2011 U.S. Chess Championships

I'm back home with a working wireless connection, hooray!

The first place I went for coverage of what's been going on in the U.S.  championships is The Week in Chess and it did not disappoint.  Nice writing about the play-off matches between Sam (I'm gonna quit chess) Shankland and second-highest rated player of the men GM Alexander Onischuk.  Shankland defeated Onischuk in a two-game play-off under shortened time controls (game in 25 minutes plus time increment added per move), so the final four going into the "final" part of the Men's - er, excuse me, "Open" tournament - are young guns Shankland and Robert Hess versus experienced Gata Kamsky and Yury Shulman.

In the Women's Championship things got interesting with a play-off between two-time U.S. Women's Chess Champion IM Anna Zatonskih and Sabrina Foisor, who'd started her tournament off with a bang by defeating reigning U.S. Women's champ IM Irina Krush.  Zatonskih, one of the highest rated female players in the United States, was favored to cruise to a position in the top four players to advance to the second part of the Championship.  Things did not go so well for her, though.  She was forced to battle back from a -1 position to even get to a play-off birth.  However, Zatonskih rallied sufficiently to win both play-off games against Foisor.  Keep an eye on Foisor.  She has always shown a lot of promise, having been playing since she was a mere tyke, raised in a family of chessplayers who play in the European circuit. 

Final

Rank	Name	Score	M/F	Rating	TPR	W-We	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1	IM Krush, Irina	5.5	F	2472	2578	+0.84	0	1	1	1	1	1	½
2	WGM Baginskaite, Camilla	4.5	F	2342	2468	+1.23	0	1	½	1	1	½	½
3	WFM Abrahamyan, Tatev	4.5	F	2326	2470	+1.40	1	0	½	1	1	½	½
4	IM Zatonskih, Anna	4.0	F	2499	2394	-0.92	½	1	½	0	0	1	1
5	WGM Foisor, Sabina-Francesca	4.0	F	2350	2415	+0.65	1	1	½	1	0	½	0
6	IM Goletiani, Rusudan	2.0	F	2367	2205	-1.55	½	0	0	0	1	0	½
7	WIM Zenyuk, Iryna	2.0	F	2245	2222	-0.27	½	0	1	0	0	0	½
8	FM Melekhina, Alisa	1.5	F	2304	2142	-1.38	½	0	0	0	0	½	½

Pairings Semi Finals game 1 (Saturday, 23 April 2011)

Table	White	Score	Rating	Black	Score	Rating	Result
1	IM Zatonskih, Anna	0.0	2499	IM Krush, Irina	0.0	2472	1-0
2	WFM Abrahamyan, Tatev	0.0	2326	WGM Baginskaite, Camilla	0.0	2342	0-1

Pairings Semi Finals game 2 (Sunday, 24 April 2011)

Table	White	Score	Rating	Black	Score	Rating	Result
1	IM Krush, Irina	0.0	2472	IM Zatonskih, Anna	1.0	2499
2	WGM Baginskaite, Camilla	1.0	2342	WFM Abrahamyan, Tatev	0.0	2326

The winners of these mini-matches will face-off against each other for the Championship crown.  As you can see, both Krush and Abrahamyan need to score wins today to force play-off games.