U.S. Chess Championship


The U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational tournament held to determine the United States chess 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 as a large Swiss system tournament. AF4C withdrew its sponsorship in 2007. The 2007 and 2008 events were held in Stillwater, Oklahoma, under the direction of Frank K. Berry. The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis in St. Louis has hosted the annual event since 2009.
The U. S. Chess championship is the oldest national chess tournament.
Hikaru Nakamura 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 proposed he, Jackson Showalter 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.
The following US Champions until 1909 were decided by matches.

Tournament champions since 1936