The U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational tournament held to determine the United States
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
champion. Begun as a challenge match in 1845, the U.S. Championship has been decided by tournament play for most of its long history.
[ Since 1936, it has been held under the auspices of the U.S. Chess Federation. Until 1999, the event consisted of a ]round-robin tournament
A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero ...
of varying size. From 1999 to 2006, the Championship was sponsored and organized by the Seattle Chess Foundation (later renamed America's Foundation for Chess F4C as a large Swiss system tournament
A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...
. AF4C withdrew its sponsorship in 2007. The 2007 and 2008 events were held (again under the Swiss system) in Stillwater, Oklahoma
Stillwater ( iow, Ñápinⁿje, ''meaning: "Water quiet"'') is a city in, and the county seat of, Payne County, Oklahoma, United States. It is located in north-central Oklahoma at the intersection of U.S. Route 177 and State Highway 51. As of t ...
, under the direction of Frank K. Berry
Frank Kimball Berry (June 15, 1945 – June 6, 2016) was an American chess administrator with the rank of International Arbiter and Organizer. He was also a magician, historian, and banker from Stillwater, Oklahoma. He was best known for spons ...
. The Saint Louis Chess Club
The Saint Louis Chess Club (previously named the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis) is a chess venue located in the Central West End in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Opened on July 17, 2008, it contained a tournament hall and ...
in St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
has hosted the annual event since 2009.
As of the 2022 US Chess Championship, twelve players are invited to the event; the reigning champion, the US Open Champion, the US Junior Champion, the US Senior Open Champion, a certain number of players with the highest Invitational Rating, and wildcards chosen by the organizer.
The U.S. Chess championship is the oldest national chess tournament.
Fabiano Caruana
Fabiano Luigi Caruana (born July 30, 1992) is an American chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, Caruana became a grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months, and 20 days—the youngest grandmaster in the history of both Italy and the United Sta ...
is the current champion.
Champions by acclamation 1845–1891
:
Match champions 1891–1935
George Henry Mackenzie died in April 1891 and, later that year, Max Judd
Max Judd (born Maximilian Judkiewicz; 27 December 1851 – 7 May 1906) was an American chess player.
Born in Tenczynek, southern Poland (then Galicia, Austro–Hungary), he emigrated to America in 1862. He was an American cloak manufacturer. He ...
proposed he, Jackson Showalter
Jackson Whipps Showalter (February 5, 1859 in Minerva, Kentucky – February 5, 1935 in Lexington, Kentucky) was a five-time U.S. Chess Champion: 1890, 1892, 1892–1894, 1895–96 and 1906–1909.
Chess career
U.S. Championship matches
Showalt ...
and S. Lipschütz contest a triangular match for the championship. Lipschütz Lipschutz is a Jewish surname. It is a variant of Lifshitz.
Notable people with this surname
* Gerdi E. Lipschutz (1923–2010), New York politician
* S. Lipschütz (1863–1905), US chess champion
* Seymour Lipschutz (born 1931), American mathem ...
withdrew so Judd and Showalter played a match which the latter won. A claim by Walter Penn Shipley
Walter Penn Shipley (June 20, 1860 – February 17, 1942) was an American lawyer, chess player and chess organizer.
Biography
Shipley graduated from Haverford College, and from the law school at the University of Pennsylvania. He lived and pract ...
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.[Davies, pp. 196–99]
The following US Champions until 1909 were decided by matches.
:
Tournament champions since 1936
:
Wins per player
See also
* U.S. Women's Chess Championship
*U.S. Open Chess Championship The U.S. Open Championship is an open national chess championship that has been held in the United States annually since .
History
The tournament was originally the championship of the Western Chess Association, and was called the Western Open. I ...
* U.S. Women's Open Chess Championship
*American Chess Congress The American Chess Congress was a series of chess tournaments held in the United States, a predecessor to the current U.S. Chess Championship. It had nine editions, the first played in October 1857 and the last in August 1923.
First American Che ...
Notes
References
*
*
External links
Official US Chess Championship Site
St. Louis Chess Club, St. Louis, Missouri
{{Authority control
Chess national championships
Championship
In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.
Championship systems
Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship.
Title match system
In this system ...