The 2007 Frank K. Berry US Championship will take place from May 15-23, 2007 as a 9-round Swiss at the Holiday Inn in Stillwater, Oklahoma. These are the final 36 players. (GM Kamsky cannot play because of Mtel and Candidate’s Match. I cannot play because I have made other commitments. IM Anna Zatonskih cannot play because she just had a baby. WGM Rusa Goletiani cannot play due to personal reason.)
GM Hikaru Nakamura 2755 GM Alex Onischuk 2712 GM Gregory Kaidanov 2686 GM Jaan Ehlvest 2669 GM Ildar Ibragimov 2664 GM Yury Shulman 2662 GM Boris Gulko 2660 GM Alex Shabalov 2660 GM Varuzhan Akobian 2651 GM Alex Stripunsky 2647 GM Alex Ivanov 2626 GM Sergey Kudrin 2612 GM Eugene Perelshteyn 2612 GM Julio Becerra 2608 GM Dmitry Gurevich 2591 GM Alex Yermolinsky 2571 IM Enrico Sevillano 2566 GM Melikset Khachiyan 2550 IM Josh Friedel 2544 GM Walter Browne 2520 IM Irina Krush 2480 FM Joseph Bradford 2475 IM David Pruess 2461 FM Robert Hess 2448 IM Justin Sarkar 2442 IM Bryan Smith 2441 IM Michael Mulyar 2440 IM Ron Burnett 2396 IM Jay Bonin 2381 FM Ray Robson 2359 FM Michael Langer 2334 FM Movses Movsisyan 2292 Michael Aigner 2282 WFM Chouchanik Airapetian 2188 WFM Irina Zenyuk 2186 Tom Braunlich 2148
Good luck to everyone! Who will be the favorite to win?
Good Line Up! I am rooting for Akopian our local GM though!
http://goddesschess.blogspot.com/2007/05/vote-polgar-slate-in-june-2007.html
Vote the Polgar Slate in June, 2007
On December 7, 2006 (interesting date choice, don’t you think – Pearl Harbor Day) – GM Susan Polgar officially announced at her blog that she would be running for the Executive Board of the USCF. But prior to that date fans of her blog had been encouraging her to run in the upcoming election (June, 2007), I’d say, going back at least to October, 2006.
So, when I read this last night in the May, 2007 issue of Chess Life magazine (official magazine of the USCF), I had a good laugh:
“Across the Board” page 9:
by Bill Goichberg, USCF President
USCF Membership Surges…
The seven months since my last report in the October 2006 Chess Life have seen an almost unprecendeted gain in USCF membership. Total members for the period 9/1/06 through 3/31/07 are up by 6,016, the second largest gain for any seven-month period in the history of the federation. Our current membership total of 84,495 is also the highest in almost three years.
The “due sales” offering adult membership…
During the seven months 9/06 through 3/07, USCF gained 494 adult members, the largest increase for any period of seven consecutive months in 12 years. …”
Bill Goichberg, bless his heart, attributes the increase in adult memberships (they are the only ones who can vote, as I understand current USCF policy – all the rest of the membership increase is, I assume, from scholastic members and they can’t vote and so, in the eyes of some chess politicans, they really “don’t count”) – to a “dues sale!” That increase couldn’t possibly have – nah – it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Susan Polgar and her slate of candidates running for the USCF Executive Board and the fact that in order to vote in the election next month, you have to be a member in good standing – nah. LOL!
Mr. Goichberg goes on to say that he is aware that “one of the factors that has held back USCF growth in recent years is unwarranted negativism, especially popular on Internet discussion groups.” Yeah, all right. So in the face of all this negativism, why the sudden surge in membership – voting membership? Wouldn’t all the unwarranted and (it is implied, unrelenting and continuing) negativism lead, instead, to a further decline in membership?
As much as Mr. Goichberg tries to put a positive spin on the things that he cites as improvements since the near bankruptcy of the USCF in 2003, the USCF is actually just recently slowly and painfully attempting to rectify a gross decline in service that used to be provided to paying (and voting) members – adult members. I do not fault Mr. Goichberg for the prior failings of the USCF – he wasn’t an officer or Executive Board member when so many of the really bad decisions were made. Since he has come on board as President things have improved – but not enough. Certainly not enough for the long-suffering members of USCF.
My bet is that Mr. Goichberg has already read the handwriting on the proverbial wall and he’s now being the consummate chess politician that he has always been – and because he’s the President of USCF he gets a free in-print forum to do it. But no matter what spin Mr. Goichberg puts on it, there is only one reason for the increase of adult, i.e., voting membership in the USCF – Susan Polgar and her slate of candidates. People have joined (or rejoined) the USCF with the sole intent of voting in Susan Polgar and her slate of candidates to the USCF Executive Board next month.
Mr. Goichberg, will you embrace the four new Board members – Polgar, Bauer, Truong and Korenman – when they are elected in June?
Joel Benjamin has played in every US Championship since 1981 or so. He will be missed by fans like me.
I guess Onischuk and Hikaru are big favorites.
I would suppose Perelshteyn is a good dark horse.
The event has lost most of its luster and prestige with so many strong players missing.
Strong GMs missing from the event are:
Kamsky, Christiansen, Benjamin, Fishbein, Goldin, de Firmian.
BPF
Where is ben finegold? Where is benjamin? Why are they not playing?
Goddesschess makes a very good point. Like her, I joined the USCF for the sole reason of voting for GM Polgar. I don’t even play chess (though my child does) but now I wonder how many other members joined or re-joined for this reason.
Just Stunning not to see the name Joel Benjamin on this list. His record 23 consecutive appearances may never be broken. It takes a lot of the air out of this tournament.
Wow – I checked the USCF website last evening and did not see this updated information about who is playing. I had been wondering about what women would be playing in the “main” event. Thanks for posting this updated info, Susan. I understand a women’s championship will be held sometime in July, but I have not been able to find any information on it.
Janet Newton
HUH!?!,8!!??!
Nakamura is rated 2755????? What a big leap he took!! I thought he was rated 2663….??!?!
The last poster very likey is confusing Nakamura’s FIDE rating with his USCF rating.
It’s probably the FIDE rating that’s in the 2660s, in fact I checked it not long ago and if memory serves, that’s about where he was (and that rating placed him somewhere around no. 50 on the world top 100).
USCF ratings typically are higher than FIDE ratings, and a mid- to upper-2700s USCF rating is about where Nakamura should be (and apparently, where he is).
Go Ray Robson!!