Greater Peoria Chess Foundation

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.

GPCF News

2019 Peoria Championship Finals Match

Defending and 8 time champion Mike Leali is back to defend his title which he won in a 3-game finals match against Alex Beecher last year. This year Mike and Alex will face off in the preliminary 6-man round robin. Seedings are based on ratings and so the position of players in the tournament change from year to year as some players gain and others lose rating points.

After the two 6-man round robin semi-finals, the winner of each section meet in the finals for the first to win 2 points with a lead.

This year Daniel Garrett, Peter McConaghie, Kurt Bendoraitis, Len Brown, Matthew Leali and Michael Li form Group A. Michael Leali, Micah Tuhy, Ron Suarez Owen Zhang, Alex Beecher and Adam Lonn form Group B.


The championship is getting some clarity. This last week saw the last 2 challengers for Group B fall to the wayside as Adam Lonn defeated Mike Leali and then drew with Owen Zhang. Alex Beecher had already finished his schedule with 4 points. Mike's loss & Adam's draw means their top score is 3.5 and so Alex advances to the finals match against Group A winner Daniel Garrett. (6/24/2019)


The Peoria Championship finals match is now underway and starts with an upset with Alex Beecher picking off an early victory. The game was exciting and has been added to our games list below. As it often does, it came down to a missed threat in a messy complicated position. So Alex is up 1-0 in games and Daniel now needs to win or draw the next game to keep his hopes alive. The match goes to the first one to score 2 points or more with a lead. (6/28/2019)


2019 Qualifiers - 2019 Standings - 2019 Games

The Monday night adult chess club now meets at the Life Together Center (formerly the Great Central Insurance Bldg) at Sheridan & War Memorial 7 to 11pm. The club will not meet July 15th, but resumes the following week on July 22nd. (Click here to see the location on a map.)




Karagianis & Getz Tie the 55th Annual GPO

Peoria Master Pete Karagianis and former Peorian Henry Getz tied for the title at the 55th annual Greater Peoria Open April held 6th & 7th at the Mark Twain Hotel in downtown Peoria. Pete entered late as he had to miss the start and Henry ran up 4 straight points before falling in the last round to Karagianis in an extremely exciting game.

58 players attended and had a great time enjoying the comfortable and spacious Packard Building playing hall. Alex Relyea, chairman of the USCF tournament director committee, traveled 1150 miles from New Hampshire just to play in the GPO.

Full crosstables and prizes can be found at the tournament site here. Almost $2,000 in prizes were given out.



Area Players Win 36 Medals at IESA State Finals
While Dunlap Middle School sweeps in all grades ...

36 Peoria area players won silver or bronze medals at 2019 IESA State Finals played at the Peoria Civic Center February 22nd & 23rd.

Dunlap Middle School team finished in the Top Four in all three grades, a rare sweep for IESA schools. Dunlap won the championship in 6th Grade and finished runner-up in 7th Grade and 4th in 8th Grade. Seven other Peoria area also schools made top 10 in one of the grades. Players played 7 games - 4 on Friday & 3 on Saturday. A perfect 7 wins in 7 games was required for Gold, 6 for Silver & 5 for Bronze.

Local winners at this year's event:

  • 6th Grade Teams: 1. Dunlap Middle School, 5. Dunlap Valley MS, 8. Brimfield, 10. Peoria Washington
  • 6th Grade Individual Silver (6.0): Stella Chen, Dunlap MS, Alex Fei, Dunlap MS, Joshua Wang , Dunlap MS
  • 6th Grade Individual (Bronze 5.0): Bhargava Malya, Dunlap Valley, Ethan Chen, Dunlap MS, Ella Cunningham, Dunlap MS, Reed Florey, Brimfield, Zack Irish, Washington Central, Agrini Neekhra, Peoria Washington
  • 7th Grade Teams: 2. Dunlap Middle School, 4.Morton Junior High, 7.Washington Central, 9. Metamora
  • 7th Grade Individual Silver (6.0): Noah Li, Dunlap MS
  • 7th Grade Individual (Bronze 5.0): Joey Julich, Morton JH, Shaan Kashyap, Dunlap MS, Harris Koo, Dunlap MS, Shriyans Pendli, Dunlap, Roshan Raja, Dunlap Valley, Brady Peterson, St Thomas, Matt Robinson, Morton JH, Michael Robinson, Morton JH, Tyler Sass, Dunlap MS, Matt Savage, Washington MS, Mason Siegel, Kevin Yang, Dunlap MS
  • 8th Grade Teams: 4.Dunlap Middle School, 7.Metamora St.Marys
  • 8th Grade Individual (Silver 6.0): Kayden Hubbard, Brimfield
  • 8th Grade Individual (Bronze 5.0): Mason Brown, EP Central, Matthew Choy, Dunlap MS, Benjamin Eckstein, Metamora StMarys, Colin Goebel, Washington Central, Brett Granger, Morton, Bryce Hammar, Metamora, Ben McClelland, Washington Central, Abrar Monyem, Dunlap MS, Tommy Nemec, Washington Central, Suchinder Singh, Dunlap MS, Jonathan Staisberg, Metamora StMarys, Ryan Tran, Dunlap Valley, Tim Wan, Dunlap MS



GPCF Receives PPS Community Contribution Award
PPS Community Contribution Crystal Award

Peoria Public Schools awarded the 2017-18 Community Contribution Award to the Greater Peoria Chess Foundation at their June 11, 2018 Board meeting. GPCF provided chess sets and training software to PPS schools and supported a chess tournament at Von Steuben Middle School in 2017. Planned for 2018-19 are more tournaments and a program to provide low cost US Chess memberships to students.





Puzzle of the Day

Game of the Day

World Leaders

--30--