U.S. Championship Update
By Tom Braunlich   
May 6, 2008
The fields are set for the Frank Berry U.S. Championship and Women's Champs, which kick off next week and run from May 13-21. Both events will take place at the Raddison Hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the rounds will be at 2:30 Central/3:30 EST. You can watch them live on Monroi.com. Check out the full schedule here. The latest news on the rosters is that GM Dmitry Gurevich replaces GM Jaan Ehlvest, who had to drop out for personal reasons. Review the final fields below. Now that the fields are set, it is a good time to enter your fantasy chess team (Read complete rules and prizes here), or alter your team if you already added a team a few days ago, which included Ehlvest.

 

Name

Rtg

Qualified by:

1

GM Alexander SHABALOV

2697

Current Champion

2

GM Alexander ONISCHUK

2728

Rating

3

GM Gregory KAIDANOV

2697

Rating

4

GM Varuzhan Akobian

2666

Rating

5

GM Yury Shulman

2664

Rating

6

GM Julio Becerra

2637

Rating

7

GM Boris GULKO

2623

U.S. Open Champion

8

GM Alexander Ivanov

2622

Rating

9

GM Eugene Perelshteyn

2615

Rating

10

GM Sergey Kudrin

2610

Rating

11

IM Benjamin Finegold

2609

Rating

12

GM Dmitry Gurevich

2594

Rating

13

GM Alex YERMOLINSKY

2587

Qualifier

14

GM John FEDOROWICZ

2531

Qualifier

15

GM Jesse KRAAI

2569

Qualifier

16

IM Dean IPPOLITO

2499

Qualifier

17

IM David PRUESS

2497

Qualifier

18

FM Daniel LUDWIG

2429

Qualifier

19

NM Sam SHANKLAND

2296

Qualifier

20

IM Josh FRIEDEL

2511

Wild Card

21

FM Michael LANGER

2322

Wild Card

22

Sergey GALANT

2176

Wild Card

23

IM Larry Kaufman
2383
Senior Open Champion 

24

 IM David Vigorito
2439

WCL Tnmt of Champions winner 

 


Confirmed Roster - 2008 FKB U.S. Women's Championship

Defending champion Irina Krush heads the women's group, which will be a 10-player round robin.


 

Name

Rtg

Qualified by:

1

IM  Irina KRUSH

2515

Current Champion

2

IM  Anna ZATONSKIH

2490

Rating

3

WGM Katerine ROHONYAN

2318

Rating

4


WIM Batchimeg TUVSHINTUGS

2289

Rating

5

WFM Tatev ABRAHAMYAN
2280

Rating

6

WIM Tsagaan BATTSETSEG 2251

Rating

7

WFM Iryna ZENYUK
2205


Qualifier
8

WIM Esther Epstein

  2194

Rating

9

WFM Chouchanik AIRAPETIAN

2143

Wild Card

10

Courtney JAMISON

2064

Wild Card


 
 New Prize Added —

A sponsored special prize perk has been added to the championship. In addition to the announced prizes, the champion will receive a spot on the Caribbean Gambit Chess Cruise valued at over $5,000 cash plus expenses.
See their website:
http://www.cruisingthroughlife.com/chess2008/index.html


Championship Details

The U.S. Championships both take place May 13-21 in Tulsa. For more details, see the website: http://monroi.com/the-2008-fkb-us-chess-championship-home.html

You can watch the games live online at www.monroi.com

Spectators are welcome and there will be live commentary on site using the MonRoi system.