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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Preview of US chess championships starting tomorrow

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everyone,

Everyone is set for the 2011 US Chess Championship starting on Friday with a strong field and big prize pool of $166,000 in prizes!

The men's section competition will be divided into two round robin groups of eight players, as follows:


Group A
Gata Kamsky, Tury Shulman, Varuzhan Akobian, Jaan Ehlvest, 
Alexander Stripunsky, Alexander Ivanov, Ray Robson, Daniel Naroditsky

Group B
Alexander Onischuk, Yasser Seirawan, Alexander Shabalov, 
Larry Christiansen, Gregory Kaidanov, Robert Hess, Sam Shankland, Ben Finegold

From each round-robin group, the top two players will qualify for the semifinals. Semifinal and final matches will each consist of two games, with rapid tiebreaks in case of a tie. Should there still be a tie, a modified Armageddon system will be used, in which players bid for the right to choose which color they'd like to play; the player who is willing to take less time will get to choose their color, while the other side will have a full 45 minutes. White must win this game to advance; Black "wins" with either a win or a draw.

As for the prizes, the overall winner will take home $40,000, with the next three finishers taking $30,000, $20,000, and $15,000 respectively. Each round-robin winner will also take home a $2,000 bonus. All players will receive something; 3rd place in the round-robin group receives $8,000, down to $2,500 for last.




The 2011 US Women's Championship will also be taking place at the same time, with eight of the country's top female players competing in a round robin format, which will determine which four players reach the semifinal rounds (the final knockout rounds will be held in the same manner as the main Championship). The eventual winner will take home $18,000, with each player being guaranteed at least $2,000 for participating. The players are:

Anna Zatonskih, Irina Krush, Rusadan Goletiani, Camilla Baginskaite, Tatev Abrahamyan, Sabina Foisor, Alisa Melekhina, 
Iryna Zenyuk

You can follow all the action at the official website.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com

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