Home • Learn to Play Chess • Improve Your Game • Chess History • Chess for Fun • Chess Blog

The Year 2004 in Review

Opens

In the United States, land of the Super Open, the results of the 2003 USCF Grand Prix were announced in April. GM Alek Wojtkiewicz of Maryland won 1st prize with 391.78 points, ahead of GM Jaan Ehlvest (2nd, 280.92) and GM Ildar Ibragimov (3rd, 256.86). It was Wojkiewicz' fifth consecutive year as the Grand Prix winner. In March, the USCF announced in a press release that it had 'reached an agreement with ChessCafe.com for the popular online website to sponsor the 2004 Grand Prix.' The release explained that The Grand Prix is an annual year long contest, held each year since 1979, that causes more frequent play by top players, encourages organizers to reward excellence by guaranteeing more prize money that Masters are eligible to win, and helps to raise money for USCF’s Professional Players Health & Benefits Fund. ChessCafe.com will be the third corporate sponsor in the history of the Grand Prix. The others were Church’s Chicken (1979-1986) and Novag Computers (1988-1998). The event was sponsored by individual donors in 2001 and USCF in other years. This year’s prize fund will be the largest since 2000 and will include 18 special merchandise prizes for juniors and seniors. Of the many events whose results are used to calculate Grand Prix points, a few offer the symbolic figure of 100 points or more. The events that reached this level in 2004 are shown by the date of each event's final round in the following table. 2004-01-19 120 Western Class Championships 2004-04-04 100 Millennium Chess Festival 2004-04-11 150 Foxwoods Open 2004-04-11 150 Far West Open 2004-05-31 150 Chicago Open 2004-06-13 200 CCA-ICC International 2004-06-13 100 Emory/Castle Grand Prix 2004-06-20 200 National Open (N) 2004-07-05 200 World Open 2004-07-18 120 Pacific Coast Open 2004-08-01 120 Continental Open 2004-08-15 150 U.S. Open (N) 2004-08-29 100 Atlantic Open 2004-09-06 100 Southern California Open 2004-09-06 150 North American FIDE Open 2004-10-17 200 Western States Open 2004-11-14 100 Kings Island Open 2004-11-28 120 National Chess Congress 2004-12-19 100 Edward Lasker Memorial 2004-12-25 150 Christmas Rapid Knockout 2004-12-29 150 North American Open 2004-12-29 100 Eastern Open The two events marked '(N)' are National Events, co-sponsored by the USCF. Alex Yermolinsky won the 6-round National Open (Las Vegas, NV) on tiebreak ahead of four other players. Seven players tied for first in the 9-round U.S. Open (Fort Lauderdale, FL), where there was no tiebreak. Next : Computers 2004

More of this Feature • The Best Players • World Championship • International Events • National Championships • Opens • Computers • Passages  Related Resources • Opens 2003