US Chess Championships Start Today
This year's US Chess Championships features all the top American players for the first time in many years, thanks in no small part to a considerably increased prize fund of $170,000.
For the second year running the venue is the attractive and modern Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis.
Following on from the success of the Chess.com TV live coverage of the Anand v Topalov match, there will also be live coverage of some rounds in the US Championships.
The current plans for live coverage are tentative, but should include:
Round 1 - Friday 14 May - IM Danny Rensch (open to all members)
Round 3 - Sunday 16 May - WIM Alisa Melekhina (Platinum+)
Round 5 - Tuesday 18 May - IM Danny Rensch (Platinum+)
Round 7 - Thursday 20 May - IM David Pruess (Platinum+)
All rounds start at 14:00 local time (Central Standard Time), with coverage kicking off about an hour later so that the games are nicely warmed up!
Round one gets underway today and the pairings have been announced:
| Seed | Seed | ||
| 13 | Alexander Stripunsky | 1 | Hikaru Nakamura |
| 2 | Gata Kamsky | 14 | Ray Robson |
| 15 | Joel Benjamin | 3 | Alexander Onischuk |
| 4 | Yuri Shulman | 16 | Vinay Bhat |
| 17 | Ben Finegold | 5 | Varuzhan Akobian |
| 6 | Aleksander Lenderman | 18 | Melikset Khachiyan |
| 19 | Alex Yermolinsky | 7 | Jaan Ehlvest |
| 8 | Robert Hess | 20 | Sam Shankland |
| 21 | Jesse Kraai | 9 | Alexander Shabalov |
| 10 | Larry Christaiansen | 22 | Dmitry Gurevich |
| 23 | Irina Krush | 11 | Gregory Kaidanov |
| 12 | Sergey Kudrin | 24 | Levon Altounian |
The official website can be found here.
