3/30/2019 – Only three out of twelve games finished drawn in Friday's ninth round at the US Championships in Saint Louis. In the Open, those on top maintained their winning ways, with Hikaru Nakamura and Leinier Dominguez still sharing the lead. Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So also won and are the only ones with realistic chances of leaping to the front in the final sprint. In the Women's, Anna Zatonskih is a half point behind her round ten rival, Jennifer Yu. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

3/29/2019 – Leinier Dominguez, playing in his first U.S. Championship, is now co-leader with Hikaru Nakamura. He took a small endgame plus and converted it to a full point against Sam Sevian in round eight. Nakamura and Dominguez are scheduled to play in Saturday's tenth round. Fabiano Caruana remains a half point back. In the Women's tournament Jennifer Yu extends to her lead to a full point after winning her third game in a row. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

3/28/2019 – All four decisive results of round seven had a direct impact on the top of the standings at the US Championship. Wins by Fabiano Caruana, Leinier Dominguez and Sam Sevian allowed them to remain half a point behind sole leader Hikaru Nakamura, who also won on Wednesday. Meanwhile, among the women, for a second day in a row Jennifer Yu survived a losing position and went on to win to stay on top with 6½ out of 7. | Photo: Austin Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club

3/25/2019 – Two decisive games in each tournament did little to alter the standings of the US Championships. In the Open, Sam Sevian defeated Varuzhan Akobian with Black and is now part of the five-player leading pack on 3 out of 5, while Timur Gareyev beat Awonder Liang and left the cellar of the standings. In the Women's, Tatev Abrahamyan and Carissa Yip were the winners of the day. | Photo: Crystal Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club

3/24/2019 – Round four of the US Championships was filled with peculiar episodes that made for an incredible day of chess in Saint Louis. Ray Robson took down sole leader Jeffery Xiong with the black pieces, while Fabiano Caruana and Sam Sevian were not able to make the most of completely winning positions against Leinier Dominguez and Timur Gareyev. In the women's section, Jennifer Yu remains perfect after her opponent blundered on move ten. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

3/23/2019 – The main attraction of the third round was Jeffery Xiong's win over defending champion Sam Shankland at the US Championships in Saint Louis. The 18-year-old not only claimed a big scalp but also got his name on top of the standings after a dream start. Hikaru Nakamura and Leinier Dominguez also won and are now a half point behind him, together with Wesley So. In the Women's, Jennifer Yu took down Irina Krush to keep a perfect score. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

3/19/2019 – The U.S. Chess Championship and U.S. Women's Chess Championship will take place for an eleventh time at the Saint Louis Chess Club starting on Wednesday. The opening ceremony was held on Monday March 18th. Two concurrent twelve-player round robin events will determine the new chess champions of the United States. The open section has a stellar line-up, with five 2700+ players for the first time in the national tournament, as Leinier Dominguez will make his debut as an American representative. Fabiano Caruana (pictured) is the top seed. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

12/20/2018 – With top players such as Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura or Wesley So the national of the USA is one of the strongest in the world. But now it gets even stronger. In a press release the US Chess Federation announced that Cuban Grandmaster Leinier Dominguez will from now on play for the US. | Photo: Leinier Dominguez | Photo Lennart Ootes

9/15/2018 – There was almost no intrigue regarding the final results, but the 2018 Champions Showdown was filled with curious highlights and enterprising chess. The main attraction was Garry Kasparov's presence — the 13th World Champion lost his match against Topalov, but finished on a high thanks to a pair of wins in the last rounds. In the other matchups, Nakamura, So, Vachier-Lagrave and Aronian emerged victorious. In terms of entertainment value, the Saint Louis Chess Club hit the mark! | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

9/13/2018 – After two days of Chess960 in St. Louis, Wesley So established the largest lead in his match against Anish Giri. Perhaps that why So says he prefers the variant over "normal chess". Or is it the other way around — preference breeds success? Garry Kasparov, on the other hand, is well behind in his match against Veselin Topalov. Elsewhere the rating favourites all lead, with the exception of Hikaru Nakamura vs Peter Svidler, which is tied at 6 points apiece. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club/ Lennart Ootes, Austin Fuller

8/17/2018 – The chess action continues in Saint Louis. After the Rapid & Blitz tournament and before the Sinquefield Cup, Team Randy and Team Rex came back for another version of the ‘Ultimate Moves’ event. The Sinquefields led their Grandmaster-packed teams in a fun exhibition match that was eventually won by Randy’s squad. Magnus Carlsen was already in the premises and was part of the winning team. V. SARAVANAN reports | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

8/16/2018 – Hikaru Nakamura triumphed at the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz leg of the Grand Chess Tour with a round to spare and landed at the top spot in the overall standings of the tour with 33 points. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave scored 6½ from the final nine blitz games of the tournament to top the section, just outpacing Shakhriyar Mamedyarov at the finishing line to place himself second in the tour with 25 points. His score of 13½/18 in the Blitz was a whopping three points more than Nakamura, who finished second on 10½. V. SARAVANAN's report includes a full pictorial look at the final day. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

8/15/2018 – The first day of blitz action in Saint Louis was won by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The Frenchman scored no less than five wins (four with Black) to recover after a disastrous third day. Both Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Hikaru Nakamura totalled positive scores and are still sharing the lead, while Caruana won three and lost three and is currently in sole third place. V. SARAVANAN reports from Saint Louis. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

8/14/2018 – On the third and final day of rapid, Hikaru Nakamura lodged two more wins and a draw bringing his final rapid tally to 12 (using double-scoring), a point ahead of Caruana and equal with Mamedyarov. "I believe in giving my fullest, and for me, that means to be aggressive and letting myself go completely", the American said. Caruana faded after an awful blunder against Dominguez in the first round of the day. V. SARAVANAN breaks down the highlights. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

8/13/2018 – After an amazing start, Fabiano Caruana kept his cool and drew all his games in the midst of a day filled with turnarounds and missed chances. Four players are now two points behind the leader, as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Hikaru Nakamura tallied positive scores on Sunday. V. SARAVANAN reports straight from the Saint Louis Chess Club | Photos: Saint Louis Chess Club / Austin Fuller / Lennart Ootes

8/12/2018 – At the start of the 2018 Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz, all eyes were on Fabiano Caruana, as everybody in the United States is eager to see how he will do in the match against Magnus Carlsen. Fabiano responded in kind by winning all three games in spectacular fashion. He is now the sole leader of the event, which continues until Wednesday. V SARAVANAN sent a full report from Missouri. | Pictured: Fabiano Caruana with Alejandro Ramirez and Rustam Kasimdzhanov | Photo: V. Saravanan

5/20/2018 – Sam Shankland is on a roll. He added to his recent U.S. Championship triumph by dominating the annual Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba from start to finish. Needing only a draw in the final round, he instead racked up an additional win to finish an impressive point and a half clear of Alexei Dreev! ALEX YERMOLINSKY offers his take. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

11/15/2017 – The last day of the match between Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren continued the trend of the previous days: Ding had chances but failed to realise them. Carlsen, however, was able to exploit chances he did not really seem to have. No wonder Carlsen won the blitz-match by a huge margin. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/14/2017 – Today, the Champions Showdown in St. Louis will end. Ding Liren and Magnus Carlsen will play 12 blitz games with a time-control of 5 minutes for the whole game. After three days Carlsen leads by 50-18 and thus secured the match. Even if Ding Liren won all 12 blitz games today he would not catch up. But no matter the result, 12 high-class blitz games are still worth watching. The games begin at 18:00 CET (11 am in Saint Louis) on Tuesday. You can follow the action live.

11/13/2017 – Three matches of the Champions Showdown in St. Louis are over: Hikaru Nakamura crushed Veselin Topalov, Wesley So needed an incredible comeback to defeat Leinier Dominguez, and Fabiano Caruana won a close match against Alexander Grischuk. Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren still play, but Carlsen dominates. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/12/2017 – Day 4 featured impressive comebacks from both Caruana and So, who won their respective matches. Meanwhile Nakamura had locked up his $60,000 winner's prize already with nine games to spare! Carlsen put the the screws to Ding in the Game 20 portion of their match and has a sizeable lead. Three matches are in the books but the fourth continues Monday and Tuesday in Saint Louis, USA. Games begin at 20:00 CET (1 pm in Saint Louis) Monday, and at 18:00 CET (11 am in Saint Louis) on Tuesday.

8/20/2017 – The thrills and spills from Day 4 continued into the final round-robin. Karjakin's surge faded, and he ended in a tie for second with Hikaru Nakamura. But neither player could catch Levon Aronian, who stayed one step ahead in the combined standings, to clinch first place overall with two rounds to spare. Garry Kasparov finally hit his stride, scoring 5½ / 9 on the final day. If the blitz were a standalone tournament, Kasparov would have been fifth. Here are some of Friday's highlights. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

8/19/2017 – The live action continued Saturday featuring the now-traditional trash-talk filled blitz bonanza known as Ultimate Moves. "Team Rex" squeaked out the victory after a 3/3 tie sparked an wild impromptu tiebreak game (not planned in advance), which was unceremoniously concluded by an illegal move made by Randy Sinquefield!

8/18/2017 – Reigning World Blitz Champion Sergey Karjakin dominated the first leg of the Blitz event as he scored 8 points out of a possible 9, but still pronounced that he was ‘actually very angry that I didn’t win my first game against Garry!’ in their mutual encounter. Aronian continues to lead the overall standings comprising the score from the Rapid event as well. One more round-robin cycle of Blitz remains to be played on Friday, August 18th. | Photos: Lennart Ootes