It has been an exciting US Championship. Shabalov once again proved that he is a clutch performer by winning his 4th US Championship. What are the 3 biggest stories of the 2007 Frank K. Berry US Championship? What are some of the highlights? Were there any low moments? What do you think?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
High Points:
Good matches
Good spirits
Berry saves the day
Aigner’s blog
Low Points:
AF4C loss
Lack of prestige
No Joel Benjamin
No Ben Finegold
I’m not sure if Naka’s play is a high point or a low point. His gambit openings, wild tactics and refusal to draw make for exciting chess. But there is a feeling of a waste of talent… Is it maturity, lack of interest, unwillingness to train and play solid openings or…??
The two IM norms were nice to see as well.
Highpoints:
Exciting chess
(especially Nakamura)
Monroi access
Aigner’s blog
IM norms
The fact that the Berry brothers stepped up and made it happen.
Lowpoints:
Depressing to see the picture on uschess of Preuss in the laundrymat! I would hope that our champions are a bit more taken care of – at least during the championship. That goes to the larger issue of limited financial support
– Monroi being down. Happy that it is a free service, happy that so many people have interest, lets hope that next year they get more bandwidth or whatever they need.
nothing wrong with Naka’s play if his main goals in life lie outside of chess…
High points:
-No rapid tie break games to decide US Champion
-IM norms by two well deserving players from Texas (Bradford and Langer)
Low points: No Joel Benjamin (messing up his record of playing the most consecutive US Championships) and Gata Kamsky at the US Championship
The failure of the Monroi website when the games are live. I am very disappointed in Monroi’s lack of professionalism.
I am not interested in finger pointing or excuses. It is Monroi’s responsibility to get their system up and working flawlessly. Every aspect of their transmission is their responsibility.
Their inability to transmit the moves ruined watching the games live.
I agree with anonymous 110%. I suppose monroi is sponsoring this tournament to entice us to buy its products, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But how am I supposed to buy a personal chess organizer for $200 and change when the manufacturer can’t conquer the concept of a website that can handle the traffic it has to anticipate will be generated by the US Chess Championship? I guess I need to re-install blitzin on my office machine.
Even though he “only” scored a
3.5/9, he is only 12 years old.
What does everyone think of Ray
Robson’s chances to someday be a
U.S. champion and maybe contend
on a world stage?