Sonam's Triumph

Another member of the Ray School Chess Club has earned a national ranking.

Sonam Ford's name appears this month on the United States Chess Federation's Top 100 list of all eight-year-olds in the country. With a rating of 1276, he is No. 29 among kids his age nationally and the 4th-ranked eight-year-old in Illinois, which is increasingly one of the most competitive states for scholastic chess.


This is a huge accomplishment, and we should all be very proud of Sonam. In addition to playing with Ray, he works hard at chess, studying with Hyde Park resident and International Master Jan van de Mortel of the Chicago Blaze. Sonam is also a regular at the Borders on 53rd Street, where he makes the adult players very nervous when they see him coming.

Sonam follows in the footsteps of fellow club member Phillip Parker-Turner, who has also appeared in the USCF national rankings many times and is currently in the nation's top 100 nine-year-olds. Obviously, Ray kids love chess, and they're good at it.