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The US Chess Championship is being held from March 1st to 12th, 2006, at the NTC Promenade in San Diego, California. It decides the titles of both the US and US Women's chess champion. The 64 players are separated by rating into two 32-player groups of equal strength, Group A and Group B. All of the players in each group, men and women, participate in the same swiss system tournament.
Participants at the 2006 US Championship
After nine rounds the group winners meet in the championship match the next day for the title. The top-scoring woman in each group advances to the women's championship match. These matches are of two games of rapid chess, with blitz tie-breaks.
Veteran GM Boris Gulko, comeback GM Max Dlugy
Time controls are 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20, then 10 minutes for the rest of the game. In addition there is an increment of 30 seconds per move.
Top women's seed WGM Anna Zatonskih
The prize fund is over $250,000 – the first prize is $25,000 and the women's champion will receive $12,500. There are also over $8,000 in special cash prizes for brilliant games and for displaying fighting chess.
19-year-old Josh Friedel, first round vanquisher of Hikaru Nakamura
Nakamura,H (2644) - Friedel,J (2455) [A11]
ch-USA GpA San Diego USA (1), 02.03.2006
1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 c6 3.e3 e6 4.Qc2 Bd6 5.Nc3 f5 6.h3 Nf6 7.g4 0-0 8.gxf5
exf5 9.b3 Qe7 10.Bb2 Na6 11.Rg1 Bd7 12.cxd5 Nb4 13.Qb1 cxd5 14.a3 Nc6
Nakamura plays an interesting sacrifice – rook and two pieces of a queen and two pawns – that is incidentally immediately suggested by Fritz. 15.Nxd5 Nxd5 16.Bc4 Be6 17.Rxg7+ Qxg7 18.Bxg7 Kxg7 19.Qb2+ Rf6 20.0-0-0 h6 21.d3 Kf7 22.e4 fxe4 23.dxe4 Rxf3 24.exd5 Bf4+ 25.Kb1 Bf5+ 26.Ka2 Ne5 27.d6+ Kg6 28.Be2 Rxh3 29.Qd4 Rf8 30.Bb5 Be6 31.Qe4+ Kh5 32.Be2+ Kh4 33.d7 Bxd7 34.Rxd7 Nxd7
The sacrifice has worked, White is winning. All he needed to do was to play 35.Qe6 (threatening 36.Qg4#) and then 36.Qe7+ to win the black rook on f8. But Nakamura plays the check first: 35.Qe7+? Bg5 36.Qxd7. This picks up the knight, but Black can now consolidate his forces and go on the attack – which Friedel does with great precision. 36...Rf4 37.f3 Rh2 38.Qd3 Kg3 39.b4 Rf2 40.Kb1 Kg2 41.Bd1 Bh4 42.Qg6+ Bg3 43.Bc2 h5 44.Qxh5 Rc4 45.Be4 Rd4 46.f4+ Rxe4 47.Qd5 Rfe2 48.Qxb7 Kg1 0-1.
Terrible start (0.5/3.0): last year's US Champion Hikaru Nakamura
WGM Camilla Baginskaite showing her win against Nakamura
Another young US talent Batchimeg Tuvshintugs, 19 (originally Mongolia)
| No. | Title | Name | St | USCF | FIDE | Pts |
| 1 | GM | Onischuk, Alexander | MD | 2686 | 2650 | 3.0 |
| 2 | GM | De Firmian, Nick | 2600 | 2547 | 2.5 | |
| 3 | GM | Gurevich, Dmitry | IL | 2562 | 2503 | 2.5 |
| 4 | IM | Finegold, Benjamin | MI | 2657 | 2563 | 2.0 |
| 5 | GM | Goldin, Alexander | KY | 2642 | 2598 | 2.0 |
| 6 | GM | Benjamin, Joel | NJ | 2624 | 2576 | 2.0 |
| 7 | IM | Gonzalez, Renier | FL | 2548 | 2470 | 2.0 |
| 8 | IM | Kraai, Jesse | NM | 2540 | 2443 | 2.0 |
| 9 | IM | Schneider, Dmitry | NY | 2525 | 2486 | 2.0 |
| 10 | IM | Friedel, Joshua | NH | 2513 | 2455 | 2.0 |
| 11 | IM | Bercys, Salvijus | NY | 2440 | 2358 | 2.0 |
| 12 | WGM | Goletiani, Rusudan (w) | NY | 2393 | 2378 | 2.0 |
| 13 | WGM | Baginskaite, Camilla (w) | CA | 2331 | 2299 | 2.0 |
| 14 | GM | Ibragimov, Ildar | CT | 2707 | 2635 | 1.5 |
| 15 | GM | Akobian, Varuzhan | CA | 2662 | 2600 | 1.5 |
| 16 | GM | Stripunsky, Alexander | NY | 2642 | 2564 | 1.5 |
| 17 | GM | Kudrin, Sergey | CT | 2627 | 2554 | 1.5 |
| 18 | GM | Dlugy, Maxim | NJ | 2604 | 2531 | 1.5 |
| 19 | GM | Serper, Gregory | WA | 2577 | 2517 | 1.5 |
| 20 | IM | Stein, Alan | CA | 2486 | 2415 | 1.5 |
| 21 | IM | Florean, Andrei | MI | 2479 | 2426 | 1.5 |
| 22 | IM | Fernandez, Daniel | FL | 2424 | 2423 | 1.5 |
| 23 | FM | Schneider, Igor | NY | 2420 | 2376 | 1.5 |
| 24 | FM | Tate, Emory | IN | 2441 | 2391 | 1.0 |
| 25 | WIM | Epstein, Esther (w) | MA | 2172 | 2178 | 1.0 |
| 26 | GM | Nakamura, Hikaru | NY | 2774 | 2644 | 0.5 |
| 27 | IM | Lenderman, Alex | NY | 2427 | 2431 | 0.5 |
| 28 | Kleiman, Jake | TN | 2318 | 2279 | 0.5 | |
| 29 | WFM | Ross, Laura (w) | NY | 2238 | 2141 | 0.5 |
| 30 | WFM | Vicary, Elizabeth (w) | NY | 2118 | 2107 | 0.5 |
| 31 | Zenyuk, Iryna (w) | NY | 2101 | 2194 | 0.5 | |
| 32 | Cottrell-Finegold, Kelly (w) | MI | 1663 | 1887 | 0.0 |
| No. | Title | Name | St | USCF | FIDE | Pts |
| 1 | GM | Shabalov, Alexander | PA | 2665 | 2595 | 2.5 |
| 2 | GM | Ivanov, Alexander | MA | 2657 | 2606 | 2.5 |
| 3 | GM | Novikov, Igor | NY | 2643 | 2575 | 2.5 |
| 4 | GM | Christiansen, Larry | MA | 2633 | 2546 | 2.5 |
| 5 | GM | Shulman, Yury | IL | 2623 | 2581 | 2.5 |
| 6 | GM | Kamsky, Gata | NY | 2729 | 2686 | 2.0 |
| 7 | GM | Gulko, Boris | NJ | 2678 | 2585 | 2.0 |
| 8 | GM | Becerra, Julio | FL | 2629 | 2556 | 2.0 |
| 9 | GM | Fishbein, Alexander | NJ | 2593 | 2519 | 2.0 |
| 10 | GM | Yermolinsky, Alex | CA | 2590 | 2554 | 2.0 |
| 11 | IM | Kriventsov, Stanislav | LA | 2491 | 2449 | 2.0 |
| 12 | WIM | Tuvshintugs, Batchimeg (w) | CA | 2271 | 2208 | 2.0 |
| 13 | GM | Kaidanov, Gregory | KY | 2722 | 2603 | 1.5 |
| 14 | IM | Perelshteyn, Eugene | MA | 2614 | 2522 | 1.5 |
| 15 | GM | Fedorowicz, John | NY | 2558 | 2493 | 1.5 |
| 16 | GM | Wojtkiewicz, Aleks | MD | 2555 | 2554 | 1.5 |
| 17 | IM | Milman, Lev | NY | 2528 | 2478 | 1.5 |
| 18 | GM | Browne, Walter | CA | 2507 | 2434 | 1.5 |
| 19 | WGM | Zatonskih, Anna (w) | OH | 2469 | 2433 | 1.5 |
| 20 | IM | Ippolito, Dean | NJ | 2464 | 2414 | 1.5 |
| 21 | IM | Vigorito, David | NV | 2422 | 2359 | 1.5 |
| 22 | GM | Kreiman, Boris | CA | 2535 | 2478 | 1.0 |
| 23 | FM | Muhammad, Stephen | GA | 2458 | 2377 | 1.0 |
| 24 | IM | Lugo, Blas | FL | 2440 | 2412 | 1.0 |
| 25 | IM | Ginsburg, Mark | AZ | 2425 | 2367 | 1.0 |
| 26 | IM | Sarkar, Justin | NY | 2399 | 2323 | 1.0 |
| 27 | Liu, Elliott | CA | 2266 | 2139 | 1.0 | |
| 28 | WFM | Abrahamyan, Tatev (w) | CA | 2325 | 2254 | 0.5 |
| 29 | Airapetian, Chouchanik (w) | WA | 2162 | 2130 | 0.5 | |
| 30 | WFM | Itkis,Hana (w) | NJ | 2149 | 2105 | 0.5 |
| 31 | West, Vanessa (w) | CA | 2034 | 2083 | 0.5 | |
| 32 | WCM | Christiansen, Natasha (w) | MA | 1872 | 2003 | 0.0 |
(w) indicates eligibility for women's championship title and prizes
