U.S. Championship

THE SCHEDULE

Wednesday, November 24, 1:00PM - Round One
Thursday, November 25, 12:00PM - Round Two
Friday, November 26, 1:00PM - Round Three
Sunday, November 28, 1:00PM - Round Four
Monday, November 29, 1:00PM - Round Five
Tuesday, November 30, 1:00PM - Round Six
Thursday, December 2, 1:00PM - Round Seven
Friday, December 3, 1:00PM - Round Eight
Saturday, December 4, 1:00PM - Round Nine
Sunday, December 5 - Play Off (if necessary)

THE PLAYERS

43 players from 11 qualifier open tournaments
· 2003 Foxwoods Open: GM Hikaru Nakamura and GM Sergey Kudrin
· 2003 Chicago Open: GM Yuri Shulman and IM Eugene Perelshteyn
· 2003 National Open: GM Joel Benjamin and FM Michael Casella
· 2003 World Open: IM Yury Lapshun and FM Matthew Hoekstra. Women's qualifier: Iryna Zenyuk
· 2003 U.S. Open: GM Larry Christiansen. Women's qualifier: WGM Rusudan Goletiani
· 2003 North American Open: IM Ben Finegold, GM Gregory Serper, Robby Adamson and Lev Altounian. Women's qualifier: WIM Jennifer Shahade
· 2004 Foxwoods Open: GM Julio Becerra, IM Renier Gonzalez, GM Alex Stripunsky and GM Alex Ivanov. Women's qualifier: WIM Esther Epstein
· 2004 Chicago Open: GM Alex Fishbein, FM Joshua Friedel, Chouchanik Airapetian and GM Dmitry Gurevich. Women's qualifier: Tatiana Vayserberg
· 2004 National Open: GM Alex Yermolinsky, IM Stanislav Kriventsov, IM Blas Lugo and GM Anatoly Lein. Women's qualifier: Vanessa West
· 2004 World Open: IM Jesse Kraai, FM Dmitry Zilberstein, FM Stephen Muhammad and FM Enkbaat Tegshuren. Women's qualifiers: WFM Tsagaan Battsetseg and WFM Laura Ross
· 2004 U.S. Open: FM Marcel Martinez, FM Bruci Lopez, IM Dmitry Schneider and Jake Kleiman. Women's qualifiers: WFM Anna Levina and WFM Olga Sagalchik

11 seeded players based on rating
· Six top-rated players: GM Gregory Kaidanov, GM Alexander Onischuk, GM Igor Novikov, GM Boris Gulko, GM Alexander Goldin and GM Ildar Ibragimov (who replaced GM Yasser Seirawan, who declined)
· Five top-rated women players: WGM Anna Zatonskih, WGM Irina Krush, WGM Elena Donaldson-Akhmilovskaya, WGM Anjelina Belakovskaia and Tatev Abrahamyan (who replaced GM Susan Polgar, who declined)

8 seeded players based on title
· 2004 US Senior Open: FM Fabio LaRota
· 2004 & 2003 U.S. Junior Champions: IM Varuzhan Akobian and FM Lev Milman, respectively
· Defending 2003 U.S. Champion: GM Alexander Shabalov
· 2003 U.S. Women's Champion: WIM Anna Hahn
· 2003 Grand Prix Champion: GM Aleks Wojtkiewicz
· 2002 Grand Prix Champion: GM Nick de Firmian (who replaced GM Lev Alburt, who declined when he was selected to replaced GM Aleks Wojtkiewicz, who was already seeded)
· USCF State Champion of Champions: IM Ronald Burnett

2 wild card players
· NM Salvajius Bercys and GM Gata Kamsky