The US Chess Championship is an invitational tournament organized by the United States Chess Federation to determine the country's chess champion.[1]
It is the oldest national chess tournament.[2] The event originated as a challenge match in 1845, but the champion has been decided by tournament play under the auspices of the USCF since 1936.[2] The tournament has fluctuated between a round-robin tournament and a Swiss system. From 2000 to 2006, the championship was sponsored and organized by the Seattle Chess Foundation (later renamed America's Foundation for Chess); starting in 2002 it featured a larger body of competitors, made possible by the change to a Swiss-style format. After the Foundation withdrew its sponsorship, the 2007 and 2008 events were held in Stillwater, Oklahoma, still as a Swiss system, under tournament director Frank K. Berry. The Saint Louis Chess Club has hosted the championship since 2009. Since 2014, the championship has used a round-robin format. The event is often a Zonal tournament for the United States Chess Federation, providing qualifier spots to the Chess World Cup.[3]
As of 2023, twelve players are invited to compete: the reigning US champion, as well as the respective winners of the US Open Chess Championship and the US Junior Championship. The remaining players are chosen by highest invitational rating, in addition to one organizer wildcard.[4]Fabiano Caruana is the current US chess champion.
George Henry Mackenzie died in April 1891 and, later that year, Max Judd proposed he, Jackson Showalter and S. Lipschütz contest a triangular match for the championship. Lipschütz withdrew so Judd and Showalter played a match which the latter won. A claim by Walter Penn Shipley that S. Lipschütz became US Champion as a result of being the top-scoring American at the Sixth American Chess Congress, New York 1889, is refuted in a biography of Lipschütz.[5]
The following US Champions until 1909 were decided by matches.
An erroneous ruling by the director allowed Reshevsky to tie for first with Isaac Kashdan.[8] Reshevsky won a playoff match against Kashdan 6 months later.
↑Andrew Soltis, The United States Chess Championship, Second Edition, McFarland, 1997, p. 32.
↑Andrew Soltis, The United States Chess Championship, Second Edition, McFarland, 1997, p. 33.
↑In an objectively drawnendgame against Arnold Denker, the flag on Reshevsky's clock fell, which should have resulted in his losing on time. The tournament director Walter Stephens, who was standing behind the clock, flipped it around and, looking at Reshevsky's side of the clock (which he mistakenly thought was Denker's), announced "Denker forfeits!" He refused to correct his error, explaining, "Does Kenesaw Mountain Landis reverse himself?" William Lombardy and David Daniels, U.S. Championship Chess, David McKay, 1975, p. 22. ISBN0-679-13042-X. Arnold S. Denker, My Best Chess Games 1929–1976, Dover, 1981, p. 121. ISBN0-486-24035-5.
