By FM Mike Klein
SAINT LOUIS, May 14, 2010 – Mayor Francis Slay and Board of Alderman President Lewis Reed helped kick off the opening ceremonies Thursday for the 2010 U.S. Chess Championship at the Old Post Office. For the second year in a row, the country’s chess elite will converge on St. Louis to compete at the Chess Club & Scholastic Center ofSaint Louis to crown a champion.
[imagefield_assist|fid=3701|preset=bdynako-preview|title=Sonina Zepeda, Ben Finegold and Evelyn Moncayo enjoy the Opening Ceremony.|desc=|link=none|origsize=|lightbox=true|align=left|width=375|height=241]“We have 24 of the strongest players in the country here,” announced Tony Rich, director of the chess club. “The next two weeks will truly be a battle.”
The tournament, which first took place in 1888, will have the strongest top players ever. Games will begin at 2:00 p.m. daily and will run for 10 days beginning Friday.
The festivities took place in front of a crowd of more than 100.
After a rousing national anthem by former American Idol contestant Aloha Mischeaux that reverberated through the second floor’s rafters, chess club founder and St. Louis philanthropist Rex Sinquefield took the podium and told the players, “Welcome home,” adding, “I hope I get to say that for many years.” He announced the creation of 10 outdoor chess tables open to all city residents and visitors, to be installed next week.
Partnership for Downtown St. Louis President Maggie Campbell enthusiastically encouraged St. Louisans to visit the tables. “You never know, you may come around and be able to play a grandmaster,” she said.
Campbell was referencing the recent addition of two top-level players to the city. Ben Finegold moved to the Central West End at the beginning of the year and Hikaru Nakamura moved downtown just last week. Both are grandmasters, the highest title in chess, and Nakamura is the defending U.S. Champion. Finegold is the grandmaster-in-residence at the club.
“I never thought I’d see a chess grandmaster living on Washington Ave. in St. Louis,” Reed said. The city previously did not have any grandmasters, nor did Missouri as a whole. “It puts St. Louis on the map in a most unique way.” Reed said that people choose where they live based on arts and culture and he showed pride in Nakamura’s choice of where to live.[imagefield_assist|fid=3704|preset=bdynako-preview|lightbox=true|title=Maggie Campbell, Jeanne and Rex Sinquefield and Mayor Slay cut the ribbon for Chess at the Plaza.|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=375|height=243]
Slay has several times before been an invited guest at prominent chess tournaments over the last few years. “St. Louis has been known as a baseball town, but we are rapidly becoming a chess Mecca,” he said.
At the close of the event, Nakamura, as defending champion, came to the stage for the drawing of colors, which is more than just ceremonial. He picked a sealed envelope containing a black card, indicating that he will get the black pieces in the first game. Second-seeded Gata Kamsky will get white, and so forth.
Players and guests then watched a documentary film from last year’s championship entitled Changing of the Guard, directed by Rex Sinquefield’s son, Randy Sinquefield. Many of the 2010 players also played in the 2009 event, and they could be seen analyzing their on-camera likenesses almost as much as the chessboard itself.
