While diversion of funds at U$CF results in mere pittances for players.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/cr...rssnyt&emc=rss

Many Top Players to Sit Out Championship Over Money

By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN
April 6, 2008



A qualifying tournament for the United States Championship was held last
weekend in Tulsa, Okla. Seven players earned spots, and five qualified based
on their national rankings after five of the country’s best players declined
invitations.


Top players are passing up this year’s event, to be held in May in Tulsa,
because they are unhappy about its prize fund and location.

Hikaru Nakamura, Larry Christiansen and Joel Benjamin, all past champions, are
not playing. Ildar Ibragimov, ranked No. 10 in the country, has declined. Gata
Kamsky, the No. 1 player and a past champion, did not respond to his
invitation.

The prizes range from $8,000 for first place to $1,000 for the last five in
the 24-player event.

Nakamura said he did not have fond memories of last year’s tournament, held in
Stillwater, Okla., where he finished in a tie for 10th. The “prestige has gone
down,” he said, blaming the United States Chess Federation. Christiansen said:
“A lot of professional players will sit it out for 8,000 bucks. It is lot of
work. The equivalent of one of these top-level games is like taking the bar
exam.”

Despite the holdouts, the competition will be formidable. Alexander Shabalov,
last year’s champion, will be one of 12 grandmasters in the field, as will
Alexander Onischuk, the 2006 winner.

Among the players who qualified was John Fedorowicz, a grandmaster from New
York, who secured his berth with a last-round win against Salvijus Bercys, an
international master.


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2008 The New York Times Company