Congratulations to 14-year-old Jeffery Xiong, who took clear first at the Chicago Open with 7/9! Xiong took home over $10,000, earned his third GM norm and gained enough rating points to push him over 2500 FIDE!

Jeffery is a member of the Young Stars program co-sponsored by the STL Chess Club and the Kasparov Chess Foundation. The program offers extraordinarily talented children the opportunity to maximize their potential and to achieve the highest level in chess. World Chess Champion and KCF Chairman Garry Kasparov has personally coached the players through an intensive sessions, including those at the CCSCSL.

"Our goal is to prepare the best young players in the country for the most difficult competition in the world," Kasparov said.

In the final round, he found himself in a must-win game against top seed Lázaro Bruzón Batista of Cuba for the title: 

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Also congratulations to the many other norm-earners in the event: 

GM Norms: Jeffery Xiong, Ashwin Jayaram

IM Norms: Eric Rosen*, Atulya Shetty, Sean Vibbert, Gauri Shankar, Kyron Griffith, Qibiao Wang

WIM Norms: Rachel Ulrich, Akshita Gorti

Find full standings in all sections here.

"This may be a record number of norm-earners for an Open tournament held in the U.S.", said organizer Bill Goichberg. 

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*Eric Rosen recently wrote an instructive piece for CLO on earning his final norm at the Philadelphia Open. Chicago brings him an extra norm before his title is official. He also tied for 2nd place in Chicago and earned the Under 2400 prize clear. He will cover his performance and thoughts on the tournament in an upcoming CLO post.

Check out a full photo gallery from the star-studded event by Betsy Dynako: