Breaking News
The ten players seeded by rating for the Frank K. Berry U.S. Chess Championship (Tulsa, May 15-21) were to have replied by March 25th to their invitations. Early on, GM Hikaru Nakamura, GM Joel Benjamin, and Marc Arnold declined.
As of the start date of the Qualifier Open, five other invitees had not yet replied. Since the 25th, the Berry brothers have been calling those invitees. The following additional invitees have now said “no” to participating in May: GM Ildar Ibragimov and GM Larry Christiansen.
At this time, having not been in touch, GM Gata Kamsky and GM Jaan Ehlvest are presumed to have declined. Therefore, this weekend’s Qualifier Open participants GM Julio Beccera, GM Alexander Ivanov, GM Eugene Perelshteyn, GM Sergey Kudrin, and IM Ben Finegold are now seeded by rating into the May 13th-21st tournament.
Source: WIM Dr. Alexey Root for CLO
This is quite shocking because it is an Olympiad year. It means that the US Champion would be automatically seeded on the US national team. Therefore, there should have been more interest to participate and win the championship, not less. For the record, I was kindly extended an invitation to compete for the title in May in Tulsa but I respectfully declined.
Well why is this I sure would like to hear some feedback from these guys who declined. This is very very interesting. I mean for Larry to just straight out decline is very interesting to me because he is typically in this tournament.
Small money and too much politics.
I would decline too if I qualify but I’m kinda short about 1,200 points to make it 🙂
I hope GM Kaidanov wins this year…one of the best chess teachers and GM’s in the U.S.
Will Onischuk play? When people say there is too much politics behind the US Championship, what type of politics do you mean? Just wondering.
A Bunch of big babies. The tournament is not interesting without it’s stars.
Those people I think declined the last year as well, except for 2 or 3 new ones… In any case, it’s going to be an interesting tournament. Anyone knows what is the prize fund?
It isn’t that uncommon in chess for players to decline the chance to play in the national championship. Fischer stopped playing in the US championships because of his stated concern that the tourney was too short and an unlucky loss could put him out of contention. Money and the type (Swiss versus round robin) appear to be the big issues now. But there can be other reasons. Look at the old Soviet championships (before the USSR ceased to exist in 1991) – a lot of super GMs would shy off from playing because it was such a huge tournament and if one was off form, it could be quite embarassing. Winning that tourney was a truly tough test of playing form.
This is serious. I agree with the rest, the question must be asked, why? Things can always be worked out.
Probably money. Perhaps these individual lack the funds for this adventure.