrats, Natalie!
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- Written by Eva Harrison Eva Harrison
The Illinois girls who made the most recent Top 100 Lists for Girls are listed below. These lists are based on ratings achieved and processed by the third Wednesday of the prior month, in this case February 19, 2020, and do not yet include rating changes following the US Amateur Team North.
A big shoutout to WCM Natalie Wisniowski, who made expert, gaining almost 60 points with her two wins over 2100-rated opponents at the CCC Jane Addams tournament. She now sits at third place for girls age 13, behind Rianne Ke and Rochelle Wu, both from California. The same tournament helped Sruthi Bharath Kumar cross back into 1700 territory, earning her rank 13 in the same age group.
Illinois with 3 Girls in 5th Position in US Ranking
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- Written by Eva Harrison Eva Harrison
Along with Shreya Mangalam, WCM Natalie Wisniowski and Nandini Prakash now also rank 5th in the nation among girls of their age as shown in the most recent Top 100 Girls lists. These lists compiled by US Chess are based on ratings achieved and processed by January 15, 2020. Both Natalie and Nandini had 50+ rating gains. In fact, a few days after the cut-off date, the Woman Candidate Master moved into Expert territory – but that will be covered next month.
Moving up a class or crossing the threshold to a higher bracket is always applaudable. There were at total eight girls who managed to improve their hundreds digit over the last month:
IHSA State Tournament in Peoria
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- Written by Héctor R. Hernández, Chess Coach - St. Ignatius College Prep Héctor R. Hernández, Chess Coach - St. Ignatius College Prep
The St. Ignatius College Prep chess team, coached by Héctor R. Hernández, had a stellar performance at the IHSA (Illinois High School Association) State Tournament on February 14 and 15 and achieved Top Twenty status by finishing in 18th place among 126 schools. The team came in behind Payton H.S., but ahead of Whitney Young, Northside College Prep, Lane Tech and Lincoln Park.
Our squad also captured the Division 3A Title, which is awarded by ICCA, the Illinois Chess Coaches Association: ILChessCoach.org. We placed ahead of Lisle (Benet Academy), which has Grand Master Nikola Mitkov as one of its coaches. There were twenty-one Division 3A schools competing at State, another four did not qualify and three withdrew prior to the start of the tournament. Division 3A schools have a student enrollment of 1200 to 1700.
Three of our players earned silver medals for outstanding performances with 6-1 scores: Dylan Rosario (Sr.), Nikola Le Tien (So.) and Philip Kujawa (Fr.). Also representing our school at State were team captain Nevin O’Donnell, Victor Ruan, Kirk Tejas, Zaid Akkawi, Emanuel Demisse and Sean Neiza. Without a doubt, this is the best St. Ignatius chess team during my ten-year tenure.
Shakira and Louisa climb almost 20 ranks; Nandini back in 1700s
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- Written by Eva Harrison Eva Harrison
Shakira Luster, who took 7th place with her teammates from St. Ethelreda at the 2019 K-12 Championship in Orlando, Florida, sees her hard work pay off; coached by her dad, Sedrick Prude and Tom Murphy, the 13-year-old has gained about 500 USCF rating points over the last year.
Kudos also to Louisa Zhang, age 14, who entered 1400 territory with her excellent performance at the 4th Annual Sevan Memorial Tournament. The same tourney helped Nandini Prakash get back into the 1700s. Nandini, who is only 9 years old, is the sixth best female chess player in her age group in the country.
Many Illinois girls improved their ranking over last month, including 7-year old Mythreyi Govindarajan, from 602 to 655 (new rank 58), 10-year old Linda Pham, from 1259 to 1310 (new rank 36), and 13-year old Sruthi Bharath Kumar, from 1609 to 1666 (new rank 17), to name just a few.
Shivani and Mythreyi Break into US Top 100
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- Written by Eva Harrison Eva Harrison
Illinois currently has no female player in the ‘Age 18’ category of the US Top 100 now that Class A player Emma Wang aged out. However, our group of 12-year olds ranking high enough to make the cut has grown to eight girls.
Players of note this month include Michelle Pankov, Angela Hu and Niyathi Girish, all of whom went from a 3-digit rating to a 4-digit rating---Niyathi even to 1107, gaining close to 150 rating points and moving from 98th to 62nd position nationwide. Olivia Lee climbed ten ranks and now sits at #28 among seven-year old girls.
Congratulations to the two young ladies from our state who broke into the US Top 100 for the first time: Mythreyi Govindarajan, in the “Age 7 and Under” group, and Shivani Manimaran, who is nine and (to my knowledge) a member of the Fox Valley Chess Club.