123^rd US Open Championship

The US Open is one of, if not the, largest open chess tournaments in the United States. This year (2023), it was held in Grand Rapids; while I had no expectations of actually placing, even in the bottom class E bracket — I am presently a class F player, after all — this was basically a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in such a significant event without even having to travel, so I felt compelled to sign up.

Similarly, although I had given up on cataloguing every one of my rated chess games on this website at the end of 2021 (it was kind of tedious), playing in a US Open felt like a big enough deal that I decided to revive the practice for this one tournament.

The US Open is a nine-game Swiss system tournament with a time control of 40/100;SD30;inc30. I chose to follow the traditional schedule, with one game each day; two shorter schedules, one spanning six days and the other spanning four, but all merging at the end, were also available.

• Round 1: White, 872 vs. Robert Bemben, 1833 (loss)
• Round 2: Black, 872 vs. Aryan Buchireddy, 1542 (loss)
• Round 3: White, 872 vs. Richard Bickerstaff, Unrated (win)
• Round 4: Black, 872 vs. Clark Brown, 1500 (loss)
• Round 5: Black, 872 vs. Samuel Thompson, 1494 (loss)
• Round 6: White, 872 vs. Raymond Lebeau, Unrated (win)
• Round 7: Black, 872 vs. John-Marc Ormechea, 1371 (loss)
• Round 8: White, 872 vs. Joseph Ross, 1433 (win)
• Round 9: White, 872 vs. Sarah Ramson, 1322 (loss)