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Chess for Life, the partnership program between the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis and the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, is in need of volunteers to help bring chess to patients and their families. The program is designed to provide a welcome escape in a time of extreme duress. Chess for Life provides chess tables, boards and pieces, along with volunteers who will play and offer instruction. In addition, Siteman patients will be able to access a website allowing them to play with other people or a computer.

The Friday Action Quads made its triumphant return following the Women's Championship.  Fourteen fierce competitors slugged it out in three sections.  In the top quad, Jialin Ding and Kevin Cao, two of Saint Louis' best scholastic players, finished with 2.5/3.0 (drawing each other) to split the $36 prize.  In quad 2, Namit Gaur dominated the field, going undefeated with a perfect 3.0/3.0 performance for clear first.  The bottom section featured a six-player Swiss in which unrated Filippo Massari's 2.5/3.0 was good enough for the clear $36 first place prize.

Photos By: Betsy Dynako

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[view:float_right_thumb==1191]ST. LOUIS, Oct. 13, 2009 -- The 2009 U.S. Women's Chess Championship, held at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, already had a clear winner going into the final round, but there was heavy drama in the battle for money, place and qualification for other tournaments.
   
Defending U.S. Champion Anna Zatonskih, of Long Island, N.Y., finished off the tournament in style with a positional crush of Yun Fan, of Greencastle, Ind. She won the record $15,000 first place prize fund. Zatonskih ended with eight wins and one draw in nine games, and her 8.5 points were tied for the best result in the championship in more than 20 years. She said the championship was the best performance of her career.