International Master (2012), Grandmaster (2015); NSW Champion (2011, 2012, 2013 & 2015); Australian Champion (2014).
Master norms
Illingworth won an IM norm from the Queenstown Chess Classic (2012), an IM and GM norm from the First Saturday GM September 2011 and scored his 3rd IM norm playing for Australia on board 4 in the Istanbul Olympiad (2012).
He won his second GM norm at the First Saturday GM 2014 and his third at the Australasian Masters in December 2015. Illingworth is Australia's fourth grandmaster (fifth if the late Walter Browne is counted as an Australian GM).
Championships
<State> He won the NSW Championship in 2011 with 7/9, in 2012 with 8.5/9, in 2013 and in 2015 with 8/9.
<National> He placed equal second with 8.5/13 at the 2013 Australian Championship in January. Illingworth started 2014 on a high note, winning the bi-annual Australian Championship outright with 8/11, defeating Australian wunderkind Anton Smirnov in the final round.
<World> In July 2015 he won the Oceania Zonal 3.6 to qualify for the World Cup (2015). There he was paired with Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna in the first round and bowed out of the tournament after losing by 0.5-1.5.
Standard Tournaments
In November 2012, he won the MCC Cup Weekender 2012 with 8.5/9, the only "blot" on an otherwise perfect score being a draw with IM Andrew Brown. He placed =2nd at the 2012 Gold Coast Open and won the NSW Open 2013. In August 2013, he placed =2nd with 7/9 at the 10th IGB Dato Arthur Tan International Open, half a point behind Deshun Xiu. He wound up 2013 with an =3rd at the Australasian Masters GM norm tournament. In April 2014, he scored a mildly disappointing 5.5/9 at the Doeberl Cup. Illingworth won the First Saturday GM Sep 2014 with 7/9, picking up a GM norm and 18 rating points to move him into 3rd position on the Australian rankings for the October 2014 FIDE rating list. In November 2014, he scored a perfect 9/9 at the 2014 MCC Hjorth Open to boost his rating by another 25 points to rapidly close in on 2500. However, 2014 finished on somewhat of an anticlimax for Illingworth at the Australasian Masters GM Norm Tournament 2014 held in Melbourne, finishing far from the leader board on 3.5/9, and shedding 17 rating points. Nevertheless, 2015 started on a strong note with 2nd place with 8/11 at the Australian Open, 2.5 points behind a rampant 10.5/11 performance by the runaway winner, Chinese super-GM Hua Ni. In June 2015, he won the NSW Open on tiebreak from Anton Smirnov.
In December 2015, Illingworth won his third GM title at the 2015 Australasian Masters where he placed 2nd, thereby securing his GM title.
Team Events
He represented Australia at the Istanbul Olympiad (2012), scoring 7/10 on the reserve board, and helping Australia to a higher than expected placement of 32nd (seeded 61). In August 2014, he played board 3 for Australia in the Tromso Olympiad (2014) scoring an impressive 6/9 (+5 -2 =2 & TPR 2563), just shy of a GM norm, breaking even against his 4 GM opponents with an impressive last round win against Romanian GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, and defeating his three IM opponents 3-0. His performance also helped Australia to an excellent 31st place, 29 ahead of its #60 seeding.
Rating and ranking history
Illingworth's highest rating to date was 2517 in September 2015 making him the #2 ranked player in the country, his highest ranking to date.
Award
The Australian Chess Federation awarded Illingworth the Steiner Medal (Australian player of the year) for 2012.
Wikipedia article: Max Illingworth
Kibitzing
