The U.S. Women's Open Championship is an open chess tournament that has been held irregularly. From 1934 through at least 1966 it was held in conjunction with the annual U.S. Open Chess Championship. After some years of inactivity, the event was reinstituted in 2009.
From 1934 through 1950 and in 1954, the women's tournaments were held as a round-robin tournament in conjunction with the U.S. Open. From 1951 through 1978, with the exception of 1954, the women played in the U.S. Open with the title U.S. Women's Open Champion being awarded to the woman with the highest score.
After 1978, the title was not awarded until 2009. That year the event was held again with sixteen players in a six-round tournament, in conjunction with the U.S. Senior Open Chess Championship and two other tournaments. Chess Life incorrectly called it the first U.S. Women's Open Championship. The highest-placing US citizen qualified for the U.S. Women's Chess Championship.
The event was then not held until 2015, when it was held in conjunction with the National Open in Las Vegas. It has been held each year since then, except for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Complete records of the Women's Open Championship are not available.
Christopher Hikaru Nakamura is an American chess grandmaster, Twitch streamer, five-time U.S. Chess Champion, and the reigning World Fischer Random Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he earned his grandmaster title at the age of 15, the youngest American at the time to do so. Nakamura won the 2011 edition of Tata Steel Chess Tournament Group A and has represented the United States at five Chess Olympiads, winning a team gold medal and two team bronze medals. With a peak rating of 2816, Nakamura is the tenth-highest rated player in history. In May 2014, when FIDE began publishing official rapid and blitz chess ratings, Nakamura ranked No. 1 in the world on both lists; he has remained at or near the No. 1 rank on both lists ever since. As of December 2022, he has won all of the last five Chess.com Speed Chess Championships.
Gisela Kahn Gresser was an American chess player. She dominated women's chess in the United States, winning the U.S. Women's Chess Championship nine times from 1944 to 1969.
Following are the results of the U.S. Women's Chess Championship from 1937 to date. The tournament determines the woman chess champion of the United States.
Mona May Karff was an American chess player. She dominated U.S. women's chess in the 1940s and early 1950s: she held seven U.S. Women's Chess Champion titles and four consecutive U.S. Open titles.
Nancy Roos was a U.S. chess champion.
Hou Yifan is a Chinese chess grandmaster, four-time Women's World Chess Champion and the second highest rated female player of all time. Once a chess prodigy, she was the youngest female player ever to qualify for the title of grandmaster and the youngest ever to win the Women's World Chess Championship.
The Women's World Chess Championship (WWCC) is played to determine the world champion in women's chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE.
The World Chess Championship 2007 was held in Mexico City, from 12 September 2007 to 30 September 2007 to decide the world champion of the game of chess. It was an eight-player, double round robin tournament.
At the World Chess Championship 1963, Tigran Petrosian narrowly qualified to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik for the World Chess Championship, and then won the match to become the ninth World Chess Champion. The cycle is particularly remembered for the controversy surrounding the Candidates' Tournament at Curaçao in 1962, which resulted in FIDE changing the format of the Candidates Tournament to a series of knockout matches.
Fabiano Luigi Caruana is an Italian and American chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, Caruana became a grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months, and 20 days—the youngest grandmaster in the history of both Italy and the United States at the time.
The U.S. Open Championship is an open national chess championship that has been held in the United States annually since 1900.
The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess tournament which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the knock out format; while in 2005/06 and 2006/07 it was played using the Swiss system. Alongside the main event there is the challengers section, which is open to all players. The winner of the challengers event earns an invitation in the following year's Premier.
The second unofficial Chess Olympiad was a team chess tournament held in Budapest from June 26 to July 15, 1926, during the third FIDE Congress. Six teams applied to contest the team tournament but Austria and Czechoslovakia withdrew before the start. Hungary won the tournament ahead of Yugoslavia, Romania and Germany.
The American Chess Congress was a series of chess tournaments held in the United States, a predecessor to the current U.S. Chess Championship. It had nine editions, the first played in October 1857 and the last in August 1923.
The World Blitz Chess Championship is a chess tournament held to determine the world champion in chess played under blitz time controls. Since 2012, FIDE has held an annual joint rapid and blitz chess tournament and billed it as the World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships. The current world blitz champion is the Norwegian Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen. Bibisara Assaubayeva from Kazakhstan is the current women's blitz world champion. Magnus Carlsen has won the event a record six times.
The World Rapid Chess Championship is a chess tournament held to determine the world champion in chess played under rapid time controls. Prior to 2012, FIDE gave such recognition to a limited number of tournaments, with non-FIDE recognized tournaments annually naming a world rapid champion of their own. Since 2012, FIDE has held an annual joint rapid and blitz chess tournament and billed it as the World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships. FIDE also holds the Women's World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship. The current rapid world champion is grandmaster Magnus Carlsen. Tan Zhongyi from China is the current women's rapid world champion. Carlsen has won the event a record four times.
While the World Chess Championship title, contested officially since 1886 and unofficially long before that, is in theory open to all players, it was for many years contested solely by men. In 1927, FIDE therefore established a Women's World Chess Championship exclusively for female players. Like the "open" title, the format for the women's championship has undergone several changes since then, the most important of which are described here.
Joshua E. Friedel is an American chess player with the FIDE title of Grandmaster. He was the U.S. Open Champion in 2013. He has had notable wins against GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Boris Gulko, Ben Finegold, Timur Gareyev, and Gregory Serper.
Sopiko Guramishvili is a Georgian-Dutch chess player, author, and commentator who holds the titles of International Master (IM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM). Having represented Georgia for the bulk of her playing career, she has been an under-16 girls' World Youth Champion and an under-18 girls' Georgian national champion. Guramishvili has a peak FIDE rating of 2441 and has been ranked as high as No. 42 in the world among women.
Marilyn Simmons was an American chess player who held the title of Women's International Master (WIM). Under an earlier name, Marilyn Braun, she was joint winner, with Eva Aronson, of the U.S. Women's Chess Championship (1972).