U.S. Championship: Day 1

Go to the USCF's website for the games and an update, but as always, go to TWIC to download game scores.

The surprise of the round was Krush's victory over Kaidanov.

Ray held is own in his game with Kamsky until 30...Red8. Black would have been okay after 30...e4. 31.b4 would still coming after 30...e4, but Black would have a Rook on the first rank that could swing over to defend the b pawn.

U.S. Championship: ChessBase Warmup

ChessBase has a good intro to the US Championship posted.  Take a look here. 

The participants are:
The defending U.S. Champion - GM Hikaru Nakamura
The winner of the 2009 U.S. Senior Open Championship - GM Larry Christiansen
The winner of the 2009 U.S. Junior Championship - GM Ray Robson
The top five qualifiers from the 2009 U.S. Open Championship - GM Alex Lenderman, GMs Sergey Kudrin, Alex Yermolinsky, Dmitry Gurevich, and Jesse Kraai
The winner of the 2010 ICC State Champion of Champions - IM Levon Altounian

and...
GM Gata Kamsky
GM Alexander Onischuk
GM Varuzhan Akobian
GM Yury Shulman
GM Jaan Ehlvest
GM Alexander Shabalov
GM Gregory Kaidanov
GM Robert Hess
GM Melikset Khachiyan
GM Joel Benjamin
GM Ben Finegold
GM Alexander Stripunsky
GM Vinay Bhat
IM Sam Shankland
IM Irina Krush

If you're a USCF member, you can still form a fantasy team at the USCF website here.  The cutoff is today (May 14) @ 3 pm EST.