Hikaru Nakamura gives hometown US Championship a miss
- Leonard Barden
- The Guardian,
The annual US Championship is the most valuable national contest in chess, thanks to a Saint Louis investment billionaire. Rex Sinquefield plans to make his home city globally known and to promote young American talent on the world stage.
The 2011 title event has a $166,000 prize fund including $40,000 for the winner, and reaches its semi-finals this weekend. It has already sparked controversy due to the absence of the world top-10 grandmaster, twice former champion and crowd favourite Hikaru Nakamura. Nakamura is a Saint Louis resident and has been present this week as a spectator. This might sound a mega-snub to the sponsor but Nakamura is preparing for his 10-game match next month, also financed by Sinquefield in Saint Louis, against Ukraine’s former world knock-out champion Ruslan Ponomariov.
The significant participant is the top-seeded Gata Kamsky, who has a big date on 3 May when the world title candidates matches begin in Kazan, Russia. At 22 Kamsky was ranked world No3 behind Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. His playing achievements then were marred by incidents involving his father/manager, who was alleged inter alia to have punched one of Gata’s trainers after blaming him for a defeat and to have made death threats to Nigel Short during their 1994 candidates series.
When at the height of his powers, Kamsky abandoned chess for law school. He returned nearly a decade later when his strategic skills brought him back into the world top 20, though he had lost some tactical sharpness.
More here.
Excuses, excuses. He should have played.
A billionaire could afford more than a $40K top prize. What a tightwad.
We are moving in the right direction for women’s chess and chess in general in the US. I am pleased the billionaire is taking initiatives to promote chess. Give credit where it is due.
But in America, to have a 1st prize fund of $18,000 compared to $40,000 prize shows why we still have ways to go raise the prize fund for women chess players. After a few bills, $18K is dissipate quickly.
I’m a male and I love women’s chess (because you know why lol). Seriously though, these women must earn a living too.