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Greater Peoria Chess Foundation


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The Greater Peoria Chess Foundation is a 501(c)3 non profit organization dedicated to encouraging chess in our community and school systems. Chess helps students to develop many life skills that will help them as they navigate with challenges that lay ahead.


Scholastic Chess Scholarship Tour The 2024-25 school schedule features our new Grand Prix Chess Tour program that offers scholarships for some lucky players to attend the USCF K-8 Championships in Bloomington or the Nationals in Orlando, Florida at the end of the chess season. Learn how you can paticipate and perhaps win a trip to the Nationals at Orlando, Click ==> here <== and get all the details.


Former Peoria player, Elbert Fang, has attatained the rating of USCF Master, 2200, at the Queen City Prairie Open in Fort Worth, Texas with a win over Sharvesh R Deviprasath (2545). See the game here.
Congratulations Elbert!!!


Greater Peoria Open Archive

All Years
Year Attendance Chief TD Winners
2023 47 Patrick Cohen Michael Li, Hector Hernandez, Pragyan Misra
2022 40 Patrick Cohen Hiro Higuchi, George Fu
2021 Canceled due to Covid-19 Pandemic
2020 Canceled due to Covid-19 Pandemic
2019 58 Patrick Cohen Pete Karagianis, Henry Getz
2018 55 Patrick Cohen Tim McEntee
2017 55 Patrick Cohen Pete Karagianis, Tim McEntee, Robert Reynolds, Hersh Singh
2016 42 Patrick Cohen Pete Karagianis
2015 42 Patrick Cohen Awonder Liang
2014 66 Patrick Cohen Eric Rosen, Pete Karagianis
2013 38 Patrick Cohen Pete Karagianis
2012 23 Wayne Zimmerle Penny Yue
2011 26 Wayne Zimmerle Nikhil Kunche, David Meliti
2010 34 Wayne Zimmerle Jon Burgess
2009 28 Wayne Zimmerle Trevor Magness, David Long, Mike Leali
2008 30 Fred Malcom Ricardo Szmetan
2007 26 Wayne Zimmerle Alek Stamnov, Trevor Magness
2006 42 Wayne Zimmerle Alek Stamnov
2005 24 Wayne Zimmerle Miomir Stevanovic, David Long, Kyle Miles
2004 24 Wayne Zimmerle Miomir Stevanovic
2003 49 Wayne Zimmerle Alek Stamnov
2002 28 Wayne Zimmerle Steve Szpisjak
2001 32 Wayne Zimmerle Alek Stamnov
2000 41 Wayne Zimmerle Herman Chiu
1999 42 Wayne Zimmerle Stanimir Ilic
1998 37 Wayne Zimmerle Chris Merli, Henrikas Sakalinskas
1997 23 Wayne Zimmerle David Mote
1996 16 Wayne Zimmerle David Mote, Steve Szpisjak
1995 30 Bill Wilkinson Wayne Zimmerle, Chester Townsend
1994 28 Bill Wilkinson John Belle
1993 16 Bill Wilkinson Albert Chow
1992 37 Bill Wilkinson Matt Cremeens
1990 30 Bill Naff Dmitry Gurevich, Steve Szpisjak, Scott Haubrich

The Greater Peoria Open is the GPCF's premier tournament. It drew 51 players in it's inaugural voyage in 1965, one year after the start of the GPCF. It has been held every year since. 2021 will be it's 56th year and it has long been a USCF Heritage event.


Ross Sprague, then US Armed Forces champion was our first winner. finishing ahead of Dick Verber and a number of other 2000+ players. That event was organized and directed by Murrel Rhodes.


Over the years the attendance has varied, reaching over 100 one year under Bill Naff's direction. Attendance had slowed in the 1990s but seems to have picked up again in recent years.


The GPO is a 5 round two day Swiss System tournament. The original format was a single open section, open to all players. Today the format has changed a little with a Reserve section open to players 1400 and below. The dates have also varied over the years, but usually it has been held in the spring, although one year it was held in October. That experiment didn't produce the desired results and returned to the spring the following year.


For information about next year's GPO, please check out the web site at PeoriaOpen.Org.


Published USCF records only go back to 1992, so previous champions are not well documented. A special thanks to Robert Reynolds for the 1990 crosstable. Peoria GPO Champions from previous eras include Tom Mabee, John Lutes, Murrel Rhodes and Bill Naff. We are trying to locate other records from before 1992.