Playing in the 2024 US Open – Norfolk, Virgina, July-August, 2024 – Part 1
(by Peter Gilruth, Vice Chairman of the Nairobi Chess Club)
History
The US Open is the Grandaddy of US Chess tournaments. Originally the Western Chess Association Championship, it was merged into the United States Chess Federation (USCF) in 1934 when the tournament became the US Open.
The US Open has been held annually in different cities in the US since 1900 without any interruption until the 120th edition in 2019, making it the longest-running annual chess tournament in the world.
No tournament was held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but since then, the US Open has taken place annually. During the tournament, one player received an award for having played in 45 consecutive US Opens. Imagine that!
The Open has always had only one section with all players in the same group—this is its tradition! Of course, there are class prizes for non-GMs. For many years, the tournament had 12 or 13 rounds and lasted two weeks; however, this was too expensive for many players. Since 2015, the US Open has been nine rounds in nine days. The 2024 edition of the US Open was held in Norfolk, Virginia, where the US Naval Base is located.
Format
How much time do you have to play chess? Well, you can play in one of three sections: any of the 9-day, 6-day or 4-day versions, depending on how much time you can devote. Whichever section you play in, all three sections merge by round 7.
The GMs generally play in the four—or six-day schedules as they have less time or money to spare. However, other shorter warm-up tournaments are run simultaneously during the first days of the nine-round schedule.
You can play in the warm-up events and then migrate to the traditional US Open if you love the game enough.
The intent is to accommodate as many players as possible, so if you want a leisurely schedule and have more money (to pay for hotel, food, parking, etc.), you can play in the slower schedule. You play in the accelerated schedule if you don’t have the cash or time. But be careful, since the GMs often play in the accelerated schedule, they feed on the sheep (weaker players who have accumulated points in the slower section) when the sections merge.
Being semi-retired, I played in the traditional 9-day schedule, with daily games at 7 pm. The time control was 40 moves/100 minutes, followed by sudden death after 30 minutes, with a 30-second increment from the start of the game.
I liked the slow pace of 1 game/day and plan to play in the following US Open in Wisconsin in 2025. I also really enjoyed seeing old chess friends from my past (from Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s, Tucson, AZ, in the 1980s and 1990s, New York City in the 1990s, and Washington DC in the 2000s).
FIDE Ratings
Surprisingly, the US Open is not FIDE rated! Instead, just US Chess Federation ratings are used and computed. Of course, I wanted to know why not and was told that the decision not to FIDE rate the US Open was a matter of tradition. This didn’t make much sense to me since the stronger sections of most large tournaments in the US are indeed FIDE-rated these days. Go figure.
Active Arbiters!
The tournament officials are very professional and strict. They manage to keep all spectators out of the large room, and only players with active games can roam around.
Once finished with your game, you are hunted and removed from the hall. Of course, mobile phone management is strict, and all phones must be turned off and kept face up at the board. This is a slightly different policy from Kenyan tournaments, but I am OK with it since I prefer to avoid placing my phone in a large box with others.
Game Corner
I will cover the games in the second part of this article which can be found here.
Links
Khanin Wins 124th Annual U.S. Open.
US Chess as seen through the eyes of a Kenyan chess player.
Chess Book Shop
Article by Kenya Chess Masala.
