Talk:US Chess Championship

Untitled
We need a lot more info here: context, history, qualifications, etc. Should we also add the host city of the tournament? What about the birth nation of the various champions, since so many were not native-born? This link may have some useful info. Let's make this a respectable article! Jacob1207 21:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

1998

 * TWIC 208
 * TWIC 209
 * TWIC 210 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quale (talk • contribs) 02:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Scoring error?
The article currently says, "An uncorrected scoring error by the director allowed Reshevsky to tie for first with Isaac Kashdan." I'm not sure that's a fair description. A "scoring error" would be writing 1-0 on the wallchart instead of 0-1. What happened was that the arbiter made a bad ruling resulting in Reshevsky winning a game he should have lost on time against Denker. I'd suggest changing this from "uncorrected scoring error" to "erroneous ruling." Eddore (talk) 01:39, 19 September 2009 (UTC)


 * OK. I put that in and the source (now forgotten) probably said "scoring error".  You can change it, and please add a reference if you have one.  Bubba73 (talk), 04:36, 19 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Reshevsky's flag had fallen. The idiot arbiter (actually, "idiot" is too kind a term) grabbed the clock, flipped it around and said to Denker, "You lose!" Various spectators pointed out that he was looking at Reshevsky's fallen flag, not Denker's, because he had flipped the clock around. The arbiter rejoined, "Does Kenesaw Mountain Landis reverse himself?" Krakatoa (talk) 19:44, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I changed the language and added the explanation (citing to two sources). Krakatoa (talk) 20:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC)


 * There's an article by John Donaldson in The Chess Journalist based on an interview with Carl Pilnick (who played in the tournament), but it hasn't been published yet. I'll add a link to it after the issue is out. Eddore (talk) 06:40, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

repeat winners
I think it would be interesting to have a table of repeat winners (won at least twice) and the number of times they won. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 17:42, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

pre-1936 championships
This section needs a lot of work. I'm not crazy about the "by acclamation" and "match champion" distinction. Stanley certainly won it in a match and defended it against Turner five years later. Even Morphy won the first American Chess Congress in a series of short knockout matches. There was no sponsoring body until the tournament began in 1936. At what point does the championship cease to be "by acclamation?"

More problematic is merely listing champions and the years they held the title. Marshall won the title in 1909 but only defended it once in 1923. Compare that to Showalter who played matches against Lipschutz, Judd, Pillsbury, Barry, Hodges, Kemeny, and Marshall, some of them more than once, which is why he is listed for five separate time periods. I think adding the match opponents and scores would be beneficial.

The most serious problem (with the history, not the article) is the Showalter-Lipschutz 1890 match and how Showalter came to be regarded as US champion. I've gone through lots of period newspapers finding missing game scores for many of the matches of this period for my game collections at chessgames.com, and the only two games I have found reported as being from this match is one in Soltis and McCormick and one in British Chess Magazine. I'm not even sure if this match ever took place, or if it began, if it was ever completed. The available timeline is rather tight. I detail what I have found so far in Edward Winter's Chess Note #6696 (http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter80.html#6995._Euwe_v_Fischer_1957_). The question not only speaks to when Showalter can be considered champion, but also affects Judd, because if Judd beat Showalter before Showalter was champion, then Judd cannot be considered a titleholder.

There is a minor definitional problem with Showalter-Hodges 1894. Most modern sources consider this a match and a rematch. The players agreed prior to the start of the 17th game when they were tied at six wins each to play to eleven wins. This change in match conditions required a change in venue and a change in sponsorship as well. I suppose calling it either one match or two is defensible with some explanation.

I will probably try to work some on this section, but I'm not sure if it will be sooner or (much) later.Crawftrhas (talk) 20:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for working on this. I can't be of much help.  Every once in a while the USCF publishes a yearbook, which might help.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 20:45, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * To date I have spent the most time on the championship prior to the USCF establishment of the tournament in 1936. I have been working backwards from Marshall-Edward Lasker 1923 and have just finished the "first" Showalter-Hodges 1894 match, which leaves me the "rematch", Showalter matches against Lipschutz and Judd, and the two Stanley matches.  There are already collections of all the American Chess Congresses over there.  So far I have been able to find reasonably good newspaper coverage.  I do have the back issues of Chess Life, Chess Review, and Chess Life & Review on DVD for the years 1933-1975, so that would be useful going forward from 1936 in coverage of the tournament.Crawftrhas (talk) 22:03, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Right - I didn't think about that. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 22:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I added a sortable table with the various matches from 1890 to 1923 and results. Perhaps the names and year ranges could/should be deleted. I will add sources for the notes in the near future.Crawftrhas (talk) 14:17, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Good, but I don't think it needs to be sortable. Yes, with the table, the other isn't needed - I'll take it out.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 15:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * True, but it seemed easier to this newbie at wiki markup to make the new table sortable than to edit the two existing tables to make them unsortable. Either way, they should probably all have the same general format within the article.Crawftrhas (talk) 18:46, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Isn't Reuben Fine Missing?! According to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuben_Fine "Fine won five medals (four gold) in three chess Olympiads. Fine won the U.S. Open Chess Championship all seven times he entered (1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1939, 1940, 1941); this is a record for that event. He was the author of several chess books that are still popular today, including important books on the endgame, opening, and middlegame." Kingscrusher (talk) 11:18, 29 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The U.S. Open Chess Championship is different from this event. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 15:18, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

location column
If anyone has the information, it would be nice to add a column of the location of each year's event...not just the city, but the club too. Kingturtle = (talk) 20:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

1957 match Reshevsky - Bisguier
I think the line about the 1957 match (Reshevsky beat Bisguier) should be removed. The match isn't mentioned by Andrew Soltis in his book (The United Chess Championship).Cbigorgne (talk) 16:53, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

2016 Championship
I've been bold and spun out the info on the 2016 Championship into a new article at 2016 US Chess Championship as suggested by User:Jopromi. Quale, if you object to this, feel free to change it to a redirect back to here and we'll have a discussion. I feel that the section was WP:RECENTISM and its better off as a separate article.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:11, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that was a constructive action to defuse a dispute. Quale (talk) 05:09, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --Jopromi (talk) 08:08, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Need to substitute Nakamura picture
Someone needs to change the picture of the current champion to Hikaru Nakamura. Krakatoa (talk) 23:18, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Swiss format 1999-present
A section in the article says that the format is the swiss system since 1999 (now it is 2023), but that's not true, For several years already the format is again round robin. Pier4r (talk) 20:51, 20 September 2023 (UTC)


 * This is correct. It is a round robin tournament. 159.39.101.2 (talk) 16:34, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Updated in the article. Natg 19 (talk) 04:37, 17 October 2023 (UTC)