@ Peter
I know, requesting something again, but updates about the Chinese Championship would be cool. Wang Hao just lost against Li Shilong, somehow this event is bad luck for him (remember last year...).
Do you happen to know why Yu Yangyi is not present?

Is there even one American player in the U.S championship??? Half of them are Russians. If i would just look at the names i would think its an international B-class tournament in Russia. xD

Go Kamsky, beat your ex- Sowjet fellow Shulman...

@KingTal

Shulman is not from Russia. Neither are Onischuk, Stripunsky, Shabalov, Krush, Ehlvest, Khachiyan, Altounian or Akobian.

So what exactly are you talking about?

Even Kamsky who comes from Russia is not Russian.

That woman has a thick accent

This made me laugh: "Besides the $35,000 first place, Kamsky also got an automatic spot on the 2010 Olympiad Team."

According to http://saintlouischessclub.org/content/tiebreaks-and-playoff-procedures (section 4a), I believe Shulman must have started with 60 minutes (though I wasn't watching live) and not 39:55 (maybe that was his bid?).

Yes, Shulman started with 60 minutes (I was watching live). Also, Kamsky didn't get 35,000$ - this would have been the prize for clear first place (without tiebreaks) vs. 20,000$ for clear second. Instead it was 30,000$ for Kamsky vs. 25,000$ for Shulman - in other words, the Armaggedon game was worth "only 5,000$".

KingTal, America is the land of immigrants. I don't see anything unusual here.

Peter:

"play with Black and draw odds for the title with 25 minutes, versus 39:55 minutes for Shulman."

This is incorrect. Kamsky won the right to chose, with a bid of 25 against Shulman's 39:55, but the game would always be white and 60 minutes against black and winning bid (25). So it was, 60' versus 25'.

Thomas: "The Armaggedon game was worth “only $5,000”. Yes, plus the title and an automatic spot on the 2010 Olympiad Team. I'm sure the $5,000 is the least of Shulam's concern......

@ King Tal; Agree.

By the way, Dainalov said in a recent commentary that Chiparinov is more creative than Kasparov Carslen, etc and I would not replace him with all those together.

I unterstood that democracy is good but the democracy of democraty is not good.

Kamsky, Ehlvest, Onischuk, Shulman, Akobian, Gulko are not Russians, but they all emigrated from the former USSR. And Nakamura was born in Japan.
Where is the insult when KingTal notices this simple fact ?

KingTal asked whether there is "even one American player" in the event - I don't know what the rules are, but presume that most if not all participants are American citizens.
Nakamura has a Japanese father and an American mother and moved to the US when he was two years old. The tournament also had Hess (German ancestry?), Christiansen (Danish great-grandparents?), Finegold, Benjamin, Kraai ("strange name"), .... .

They are ciizens , but half of them were not even born there , it's highly likely they went there (or were lured there ) for the money obviously .

The photos are by Betsy Dynako, not Dynakov, although I suppose the latter makes her sound more like a "Russian" chess type.

To answer eric, I think the insult/offense could be taken from the ignorantly phrased question "Is there even one American player . . . ???" The fact is that everybody playing in the tournament is a U.S. citizen or they wouldn't be permitted to play in the U.S. championship. The implication of the question is that first-generation immigrants to the U.S. are not really "Americans." They may have been born and learned chess somewhere else, but they live here and they play, study and teach chess here, all of which benefits chess in America, so yes, I consider them American players.

I do agree that it says something about the American chess environment that we haven't nurtured many of the contenders for our own national championship in this country (although Nakamura for one did learn chess in the US), but hopefully that is changing thanks in part to new Americans like Kaidanov, Gurevich, Shulman dedicating much of their efforts to teaching chess here, to other Americans.

"Where is the insult when KingTal notices this simple fact ?"

1.) Where did anyone said KingTal insulted anyone?

2.) No, he did not state the facts. Half of the participants are not Russians. Belorussians are not Russians, Ukraines are not Russians. Latvians, Armenians, Estonians, etc. are not Russians. There are very few Russians. Even Kamsky is not Russian!!!

Place of birth by itself is completely irrelevant: Actually I was born in the USA - from German parents (my father had a temporary job there) who took me to Germany at the tender age of 10 days ... . Of course I am not famous enough to have a Wikipedia entry :) and many people won't even know. Later, when I was 31 years old I moved to the Netherlands, lived here for more than 10 years by now and could probably apply for Dutch citizenship. I play for a Dutch club, and if only I was 500-600 points higher rated I could play the Dutch championship and maybe play on the Dutch team (not sure if citizenship is/was required for players like Nikolic, Sokolov, Tiviakov or Giri).

The issue is that names like Shabalov, Nakamura and indeed Obama sound unfamiliar and "un-American" - in Obama's case, his Kenyan ancestry was held against him in contexts more important or relevant than a chess forum. While Nakamura has a Japanese name and looks Japanese, his character seems as stereotype American as can be - he may consider this a compliment, for others it's a matter of taste.

Yes, the US top chess scene has a relatively large proportion of first-generation immigrants. They are second to Israel, Germany may actually be third - the German top 10 includes Naiditsch, Fridman, Khenkin, Kritz, Graf (formerly Nenashev) and Jussupow. But if immigrants fulfill two criteria: 1) permanently living in the country, 2) speaking the language place of birth and ancestry become rather irrelevant IMO.

We are all humans. National borders are artificial created by force and power.... Think about it. Congratulations for Kamsky!

There is a point. I look at the ELO list and emigrate to, say, Nigeria. With my 2234 ELO I would probably be their best player and become Nigerian champion, Whats the big deal? Being 'native' counts for something.

the only thing that counts is money

24 participants.
14 were born in the former Soviet Union.
9 were born in the US.
1 was born in Japan.

Gata Kamsky was born in Novokuznetsk, Russia. (former Soviet Union)
Yury Shulman was born in Minsk, Belarus. (former Soviet Union)
Hikaru Nakamura was born in Hirakata, Japan.
Alexander Onischuk was born in Sevastopol, Ukraine. (former Soviet Union)
Alexander Shabalov was born in Riga, Latvia. (former Soviet Union)
Alexander Stripunsky was born in Ukraine. (former Soviet Union)
Varuzhan Akobian was born in Yerevan, Armenia. (former Soviet Union)
Robert Hess was born in the United States.
Larry Christiansen was born Riverside, California, United States
Benjamin Finegold was born in the United States.
Alex Yermolinsky was born in Saint Petersburg (Leningrad), Russia. (former Soviet Union)
Gregory Kaidanov was born in Berdychiv, Ukraine (former Soviet Union)
Joel Benjamin was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States.
Jesse Kraai was born in the United States.
Irina Krush was born in Odessa, Ukraine (former Soviet Union)
Jaan Ehlvest was born in Tallinn, Estonia (former Soviet Union)
Ray Robson was born in the United States island territory of Guam
Alex Lenderman is a Russian-American chess player
Vinay Bhat is an American chess Grandmaster
Melikset Khachiyan was born in Baku, Armenia. (former Soviet Union)
Levon Altounian was born in Yerevan, Armenia. (former Soviet Union)
Sergey Kudrin was born in the USSR. (former Soviet Union)
Sam Shankland was born Berkeley, California
Dmitry Gurevich was born in Moscow, Russia. (former Soviet Union)

@ test and everyone else

Well...Nakamura moved to the US when he was 2, Krush when she was 6, I somehow suspect they didn't do it for money reasons or rating unless they were rather unusual kids.
IF you insist on making a list you should include at what age they came to the US, not only where they were born.

And the U.S. is a melting pot of cultures and nationalities, each displaying their various skills, interests and aptitudes in various activities.

It just so happens that chess caught on solidly in the former USSR, and that this tradition is being maintained there. We should be so lucky as to have a similar support for the game in other nations.

Imagine that you, yourself, born in your country, for whatever reasons decided to live in another country. Better, imagine your parents took you to live there.
Imagine you feel at home and want to become citizen of that country.
Imagine that your host country concedes you citizenship.
Imagine you play chess like the best, in this new country of yours.
Now, tell me a good reason to exclude you from taking part of the chess competitions in that country!
Of course many things could be said about USA and emigration, through time (one way and another!)... But even anglo-saxons are somewhat aliens there :-) (Not to mention names like Christiansen or Hess, like Thomas said)
Of course before the cold war former USSR were far stronger then today, and USA far weaker, in chess. Morphy-Paulsen-Pillsbury-Marshall-Kashdan-Reshevsky-Fine-Fischer, were world-class, but exceptions. And some (all?) had roots on other places...

Well, truth is many even said that their president is not a "full american", and maybe many still think he is Saddam-related (because of the Houssein) :-)

Castro Obama was born in the USA. Don't believe stupid forged documents.

@Dixon slight correction, you do not need to be a US citizen to play the US championships but have USA Federation with FIDE and USCF. But in this case I think all of them did in fact have US citizenship (though this wasn't the case with the US Womens off the top of my head Yun Fan and Tatev).

To test:

Khachiyan is of course Armenian, but Baku is not in Armenia for heaven's sake...

@CAL|Daniel

Of course I was joking, on the Obama issue.
My point (and others) is precisely that "born" isn't everything. Sometimes it realy means... nothing! Having the country's citizenship seems to be THE thing that makes sense. Nothing else. It should be necessary and suficient (Or else, what would having the citizenship mean??)

From the Wikipedia, something for a smile:

"In 1845 Frenchman Eugène Rousseau played a match against the Englishman Charles Stanley for the title of chess champion of the US, the first contest ever for that title. The match was played for a stake of $1000. Rousseau lost the match (+8=8-15) and Stanley became the first US Champion."

So we see, even in the origin! It was even "worse" than today!
If it were held in the 1500's, maybe it would be disputed by a Spanish and a Portuguese. And in the 1000's, by a Viking and a Chinese? :-)

By the way, the article inform us that

"Rousseau's second in the match was Ernest Morphy, who took his eight-year-old nephew Paul Morphy along and allowed him to be present for the contests. Later, Paul was allowed to play Rousseau, and it became clear that Paul was a better player, despite his young age."

So, not even extremely good chess was required to contest the US title, those days. Something is clearly better now. :-)

Another funny Chess/USA/Emigration fact:

Boris Gulko is the only person to have held both the US and Soviet championships.
THAT is something that no one (not even Kamsky) can no long achieve ;-)
If Fischer had defected to the USSR, then yes, we would have seen many more championship titles from an emigree, but the other way arround!

All this fuss about citizenship...what about the tournament?

I watched it all on ICC and it was fantastic. Thank you first of all to Mr. Rex Sinquefield for his investment in chess. The Chess Club and Schoolastic center in St. Louis is now the epicenter of US chess. It is up to all chess players to share the game with others and keep growing.

Thanks to all of the sponsors of the US Chess Championship. Your investment will continue to reap dividends well beyond monetary gain.

Is chess art? Well, Tal said it was. Is chess a science? According to Botvinnik it is. Is chess a sport? I do not know ...but what I am sure of is that chess is a game which brings joy and happiness, and it is unlike anything else on the planet. No matter where I travel on earth I can communicate to other human beings even if I do not speak their language if we both share a game of chess.

The format used in the tournament was great. The "time bid" used by Kamsky and Shulman produced an interesting and exciting game. I hope this format will be used in the future for tie breaks.

Remember: Gens Una Sumus - We are ALL one Family.

Let me throw some names out there: Bob Hope, Pamela Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Isaac Asimov, Patrick Ewing, Alexander Graham Bell, Cary Grant, Peter Jennings, Henry Kissinger, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Albert Einstein, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Lennon, and of course William Steinitz. What do they all have in common? They were all naturalized U.S. citizens!, and they all came here for a better life as did the ancestors of 99.99% of all Americans.

This notion that people who were not born in the U.S. are not real Americans is outrageous, insulting, and VERY UN-AMERICAN!

@vooruitgang

Well said. And I will be going to St. Louis on my next trip to the U.S. only because of Sinquefeld's efforts with this club, a wonderful initiative.

Let me throw some names out there: Bob Hope, Pamela Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Isaac Asimov, Patrick Ewing, Alexander Graham Bell, Peter Jennings, Henry Kissinger, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Albert Einstein, Sergei Rachmaninoff, John Lennon, and of course William Steinitz. What do they all have in common? They were all naturalized U.S. citizens!! and they all came to the U.S. for a better life, as did the ancestors of 99.99% of all Americans.

This notion that people who were not born in the U.S. are not real Americans is outrageous, insulting and VERY UN-AMERICAN!

"Gens Una Sumus – We are ALL one Family" . . . oh really? Are we North Korean? Or Libyan? Or Cuban? Or any other totalitarian, collectivist regime that brutalizes its people in the name of 'equality'? We are all individuals – have you noticed that chess is a one-person pastime? – and all chess players strive and work and battle over the board to achieve their own excellence (or, in my case, lack of it!). John Galt (while he wasn't designing motors) would have been a great chess player.

Yes, and Reshevsky was from Poland, Koltanowsky from Belgium, Edward Lasker from Germany. Larry Christiansen has danish ancestors and Nick de Firmian is living in Copenhagen and I have three cousins in California.
This aspect of american culture is one of the very few positive ones and - after all - provide us with some hope for the future.
"We are all being creolized", Ulf Hannertz, who is from Sweden.

Damn you, Sligunner.

Yes, Sligunner, we are indeed one family. And we even count the Americans in, even though they are behaving quite weird, Now you can even win their championship by achieving a draw!?

>> Khachiyan is of course Armenian, but Baku is not in Armenia for heaven’s sake…

Sorry about that, it was based on this sentence from the Melikset Khachiyan page on Wikipedia: "Melikset Khachiyan (born 1970 in Baku) is an Armenian-American Grandmaster of chess, originally from Armenia, who now resides in Los Angeles."

Baku is the financial and cultural capital of the Azerbaijan. (former Soviet Union)

I know that where somebody was born is not at all the whole story, especially for the US, but I figured it could not hurt to start with the facts. ;) (I could have said this from the start, but then we would have missed out on a lot of good responses. ;))

Citizenship might sometimes be a good indicator but does not always tell the whole story either imo. For example Shirov has Spanish citizenship, but do we credit Spain for Shirov becoming a top chess player? Karjakin has taken Russian citizenship, but was already a top player when he did so.

Btw: the live video coverage was the best I have ever seen. Major congratulations to Macauley Peterson who was the producer.
Maybe this is the sort of show to try to get chess on TV? (I would watch it, then again I know how to play chess. But I still don't understand how they can get hours and hours of golf or cricket or some other boring sport on TV but not something like this.)

This whole citizenship talk started only because KingTal is not educated enough to know that Russia and Soviet Union are two different things. And also that being born in some country isn't equal to your nationality. Kamsky is not Russian, he is Tatar!

Russia is home to the majority of ethnic Tatars.
Kamsky was born in Novokuznetsk: a city and the administrative center of Novokuznetsky District of Kemerovo Oblast, Russia.

From: Gata Kamsky International Chess & Sports Foundation:
Born in 1974, in Siberia Russia. Most of his childhood Gata resided in St. Peterburg, (former Leningrad) where GM Kamsky began laying chess when he was just 7 years old.

I think it would be more accurate to say that Kamsky's ethnicity is Tatar, his nationality is Russian.

@ebutaljib:
Of course i know that Russia is not Soviet Union...lol. And Kamsky has a Russian father...his mother is Tatarian.

Of course not everyone of them is Russian but the most of them have Russian as their native language and came from the former Soviet Union. I´m from Kazakhstan but my father is German and my mother Russian...and im of course not Kazakh. But now i live in Germany and it is common here that everyone who speaks Russian and came from the Soviet Union is just called Russian even by Russians so you shouldn´t interpret this too much or see it as fact. You also must have in mind that if they were born in Ukraine for example this still doesn´t mean they are Ukrainians...as you yourself mentioned it, he also can be Russian.

What i wanted to say is that the most good players are just immigrants, especially from Soviet Union and that is really sad, because it shows that America can´t produce top chess players on its own and this is kinda embarrasing for such a big country...and don´t come with your America is a country of immigrants and melting pot stuff. Where are the top American players born in the USA and taught by American chess school?!?!? i don´t see them

The problem, i guess, is that it doesn't 'sound' enough american. Would Larry Christiansen sound better ? Maybe only wasps with 'correct' names should compet...

It is not as if there were just playing for money and returning abroad: they all live and spend their lifes in the US; they have chosen this country and they dedicate to it.

One last point: i don't remember somebody complaining that much when these players gained a medal for the US in the last olympiads.

@Sligunner

Gens Una Sumus. Yes really.

All human beings are connected by common human traits. Just because North Koreans, Libyans and Cubans live under brutalizing political regimes does not exclude them from our human family. When others suffer so do we all.

My experiences in chess would not be classified as "one person" experiences. Because of my involvement with chess I have been exposed to many cultures and have made many friends from all over the world. I have learned that where I live is not the center of the universe. And I have also learned that other points of view are valid points.

While it is true to say that I try to achieve excellence, it is equally true that I am afforded many chances to laugh at my own stupidity.

The fact that you know what I'm talking about proves we are related.

All we need is love.

Interesting tidbit from the post game interview:
Jennifer Shahade: The candidates matches, we've heard that you're likely to play against Topalov. How do you feel about that match-up?
Gata Kamsky: Well, right after Topalov lost the match against Vishy, I found it really curious that he said something like "I'm supposed to play Gata but now we're not sure. So, now I'm thinking what the hell that means yeah. So I guess we'll see you know.
Jennifer Shahade: Are you happy with that pairing?
Gata Kamsky: [pauze] Yeah. I'm looking forward to it.
Maurice Ashley: I litte revenge on the mind I'm sure.
Gata Kamsky: Absolutely.

pause not pauze.

@KingTal

American Players that learned Chess in America....
Oh I dunno Hikaru Nakamura? Larry Christiansen? Joel Benjamin? Robert Hess? Ben Finegold? Irina Krush? Ray Robson? Alex Lenderman? Jesse Kraai? Josh Friedel? Bobby Fischer? Samuel Reshevsky? Paul Morphy? Yasser Seirawan? Patrick Wolff? I mean your argument is so bleeding absurd.

John Federowicz? Nick De Firmian? Josh Waitzkin? Lombardy? Robert Byrne? Arthur Bisguier? Walter Browne? Fabiano Caruana? Tal Shaked?

@King Tal: "America can´t produce top chess players on its own and this is kinda embarrassing for such a big country"

Let's see...the world's best player in the 19th century: Paul Morphy. The world'd best player in the 20th century: Bobby Fischer. The 21st century is still young...

What's is really amazing is that a country were chess is not very popular was able to produce arguably the game's two greatest players. I'll take either of those two players against anyone else in the world any day!

But "home grown" is not the only type of American. The U.S. is unique in that a naturalized citizen is just as much an American as a 15th generation Frenchman is French. The U.S. is not a homogeneous country like France or Japan etc..Being an American is not defined by one's ancestry or place of origin.

@ CAL/Daniel: Well, a part of the top players you list are PAST, look at the PRESENT, semifinal US championship 2010, not any America born player there and 3 of 4 are from Soviet Union...also other ones like Jesse Kraai, Ben Finegold?!?! etc. that aren´t top players, you didn´t get anything i was arguing about.

You can also look who won the US championship in the last years. The last real American one was Larry Christiansen in 2002, 8 years ago...

@Ishmael: Its very arguable who is or was the best player. There are a lot of people who see Kasparov as the best. But course lets see and hope another top real American player will appear soon...i would like to see that!!

11 of the 24 participants are American player pure bred. Okay 13 are immigrant American players so what?

My only conclusion is you are officially insane. This does not surprise me.

How about allowing participacion only to the so-called "native americans"?
That could solve some problems! :-)
Or would someone complain they also had roots in Asia? Or Africa?

yea those damn Cherokee Indians have produced a chess player well ever.... geez they suck at this game! And for such a mighty nation to have no natural born chess player!

It might come as a shock to "some people" here, but the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. I'm sure that the players originally from Ukraine or Belorussia will be happy to hear that they are Soviets (just like Nakamura will be happy to hear that living the first 2 years of his life in Japan vs the 20 other in the US makes him "not american").

Come on CALDaniel, you should have told KingTal that, you have to understand he was too busy the last 20 years to notice, he can't know everything. You are really unpolite!

@KingTal: It's rather ridiculous, and might be racist to omit Nakamura (US Champion 2005 and 2009) from the list of "real Americans". Do you mean to imply that the well-known chess country Japan significantly influenced his chess career in the first two years of his life? Would it make a difference if
- his Japanese father and American mother had moved to the US two years earlier, and he was born in the USA?
- he had an American father and Japanese mother, hence an American last name but still Asian looks? This is actually the case for Ray Robson, "semi-Asian looks" and a mother named Yee-chen.

Concerning the first-generation immigrants from the former Soviet Union, whatever their reasons were to move to the US - might be political reasons or attending university: Should they refrain from playing chess? Should they be banned from the US Championship and (some of them) the American national team for the rest of their lifes?
Your posts are particularly odd since you are a "former semi-Soviet" yourself ... .

Michel83

My goal in life is not to hold everyone's hands. Certain people manners are just wasted on. I try to be polite with those who would even understand such niceties.

@ CAL

I hope it was obvious I was purely sarcastic, obviously I wasn't really saying you were unpolite or that he didn't know Sowjet Union doesn't exist anymore. ;)
With guys like him I mostly go into Eulenspiegel-mode, everything else is, as you say, wasted. When nothing helps I mostly only commentlessly post a link the Monty Python's Fish Slapping Dance...
Have a good night!

Correction:
post a link to Monty Python's*

@Peter

The rules for the play-off you wrote remain incorrect.

gotta love Monty Python

vooruitgang:

I agree (in part). Certainly, at tournaments in Ireland I've found that chess players love nothing better than to sit in a bar until 3am drinking Guinness and playing blitz! There's a tournament at Kilkenny where, I reckon, half the players on Sunday morning are nursing huge hangovers (strangely enough, I played one of my better games – black side of a Seville Gruenfeld – in such a condition!).

@ Sligunner

"SLAINTE"