2009 U.S. Chess Championship

After Round 3: First - no surprise - there are no qualifiers left for going 9-0 in wins for the $64,000 Fischer prize. Whoever put up the money for this prize must have first consulted the most knowledgeable bookies in Vegas, baby :) Second - IM Irina Krush (W) defeated the venerable GM Boris Gulko (B). Third - IM Anna Zatonskih's game with GM Gregory Kaidanov has been postponed due to Zatonskih's illness. Don't have the current standings yet - the official website has not been updated for Round 3 results. Here are the results by match, excluding Zatonskih/Kaidanov, to be played later: 1. GM Yury Shulman (2) 2697 ½-½ GM Gata Kamsky (2) 2798 2. GM Hikaru Nakamura (1½) 2757 1-0 IM Robert Hess (2) 2545 3. GM Alexander Onischuk (1½) 2736 ½-½ GM Jaan Ehlvest (1½) 2649 4. GM Joel Benjamin (1½) 2650 0-1 GM Joshua Friedel (1½) 2568 5. GM Julio Becerra (1) 2672 1-0 Tyler Hughes (1) 2293 6. GM Varuzhan Akobian (1) 2664 1-0 IM Ray Robson (1) 2542 7. IM Samuel Shankland (1) 2464 ½-½ GM Melikset Khachiyan (1) 2632 8. IM Michael Brooks (1) 2419 ½-½ IM Enrico Sevillano (1) 2549 9. GM Ildar Ibragimov (½) 2628 ½-½ GM Larry Christiansen (½) 2681 10. GM Gregory Kaidanov (½) 2662 PPD IM Anna Zatonskih (½) 2503 11. IM Irina Krush (½) 2496 1-0 GM Boris Gulko (0) 2631 12. Charles Lawton (0) 2350 0-1 GM Alexander Shabalov (0) 2620

2009 U.S. Chess Championships

It's coming up fast - Round 1 is on Friday May 8. Tickets are free to members of the Chess and Scholastic Center of St. Louis; tickets cost $12 to non-members, with reduced price for full-time students. Information page. My interest in this event is primarily because of the two chess femmes playing: IM Irina Krush and IM Anna Zatonskih, current U.S. Women's chess champion. People may recall the hoo-haa last year during the Armageddon play-off between Krush and Zatonskih that resulted in Zatonskih's winning the U.S. Women's title. I believe a lot of people are hoping to see a lot of drama, maybe even a cat fight between the two women. I'd be very surprised if that turns out to be the case, but I expect at least some members of the U.S.C.F. Executive Board are rubbing their hands in glee over what they anticipate will be a banner event for the first time since America's Foundation for Chess dropped its lucrative sponsorship of the open and women's championships in 2006. Viewership online is bound to be up. Me, I'm interested because other than GM Susan Polgar, who is inactive and therefore not on the list, these two women are the highest rated female players in the United States, excluding GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, who plays for the Russian Federation but now, I believe, resides in Florida.

2009 U.S. Chess Championships

Today I visited the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis website and saw a press release dated March 19, 2009, listing 23 of the 24 players invited to this year's championship. The 24th player will be the winner of an online tournament among the 2009 state chess champions hosted by and played on the ICC. The list of confirmed players includes IM Irina Krush and IM Anna Zatonskih. Here's a little information about the prize fund: The U.S. Championship, slated for May 7 - 17, will offer a purse of up to $200,000 in prize money, including a $35,000 cash prize for the first-place winner and a $5,000 jackpot prize. If the winner scores a 9-0 sweep, the player will also be awarded the Fischer Memorial Prize, a $64,000 bonus. The prize is in remembrance of world champion Bobby Fischer, who died last year. I don't recall reading about the $64,000 bonus Fischer Memorial Prize before. I consider it more likely than not that no player will score 9-0 to claim this prize but it certainly is a great incentive for fighting chess! Monroi.com has a website for the 2009 Championship, so I assume it will be broadcasting the games. At present, I haven't found more details about the prize structure. I'd like to know what the break-down is for the 24. I'll keep looking.

2009 U.S. Chess Championships

Knock me over with a feather, darlings! I read about this last night but was just too tired to post about it. Instead of an 11th hour bid coming in to save the U.S. Chess Championships, there is actually a venue AND a total prize purse of $100,000 several months in advance! The venue is none other than the fabulous new chess club that recently opened in St. Louis, Missouri: This is an abbreviated version of the article that appeared at (I think) USCF, at the St. Louis Business Journal Online, August 21, 2008: The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis has been selected by the U.S. Chess Federation to host the 2009 U.S. Championship. The championship will be held May 2009. Invitations to potential tournament participants will be issued to some of the top-rated U.S. players, top-rated women and wild card participants who will be announced later. It will be a nine-round event, using the Swiss system with one round per day and a rest day between rounds five and six. Games will be played with 40 moves in two hours, with the remaining moves in one hour. The championship will have a purse of $100,000, with $30,000 awarded to the winner, twice the amount of last year's tournament. The center, which was founded by retired investment fund manager Rex Sinquefield and opened in July, is located at 4657 Maryland Ave. in the Central West End. The three-level, 6,000-square-foot facility features DGT chessboards, wooden chess tables, LCD-screen televisions, overhead paging and an adjustable lighting system.

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With top prize at $30,000 I imagine that will attract more top GM talent.

Will a different prize structure be in place for the women players who, given the round-robin structure, will be mixed in playing against men and likely several of them end at the bottom of the results? What will make it worthwhile for any of them to play if their prizes should be lower than they earned in the 2008 U.S. Women's Championship? (I assume this will not be allowed to happen, but who knows?) How many players will be invited? What is the break-down of the prize structure?

This is a great coup for the USCF and I wonder, what is the story behind this gift from Heaven?

This is not meant to be a dis on Frank K. Berry, who single-handedly rescued the US Chess Championships after A4FC's contract terminated with USCF with the completion of the 2006 U.S. Chess Championships. Despite advertising for months in the useless Chess Life Magazine - yeah, like top corporate execs and sponsors READ it or visit Chesslife Online, lol! - only Mr. Berry put together consecutive bids for the 2007 and 2008 Men's and Women's championships. Without him, these events would most likely not have been held.

In addition to providing playing venues both years (I have no idea how much this cost; I assume it would be several thousands of dollars more), Mr. Berry also provided prizes worth $55,000 cash for the 2008 Men's Championship, with an additional prize for the Men's Champion as an instructor on a cushy cruise worth another $5,000, and $25,000 cash for the 2008 Women's Championship, for a total of $85,000. In 2007, Men's cash prizes totalled $65,000, of which $25,000 was provided by Eric Anderson of AF4C (I do not know if these funds were ever received by USCF). The Women's Championship prize fund was $25,000. So, over the course of two years, Mr. Berry provided prizes of at least $145,000 plus the cost of providing the playing venues plus the cost of the cruise package for the 2008 U.S. Chess Champion.

Thank you, Mr. Berry, for your generous sponsorship which allowed a totally disfunctional and unworthy USCF to keep the U.S. Chess Championships going for the past two years. Will Mr. Sinquefield prove to be as generous as you were - or will the entrenched bureaucrats at USCF manage to disgust him and chase him away too?