Starting July 16, the country’s top junior and senior chess players will visit St. Louis to compete for over $80,000 in total prize funds and three individual national championships.
The St. Louis Chess Club will be hosting three invitational title events: the U.S. Senior Championship, the U.S. Junior Championship and the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship, each featuring 10 of the nation’s strongest players in their category.
The events will showcase some of the top talents in the country, promoting chess at the scholastic level while supporting top professionals as well.
Check out the participants for each field below:
2021 U.S. Senior Championship:
| NAME | RATING | |
| GM Larry Christiansen | 2634 | |
| GM Alexander Shabalov | 2629 | |
| GM Gregory Kaidanov | 2626 | |
| GM Igor Novikov | 2623 | |
| GM Joel Benjamin | 2586 | |
| GM Alex Yermolinsky | 2560 | |
| IM Leonid Sokolin | 2547 | |
| GM Melikset Khachiyan | 2544 | |
| GM Alex Fishbein | 2495 | |
| GM James Tarjan | 2425 |
2021 U.S. Junior Championship Field
| NAME | RATING | AGE |
| GM Nicolas Checa | 2648 | 19 |
| GM John Burke | 2618 | 20 |
| IM Praveen Balakrishnan | 2605 | 19 |
| GM Hans Niemann | 2599 | 18 |
| GM Brandon Jacobson | 2572 | 17 |
| IM David Brodsky | 2564 | 18 |
| IM Andrew Hong | 2543 | 16 |
| IM Christopher Yoo | 2540 | 14 |
| IM Justin Wang | 2540 | 15 |
| IM Ben Li | 2477 | 19 |
2021 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship
| NAME | RATING | AGE |
| IM Annie Wang | 2457 | 19 |
| WIM Thalia Cervantes | 2346 | 18 |
| WFM Martha Samadashvili | 2340 | 17 |
| WIM Rochelle Wu | 2274 | 15 |
| WFM Sophie Morris-Suzuki | 2244 | 19 |
| WCM Ruiyang Yan | 2242 | 14 |
| WCM Sheena Zeng | 2201 | 17 |
| WCM Alice Lee | 2200 | 11 |
| Susanna Ulrich | 2193 | 18 |
| Sanjana Vittal | 2182 | 18 |
In addition to receiving the first-place prize and scholarships that go to the winners of the U.S. Junior and U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship, the two winners will qualify for the 2021 U.S. Championship and 2021 U.S. Women Championship that will take place in St. Louis later this year.
Live coverage of the tournament will start with the first round at 2:50 p.m. July 15 and continue to July 26. Fans can watch the daily rounds online on uschesschamps.com and on the St. Louis Chess Club’s YouTube and Twitch.tv channels.
IM Kostya Kavutskiy is a professional chess player, writer and streamer currently residing in Mountain View, California. You can follow Kostya at @hellokostya