U.S. Chess Championship

The U.S. Chess Championship is annual tournament to pick the chess champion for the United States.

Bobby Fischer was only 14 years old when he won his first of eight straight U.S. Championships, which is the record. He won with a perfect 11-0 score in 1964, the only perfect score ever achieved in the tournament.

2022 Tournament[edit]

From October 4 to 20, 2022, this annual tournament was held at the Saint Louis Chess Club, the location a month earlier of the chess cheating scandal.^[1] The format is Round Robin, and the time limits are 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game. A 30-second additional increment per move from the outset is added, in part to enable the player to keep an accurate log of his moves as required.

GM Fabiano Caruana won his second U.S. Chess Championships with an unbeaten 8.5/13 in St. Louis.

Among the 14 contestants were:^[2]

• Wesley So (prior winner, top-ranked American player, #5 in the world)
• Levon Aronian (#9 in the world)
• Fabiano Caruana (winner for the second time, and was also the 2018 Candidates winner)
• Sam Shankland (2018 U.S. Champion)
• Jeffery Xiong
• Hans Niemann

Notably absent is Hikaru Nakamura, the most popular and influential American chess champion ranked #6 in the world. However, he has skipped this tournament in the past, too.^[3]

After the first five rounds concluded on October 9, 2022, the eventual Fabiano Caruana held first place alone with 3.5 points (2 wins and 3 draws).^[4]

Safeguards against cheating[edit]

With a new 30-minute delay on broadcasts of moves, tournament organizers appeared to heed the call for safeguards against cheating as long urged by the top U.S. college chess coach, Susan Polgar:

See also[edit]

• Best American chess players

References[edit]