With a week to go there are 877 advance entries listed.
Recent years have had:
2010 MN 930 (will probably be passed this year)
2008 TX 908 (will very probably be passed this year)
2007 CA 994 (might be passed this year - the last week of 2010 had 120 entries processed, so doing that again in 2011 would pass the 2007 number)
Odds don’t look good for setting a new record though. There were 1456 in 2002 in WI and there may have been other years even higher.
I had a silliness moment when trying to find the numbers for 2009, 2005 and 2001. Then I realized that those were Supernationals years and there was no seperate National Junior High.
What jumps out of the numbers is how few Ohio players there are, and the low numbers from the contiguous states, except for Michigan. Wonder if the recent All Girls tournament is having an impact on the numbers or is it the bad economy in the “rust belt”? PA, KY, and IN are sending surprisingly few so far. Hope there are a lot of on-site entries.
Good luck to all of the participants. Last year’s national event in Columbus was great. Our group had a blast. Will be bringing a smaller group this year; the economy is taking a bite out of our numbers.
C’mon Ohio. You can’t let Michigan have more players than you!
Michigan has a vigorous Scholastic program, run tirelessly by Jenny Skidmore and a host of other hard working volunteers. Plus it has support from the Michigan Chess Association. Kudos to all of them. The kids are our future.