Women In The City

You probably don't know and you might not care, but the 2004 US women's championship is underway at St. John's University in Manhattan. In fact, it is down to Friday's final round. I finally tracked down the official website. (Background here.) It also covers the "St. John's International Tournament" running in the same place at the same time. It includes GMs Fedorowicz, Benjamin, Yudasin, and venerable Yugoslav Boris Ivkov. Organizer Frank Brady (yes, the author of "Profile of a Prodigy" on Fischer) works at St. John's.

I haven't been able to find what looks to be the critical game of the Women's event, Shahade's win over Zatonskih. The game files are a mess and even the crosstables seem out of whack. There are an odd number of players in the women's event (7), but it should still be impossible to have one player with five results and others with three! (The site mentions some webmaster-scoresheet communication problems.) After four of six rounds 2002 champion Jennifer Shahade led with 3.5/4. I'm going to attend the event tomorrow for the final round. Maybe we'll even be able to figure out who won! [Update 0200: Apparently at least one game was postponed. The crosstables have been updated and it looks like Shahade has already clinched victory with 4.5/6. Allow me a Huzzah! for my friend and, interestingly, only non-Russian speaker in the field.]

The winner will get the fourth spot on the Women's Olympiad team and be the US women's champion for a few months, until the 2005 (?!?) championship in San Diego in November. (A fitting duration for a title won in a six-round event, really.) If the winner is Krush or Zatonskih, who are already on the team, there will be a playoff between the top finishers two not on the team. Defending women's champion Anna Hahn, who had been told the fourth spot was hers and felt railroaded by this impromptu event, declined to play.