Players

Dmitry Gurevich was born in Moscow in 1956. He immigrated to the USA in 1980. He was awarded the GM title in 1983. He won the US Open in 1988 and 2009, and tied for first in 1994. Gurevich has also had especially good results at the National Open in Las Vegas, sharing first place on numerous occasions e.g. 1985, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1996, 1997, and 2005. He has been a regular finisher at the top of North American events as well as a regular participant in the U.S. Invitational Championship.

Dmitry's favorite players of all time include Mikhail Tal, Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. His advice to developing chess players is simple: "Play and study. Study and play." Dmitry has lived in Chicago since 1988 and has been a powerful force on the local chess scene both as a player and top trainer to many up and coming players.

Mesgen is currently the number one rated player in his homeland of Turkmenistan. He has represented his home country in the 2006 and 2008 Olympiads and will do so again in 2010. Msgen also has represented Turkmenistan in multiple World Youth Championships. In 2009 he was the IL State Co-Champion along with one of his Chicago Blaze teammates. Mesgen became an International Master in 2007 and achieved his Grandmaster title in 2009.

Born in Romania, Florin became a multiple time Romanian Junior Champion. He moved Illinois in 1997. Also a multiple participant in the World and European Youth Championships his best results were a 1st place tie in European Championship, Romania, 1994 and 7th place in the World Championship, Germany, 1992. While in the US, he won the Denker High School Championship in 1998 and in 1999 served as one of the four world advisers in the Kasparov versus the World match. After a period of absence he returned to over-the-board chess tournament in 2008-2009 achieving his IM title completely through participation in the North American Masters and tied for first at the 2009 Illinois State Championship. Florin is currently aiming for a better season with the Chicago Blaze and attacking his GM title as well.

IM Angelo Young is a gifted chess player from the Philippines. He holds a record of earning 3 IM norms and the title in 21 days. His first major accomplishment was the 1993 Missouri Open where he tied for 1st with GM's Dlugy and Kaidanov. He also tied for 3rd in the 1996 World Open as the only untitled player ahead of numerous Grandmasters.

A full time chess instructor and owner of the Touch Move Chess Center in Chicago he is also a great guru in developing young chess players in Illinois. A 7-time Illinois State Champion, he learned the game of chess at the tender age of 9 years from his older brother. Angelo is also capable of playing blindfold chess with up to 5 advanced opponents.

Aside from the many events throughout his career that he has won one of his most notable accomplishments is being undefeated in two seasons with the Chicago Blaze and being named to the All-Star team for Board 3 in the US Chess League.

Arjun Vishnuvardhan is an Indian chess prodigy who became a young International Master at the age of 16 years and 11 months. Arjun was born in Kerala, a state of India, started playing chess when he was 8 years old. He was the State Champion for Under-18 years and Under-9 years age group when he was below 9-years. He posted the National record in India in the year of 2000, by becoming the youngest International FIDE rated player of the country. In 2001, he won the British Junior Under-11 Championship held at Scarborough, UK. And the next year, Arjun won the Under-16 Youth Championship from Middle East.

After a break from chess, he came back to the International chess circuit in 2004 with tremendous form. He tied for the North American & Caribbean Youth Championship title in the same year. In 2005, he became the Youth Chess Champion and the triple gold winner in the Biel Chess Festival, held at Switzerland. He won 18 International chess medals by the time he was 16 years old.

Currently Arjun is working on his game to achieve his goal of becoming a Grandmaster. He lives with his brother and fellow Blaze teammate Gauri Shankar, parents, and youngest brother in suburban Glenview, IL.

Playing chess since 6, Nalluri has participated in several National and International youth chess championships. Winning medals in most events participated, her real success being in 2002 when she won the gold medal in the National Sub-Junior Girls championship and represented India in the World Youth event. In 2004 she secured the National junior girls title and also won the Asian Youth championship U-18 girls. Nalluri won silver in the National Women Championship and finished 6th in the World Junior Girls Championship in the same year. This same year she completed the requirements for her WIM title. She played in a few tournaments in 2005 and was selected for a special award from Government of India for being an international medal winner. Nalluri finished her Bachelors of Sciences in Electronics and Communications and is currently pursuing her Masters of Science in Computer Science at Northwestern University.

Cindy hails from Florida originally, where she luckily discovered chess at age 7 and then grew up
traveling the world playing for the US, including 8 World Youth Chess Championships. She finished 5th
in the World Youths a number of times and is a 5-time Pan-American Youth Champion. Upon attending
Stanford University, she took a bit of a hiatus in chess until returning briefly when she moved to NYC for
work and played for the US in Beijing in the 2008 World Mind Sports Games. She’s currently pursuing
her MBA at the Kellogg School of Management, starting her 2nd and final year this fall. Cindy is looking
forward to coming back to chess and excited to play for the Chicago Blaze.

Gauri learned to play chess at the age of six, from his father. He quickly picked up the game and developed a love for the game after he won a local tournament the same year. From then on, Gauri won several junior championships, including the National Championship of India for the under 7 age group and the British championship for Under 9, 10 and 11 age groups in 2002.

After moving to the US he continued to win several events. In 2007 he started playing in more adult tournaments and that improved his game considerably. He won the Expert Section in the Chicago Open. He became a FIDE Master in 2008. Gauri earned his 1st IM norm from the North American Masters Tournament in 2009.

Gauri is a junior at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview, and frequently represents his school in state tournaments. He aspires to be a Grandmaster, but currently he is focusing on becoming an IM like his brother Arjun. In his free time he likes to study chess, read, play video games. He enjoys singing and playing sports as well.

Eric is a junior at Niles North High School in Skokie. He began playing chess when he was 7 years old and has many scholastic championships to his credit. As a youngster he worked with renowned trainer Tamara Golovey, the childhood chess coach to both GM Yury Shulman and GM Boris Gelfand.

Eric's recent accomplishments on the chess board include winning 2009 U.S. Junior Open Championship, and tying for first in the U2300 rating group at the 2009 U.S. Open, where he also earned his National Master title. Eric also led the Niles North Chess team to the Illinois High School Chess Championship in February, 2010. In July, 2010, Eric competed in the US Junior Closed Championship in St. Louis, the most prestigious tournament in the country for the nation's top ten players under age 20. Although he was the lowest seeded player in the competition, he scored an even 4.5 out of 9, and attained a 2450 performance rating for the tournament. Eric also represented Illinois this summer at the 2010 Denker National Championship of High School Champions in Irvine, California.

Eric currently studies chess with GM Dmitry Gurevich. His favorite chess book is Chess Lessons by Artur Yusupov, and he most admires the play of Anatoly Karpov. Eric will also be coaching for the Highland Park Scholastic Chess program commencing in the fall of 2010. Outside of chess, Eric also enjoys tennis, soccer, ping pong, bowling, and photography.

Trevor has been into chess ever since his dad taught him to play at the age of 5. He started playing competitive chess when he was 9. In 2009 he was Illinois' Denker representative, and in February 2010 he achieved the title of National Master. Trevor is an enthusiastic fan of the Chicago Blaze and is looking forward to his second season with the team. Aside from chess, Trevor's primary interests are music and mathematics, and he enjoys a good Monty Python sketch. Trevor is a senior in high school and lives with his family in Bolingbrook.