The U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational tournament held to determine the United States

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

champion. Begun as a challenge match in 1845, the U.S. Championship has been decided by tournament play for most of its long history. Since 1936, it has been held under the auspices of the U.S. Chess Federation. Until 1999, the event consisted of a round-robin tournament of varying size. From 1999 to 2006, the Championship was sponsored and organized by the Seattle Chess Foundation (later renamed America's Foundation for Chess F4C as a large Swiss system tournament. AF4C withdrew its sponsorship in 2007. The 2007 and 2008 events were held (again under the Swiss system) in

Stillwater, Oklahoma Stillwater ( iow, Ñápinⁿje, ''meaning: "Water quiet"'') is a city in, and the county seat of, Payne County, Oklahoma, United States. It is located in north-central Oklahoma at the intersection of U.S. Route 177 and State Highway 51. As of t ...

, under the direction of

Frank K. Berry Frank Kimball Berry (June 15, 1945 – June 6, 2016) was an American chess administrator with the rank of International Arbiter and Organizer. He was also a magician, historian, and banker from Stillwater, Oklahoma. He was best known for spons ...

. The

Saint Louis Chess Club The Saint Louis Chess Club (previously named the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis) is a chess venue located in the Central West End in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Opened on July 17, 2008, it contained a tournament hall and ...

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

has hosted the annual event since 2009. As of the 2022 US Chess Championship, twelve players are invited to the event; the reigning champion, the US Open Champion, the US Junior Champion, the US Senior Open Champion, a certain number of players with the highest Invitational Rating, and wildcards chosen by the organizer. The U.S. Chess championship is the oldest national chess tournament.

Fabiano Caruana Fabiano Luigi Caruana (born July 30, 1992) is an American chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, Caruana became a grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months, and 20 days—the youngest grandmaster in the history of both Italy and the United Sta ...

is the current champion.

Champions by acclamation 1845–1891

Match champions 1891–1935

George Henry Mackenzie died in April 1891 and, later that year,

Max Judd Max Judd (born Maximilian Judkiewicz; 27 December 1851 – 7 May 1906) was an American chess player. Born in Tenczynek, southern Poland (then Galicia, Austro–Hungary), he emigrated to America in 1862. He was an American cloak manufacturer. H ...

proposed he,

Jackson Showalter Jackson Whipps Showalter (February 5, 1859 in Minerva, Kentucky – February 5, 1935 in Lexington, Kentucky) was a five-time U.S. Chess Champion: 1890, 1892, 1892–1894, 1895–96 and 1906–1909. Chess career U.S. Championship matches Showalt ...

and S. Lipschütz contest a triangular match for the championship. Lipschütz withdrew so Judd and Showalter played a match which the latter won. A claim by Walter Penn Shipley that S. Lipschütz became US Champion as a result of being the top-scoring American at the Sixth American Chess Congress, New York 1889, is refuted in a biography of Lipschütz.Davies, pp. 196–99 The following US Champions until 1909 were decided by matches. :

Tournament champions since 1936

Wins per player

Notes

References

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External links

Official US Chess Championship SiteSt. Louis Chess Club, St. Louis, Missouri
{{Authority control Chess national championships

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...