My last post went to press before Marc Arnold also clinched an IM norm at the last NACA FIDE event.
Despite spring break holding down attendance, it was a busy chess weekend. The Orland Scholastic on Saturday drew only 23 players which should be doubled or even tripled by the April event. The Kumbaya event today drew exactly 100 players which was also a little low but resulted in a speedy event with few hiccups. One of the highlights to me was watching the mass numbers of supremely talented 2nd and 3rd graders. Illinois has to be close to the tops in those age groups in the country. In fact after being told by two separate prominent IL chess coaches that they want to take out the NY powerhouse teams at Nationals, I would love to see an internet match between IL and NYC scholastics at the K-3 grades.
Also of significant importance this weekend were the Denker and Polgar qualifiers. For the Denker, there was a tie between experts Ilan Meerovich and Kayin Barclay (2 time IL rep to the Denker). With tiebreaks Ilan will rep our state. In the Polgar division, there were 48 players which was a very impressive showing and tied on top were Sonya Vohra and Victoria Bian, who with the generosity of the Susan Polgar will both be representing our state.
Late this week I hope to be blogging from Dallas at the National JH Championships.
Glenn
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The number of young, talented 2nd and 3rd graders in Illinois is pretty remarkable. I love the way the Kumbaya tournaments are structured--with the over 1000 section--so all those strong kids get to play each other and get really good games.
The Warren Program is sponsoring a seminar with Alex Shabalov and Dmitry Gurevich for all the Warren Scholars planning to attend the K-6 nationals in Pittsburgh at the end of April. Almost all have RSVP'd that they're coming. Also invited to attend are this weekend's Polgar winners, Sonya Vohra and Victoria Bian.
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