16-year Hikaru is US Champion

by ChessBase
12/6/2004 – Hikaru Nakamura, a teenage ace from White Plains, NY, beat Alex Stripunsky for the US championship title and $25,000 in prize money. With that Hikaru became the youngest winner of the 159-year-old title since Bobby Fischer.The women's section was won by Rusudan Goletiani. Here are the results, games and lots of pictures in our final report.

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2005 US Chess Championship

November 23 – December 5, 2004
San Diego, California

16 Year-Old Nakamura Wins in San Diego

Youngest U. S. Champion since Bobby Fischer

San Diego, December 5, 2004 – The final day of this year’s “Super Bowl of Chess” turned out to be a nail biter. Both the overall champion and women’s champion were decided in playoff games on the last day of competition. The final day of competition was a fight to the finish for the share of the $253,000 prize money and the prestigious title of best player in the U.S.

Hot-shot favorite Hikaru Nakamura, the teenage ace from White Plains, NY, beat Alexander Stripunsky for the championship title and the $25,000 prize. He is now the youngest winner of the 159-year-old title since Bobby Fischer. Although he had broken every Fischer age record in the U.S., he failed in one. Fischer won the US title at the age of 14 in 1957.

Nakamura holds the record for being the youngest American Grandmaster ever. He earned his title in February 2003 at the age of 15 years 2 months, eclipsing the record set in 1958 by Bobby Fischer, who went on to become World Champion.

On the women’s side, Rusudan “Rusa” Goletiani, 24, from Hartsdale, NY, beat Tatev Abrahamyan, 16, from Glendale, CA to claim the $12,500 women’s prize.


Eric Anderson gives the prize checks to the winners

If chess is the “game of kings,” these winning players are the new royalty. The newest U.S King and Queen of chess were crowned and awarded their prize money in a special ceremony. Erik Anderson, Founder of the America’s Foundation for Chess will present the championship trophies, a Swarovski Crystal Chess set, to the Overall Champion and the Women’s Champion.


Spectators during the tie-break games

The Championship was visited by over 63,000 people who viewed over 2.2 millions pages over the internet at www.uschesschampionship.com The U.S. Chess Championship was presented in San Diego for the first time by America’s Foundation for Chess and NTC Foundation. The new home for the championship will be at NTC Promenade, beginning in February 2006.

Paul's Pictures

Photographic impressions supplied by Paul Truong


Greetings from the Terminator, who is the present Governor of California


The greetings from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver


Round nine game between Alex Goldin and Alex Stripunsky


Hikaru Nakamura vs Igor Ibragimov


Yuri Shulman vs Gata Kamsky


Finalists Alexander Stripunsky and Hikaru Nakamura before the playoff games


The playoff begins: Stripunsky wears the shades only to cover an eye injury


Goletiani and Abrahamyan, who tied for first with 4.5


The women's playoff between Tatev Abrahamyan and Rusa Goletiani


Watching the games in the VIP room


Hikaru's mom convincing him that he has actually won the title


The trophies for the champions


Rusa Goletiani receives her trophy from AFC's Eric Anderson


Hikaru Nakamura collects his


US women's team champion Susan Polgar signs autographs


Members of the US silver medal Olympiad team pose with the sponsor...


... and soak in the Ja Jolla sunshine


The championship board with signatures of the 64 participants

Final crosstables

Stripunsky and Nakamura tied for first on points and played a two-game playoff match to decide first prize. Tiebreak details: Two games at G/25 plus 10 seconds per move. Six players finished with six points. Prizes 3-5 were decided by tiebreak points. So Kaidanov won third prize, Kudrin wins fourth prize, Shulman wins fifth prize. All other prizes are aggregated and divided evenly among each point group.In the women's championship, Goletiani and Abrahamyan tied for first with 4.5 and p layed a rapid playoff match.

Salvijus Bercys, Josh Friedel, Dmitry Zilberstein and Lev Milman gained IM norms; Tsagaan Battsetseg made a WGM norm; Tatev Abrahamyan made a WIM norm.

In the table below the first tiebreak formula is "modified median" which is based on the scores of the players' opponents, dropping the two lowest scores. Second is "Solkoff," the opponent's scores including the lowest. These systems are based on rewarding players for playing more successful opponents. Third is cumulative scoring, in which you add up number of points the players had in each round. This rewards early success, since in this tournament format players who have higher scores earlier almost always face stronger competition.

#
Name
Rtg
Tot
TBrk[M]
TBrk[S]
TBrk[C]
1 GM Alex Stripunsky 2640 7.0
41
50.5
36.5
2 GM Hikaru Nakamura 2676 7.0
41
50
36
3 GM Gregory Kaidanov 2730 6.0
42
51
31
4 GM Sergey Kudrin 2607 6.0
42
50
34
5 GM Yury Shulman 2590 6.0
41
47.5
32
6 GM Joel Benjamin 2620 6.0
37
44
29.5
7 GM Gregory Serper 2598 6.0
36.5
42.5
32
8 GM Alexander Onischuk 2680 6.0
35.5
43
28.5
9 GM Alexander Goldin 2705 5.5
40
48
29
10 GM Ildar Ibragimov 2671 5.5
39
47
30.5
11 GM Boris Gulko 2705 5.5
38.5
47.5
29.5
12 GM Julio Becerra 2582 5.5
38.5
46.5
28.5
13 GM Alexander Fishbein 2575 5.5
38.5
46
29
14 GM Gata Kamsky 2777 5.5
36.5
44
26.5
15 GM Varuzhan Akobian 2665 5.5
35.5
44
28.5
16 GM Aleks Wojtkiewicz 2590 5.5
35.5
43.5
28.5
17 GM Alex Yermolinsky 2642 5.5
33
40
26
18 IM Renier Gonzalez 2536 5.0
38.5
46.5
28
19 Salvijus Bercys 2418 5.0
37.5
43.5
24.5
20 GM Igor Novikov 2690 5.0
37
44.5
27
21 FM Lev Milman 2455 5.0
37
44.5
23.5
22 GM Dmitry Gurevich 2551 5.0
37
44
27
23 GM Alexander Shabalov 2689 5.0
36.5
42.5
26
24 GM Nick DeFirmian 2626 5.0
36
43.5
27
25 IM Levon Altounian 2546 5.0
36
42
25.5
26 IM Eugene Perelshteyn 2579 5.0
35
41
26
27 GM Larry Christiansen 2611 5.0
33.5
41.5
26.5
28 IM Yury Lapshun 2527 5.0
33.5
39
23.5
29 IM Cyrus Lakdawala 2545 5.0
33.5
37
24.5
30 IM Ben Finegold 2621 5.0
31
39
24
31 GM Alexander Ivanov 2633 5.0
28
34.5
22
32 IM Dmitry Schneider 2503 4.5
26.5
46
26.5
33 IM Blas Lugo 2413 4.5
25.5
43.5
26
34 GM Walter Browne 2508 4.5
23
40.5
23.5
35 WGM Rusudan Goletiani 2375 4.5
22
39
21.5
36 IM Stanislav Kriventsov 2504 4.5
21.5
40
23
37 IM Ron Burnett 2423 4.5
21.5
35.5
19.5
38 FM Michael Casella 2329 4.5
18.5
34
16.5
39 WFM Tatev Abrahamyan 2305 4.5
17.5
33
16
40 FM Dmitry Zilberstein 2419 4.0
35.5
47
25
41 FM Joshua Friedel 2464 4.0
32.5
44
21
42 IM Irina Krush (w) 2472 4.0
30.5
41
20.5
43 WIM Tsagaan Battsetseg 2238 4.0
30
41.5
20
44 FM Marcel Martinez 2466 4.0
29
40
20
45 FM Matt Hoekstra 2409 4.0
25.5
35.5
18.5
46 FM Stephen Muhammad 2445 4.0
23
35
19
47 FM Tegshuren Enkhbat 2481 4.0
22
32.5
16
48 WGM Anna Zatonskih 2459 3.5
34.5
46.5
23
49 FM Robby Adamson 2400 3.5
30.5
42
19.5
50 IM Jesse Kraai 2493 3.5
30.5
41.5
19
51 FM Bruci Lopez 2417 3.5
25.5
37
16.5
52 GM Anatoly Lein 2436 3.5
25.5
36.5
16.5
53 Iryna Zenyuk (w) 2094 3.5
22.5
32
12.5
54 Chouchanik Airapetian (w) 2149 3.5
18.5
28.5
10
55 FM Fabio La Rota 2336 3.0
26.5
37.5
17
56 WFM Laura Ross 2195 3.0
26.5
36.5
14
57 WIM Jennifer Shahade 2346 3.0
24
35
14
58 WIM Anna Hahn 2256 3.0
23.5
34.5
13.5
59 WFM Anna Levina 2099 3.0
21
30
11.5
60 Tatiana Vayserberg (w) 2037 3.0
19.5
28.5
10.5
61 Jake Kleiman 2310 2.5
25
35.5
14
62 Vanessa West (w) 2119 2.5
22
32
12
63 WIM Esther Epstein 2178 2.5
20.5
30.5
12
64 WFM Olga Sagalchik 2154 0.5
22.5
32
1.5
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