Charlotte Chess Center Hosts US Masters: Day One Recap!
The strongest open tournament in the United States, the US Masters, is now underway! Over 200 titled chess players, including 47 Grandmasters, have gathered in Charlotte, North Carolina for nine rounds of long time control chess, fun side events, and the opportunity to win a share of the tournament’s $28,000 prize fund.
The eligibility rules for US Masters are strict. Every player has achieved a rating over 2200 in USCF or FIDE, with one provision allowing for juniors with ratings above 2100 USCF or 2000 FIDE to participate as well. This makes the field formidable beyond that of any other open tournament in the United States, strong enough to award FIDE Circuit points towards eligibility for the next Candidates tournament.
The highest-rated player in the event, Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana, stopped to visit the Charlotte Chess Center on Tuesday evening before the tournament started on Wednesday. Caruana, the current world number two, won his first game of the event as black following a piece sacrifice on g5 and an eventual transition to a winning king-and-pawn endgame.
While Caruana is undoubtedly the favorite to win the event, he will face competition from a host of other 2600+ players, such as GMs Awonder Liang, Abhimanyu Mishra, Grigory Oparin, and Olexandr Bortnyk. All four of them won in round one, with Liang’s game included here, winning as white against NM Shelev Oberoi (ratings listed for annotated games are FIDE, rather than USCF).
One more highlight was this smooth victory by GM Lazaro Bruzon Batista, including the breakthrough d4-d5! and a pretty tactical shot to force resignation:
There were a few notable upsets in round one on Wednesday night, including NMs Matias Shundi, Advath Karthik, and Andrew Jiang defeating GMs Benjamin Bok, Akshat Chandra, and Ehsan Ghaemmaghami respectively. Wednesday only saw round one out of nine, with two rounds scheduled each day through Sunday evening. Side events will include a free Bullet Battle on Friday night and the $2,000 Blitz Tournament on Saturday night, free for all participants in either the US Open or the NC Open tournament this weekend.
Full standings from the event, updated after every round, can be viewed here.
Fans can follow the US Masters tournament live on Twitch, with GM Kayden Troff providing commentary for the morning rounds and GM Daniel Naroditsky covering the evening rounds. The top games are viewable right here on chess.com, and each day we'll be posting an update to this blog with the latest news and results from the tournament.
A big thanks to Kelly Centrelli for the photographs, and we wish you all a happy Thanksgiving!
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NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
