Octobers in St. Louis are all about championships, even during years when the Cardinals do not make the postseason. As has become an autumnal tradition over the past two decades, the 2024 U.S. Championship and U.S. Women’s Championship begin Friday, October 11, in St. Louis, with GM Fabiano Caruana and IM Carissa Yip each looking to defend their 2023 titles.
Each event will consist of a 12-player, 11-round Round Robin tournament from October 11 through 23, with playoffs (if needed) on Friday, October 24th. Games begin daily at 1:00 p.m., CDT, with rest days after rounds four and eight. The time control for each round will be 40 moves in 90 minutes, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment from move one. The full schedule can be found here.
The total prize fund this year is $250,000, with $55,000 for first in the Open and $35,000 for first in the Women’s tournament. The full distribution of prizes can be found here.
In the Open, all five members of the 2024 FIDE Olympiad team will be competing, with GMs Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So leading the way. The quintet will be joined by veteran and former Olympiad team member GM Sam Shankland as well as a number of young (and even younger) up-and-comers. Shankland, Caruana, and So are the only former champions in the field, with Shankland having won in 2018, So winning in each of 2017, 2020, and 2021, and Caruana in 2016, 2022, and 2023. The remaining Olympiad teammates — GMs Leinier Dominguez, Levon Aronian, and Ray Robson — are each still hunting for their first title.
In order of descending age, the remaining six players are GM Grigoriy Oparin (27), GM Sam Sevian (23), GM Awonder Liang (21), GM Hans Niemann (21), GM Christopher Yoo (17), and GM Abhimanyu Mishra (15). Yoo and Mishra are the 2024 U.S. Junior and 2023 U.S. Junior champions, respectively, and are each appearing in their second U.S. Championship. Oparin is the only player making his championship debut, having switched federations recently from Russia. The full roster can be found here.
Likewise, in the Women’s event, the entire 2024 Olympiad squad will be in attendance as well. Reigning champion IM Carissa Yip is one of the favorites, hot off her individual gold and 2600+ performance rating last month in Budapest. Joining her will be her Olympiad teammates IM Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova (who came within a few moves of catching Yip last year), GM Irina Krush, IM Anna Zatonskih, and IM Alice Lee. Former Olympiad competitors IM Nazi Paikidze, WGM Tatev Abrahamyan, and WGM Jennifer Yu will also reunite with the former teammates in St. Louis this year.
Between Yip (who also won in 2021), Krush (1998, 2007, 2010, 2012 through 2015, 2020), Zatonskih (2006, 2008, 2009, and 2011), IM Nazi Paikidze (2016, 2018), and WGM Jennifer Yu (2019, 2022), a combined 18 championships have been won by the field (with Krush accounting for just shy of half of them!). It's only a matter of time before IM Alice Lee joins this vaunted list, as the 15-year old is coming off her own silver medal performance in Budapest and her first American Cup title earlier this year, but it's hard to say whether this year will be her year.
Of the four players rounding out the field, WGM Thalia Cervantes is the most regular guest, as the 22-year-old will be making her fifth consecutive appearance. FM Megan Lee will be back for her third championship, after missing last year, and WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan will be back after last year’s debut. Finally, 15-year-old FM Rose Atwell is the only newcomer to the national stage. Atwell finished only a half-point behind Lee in this year’s Girls’ Junior Championship, and looks to make a mark in her first U.S. Women’s Championship. The full roster can be found here.
Coverage will begin daily at 1:20 p.m. CDT, with commentary from GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Christian Chirila, and WGM Katerina Nemcova. The broadcast can be followed live on Saint Louis Chess Club’s YouTube and Twitch channels.
Chess Life Online will be providing daily recaps of each round’s action, featuring annotations from IM Robert Shlyakhtenko, FM Davis Zong, WGM Katerina Nemcova, and FM Zoey Tang.
Categories
Archives
- November 2024 (4)
- October 2024 (35)
- September 2024 (23)
- August 2024 (27)
- July 2024 (44)
- June 2024 (27)
- May 2024 (32)
- April 2024 (51)
- March 2024 (34)
- February 2024 (25)
- January 2024 (26)
- December 2023 (29)
- November 2023 (26)
- October 2023 (37)
- September 2023 (27)
- August 2023 (37)
- July 2023 (47)
- June 2023 (33)
- May 2023 (37)
- April 2023 (45)
- March 2023 (37)
- February 2023 (28)
- January 2023 (31)
- December 2022 (23)
- November 2022 (32)
- October 2022 (31)
- September 2022 (19)
- August 2022 (39)
- July 2022 (32)
- June 2022 (35)
- May 2022 (21)
- April 2022 (31)
- March 2022 (33)
- February 2022 (21)
- January 2022 (27)
- December 2021 (36)
- November 2021 (34)
- October 2021 (25)
- September 2021 (25)
- August 2021 (41)
- July 2021 (36)
- June 2021 (29)
- May 2021 (29)
- April 2021 (31)
- March 2021 (33)
- February 2021 (28)
- January 2021 (29)
- December 2020 (38)
- November 2020 (40)
- October 2020 (41)
- September 2020 (35)
- August 2020 (38)
- July 2020 (36)
- June 2020 (46)
- May 2020 (42)
- April 2020 (37)
- March 2020 (60)
- February 2020 (38)
- January 2020 (45)
- December 2019 (35)
- November 2019 (35)
- October 2019 (42)
- September 2019 (45)
- August 2019 (56)
- July 2019 (44)
- June 2019 (35)
- May 2019 (40)
- April 2019 (48)
- March 2019 (61)
- February 2019 (39)
- January 2019 (30)
- December 2018 (29)
- November 2018 (51)
- October 2018 (45)
- September 2018 (29)
- August 2018 (49)
- July 2018 (35)
- June 2018 (31)
- May 2018 (39)
- April 2018 (31)
- March 2018 (26)
- February 2018 (33)
- January 2018 (30)
- December 2017 (26)
- November 2017 (24)
- October 2017 (30)
- September 2017 (30)
- August 2017 (31)
- July 2017 (28)
- June 2017 (32)
- May 2017 (26)
- April 2017 (37)
- March 2017 (28)
- February 2017 (30)
- January 2017 (27)
- December 2016 (29)
- November 2016 (24)
- October 2016 (32)
- September 2016 (31)
- August 2016 (27)
- July 2016 (24)
- June 2016 (26)
- May 2016 (19)
- April 2016 (30)
- March 2016 (36)
- February 2016 (28)
- January 2016 (32)
- December 2015 (26)
- November 2015 (23)
- October 2015 (16)
- September 2015 (28)
- August 2015 (28)
- July 2015 (6)
- June 2015 (1)
- May 2015 (2)
- April 2015 (1)
- February 2015 (3)
- January 2015 (1)
- December 2014 (1)
- July 2010 (1)
- October 1991 (1)
- August 1989 (1)
- January 1988 (1)
- December 1983 (1)