Guest Author
By Walter High
This Thanksgiving weekend, November 2024, Charlotte will become the Chess Epicenter of the country. How did Charlotte become so Chess-savvy? Actually, Queen City’s chess roots run deep.
Chess is one of the oldest continuously played games in the world, with roots that trace back over 1,500 years to the Indian subcontinent. The game also has a rich history in North Carolina and now particularly in Charlotte. Thirty years ago, Charlotte produced Mike Klein who became the best scholastic chess player in North Carolina while in the sixth grade. He has now gone on to become the renowned “Fun Master Mike” on chess.com where he is beloved by youth chess players across the globe.
More recently, Peter Giannatos came up through the Charlotte scholastic ranks with an unmatched passion for chess. Graduating from UNC-Charlotte with a business degree, this son of Greek immigrants was determined to establish a brick-and-mortar chess club for the city. He began organizing chess tournaments while still in high school and found his calling in teaching chess to others. In 2014, Giannatos founded the Charlotte Chess Center (CCC) with initial financial help from the Charlotte community. It now operates chess instruction programs in over 60 elementary schools in the greater Charlotte metropolitan area, reaching nearly 2,000 children. The Center also provides regular on-site instruction and competition at its two locations, making chess available to the community every day of the week.
While Giannatos worked on enhancing chess in Charlotte, I used my organizational skills toward creating better chess opportunities for state residents by establishing a series of local tournaments in the central part of North Carolina.
The goal was to bring strong competition into North Carolina rather than having local players travel outside the state to seek such challenges. He successfully used his Carolinas Chess Initiative organization to bid for and win the right to host the United States Masters Chess Championship, a tournament designed for Master-level competition. From 2012 to 2019 this Greensboro-based tournament attracted worldwide attention, becoming the strongest open tournament in the United States with players from dozens of countries.
COVID-19 hastened an inevitable merger of the Carolinas Chess Initiative into the Charlotte Chess Center, bringing the U.S. Masters Championship into an already strong stable of regional tournaments operated by the CCC. Bringing the Masters to Charlotte caused an immediate doubling of the tournament’s attendance and strength in 2021. The presence of this championship event has helped enhance the status of chess in both Charlotte and the rest of North Carolina.
Charlotte has become a chess hub for the southeastern U.S., drawing attendance at its tournaments from Virginia to Florida along with smaller contingents from more distant states. Several top Grandmaster players such as Daniel Naroditsky, a popular chess streamer, have moved to Charlotte because of the community’s support for chess. This success brought the CCC national recognition, recently winning awards for both the U.S. Chess Club of the Year and for Charlotte as the Chess City of the Year.
The November 2024 edition of the U.S. Masters Chess Championship will feature USA Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana, the world’s #3 player by ranking. Caruana has chosen to play in Charlotte because the Masters tournament is now a component part of the FIDE Circuit, a small group of international tournaments that allow players to qualify toward playing for the world chess championship. A win in Charlotte for Caruana could propel him into the final qualifying tournament to choose the next challenger for the world title. To win the U.S. Masters, however, Caruana will have to defeat a field of approximately 50 Grandmasters and many more International Masters from dozens of countries.
The presence of Caruana will swell the attendance at the Masters as titled players from several continents flock to Charlotte to compete. With a guaranteed prize pool of $28,000, combined with the chance to play Caruana, this will be one of the strongest tournaments in all of U.S. chess history.
Running alongside the US Masters will be the North Carolina Open, which allows players of all rating levels to compete over three days. Both tournaments will be held side-by side at Westin Hotel in uptown Charlotte, conveniently located in the city center. Tournament dates are November 27 – December 1, 2024. It is expected that over 600+ competitors will compete across the two events.
The event will be live streamed on chess.com and hosted by GM Daniel Naroditsky and GM Kayden Troff.
How to Experience the 2024 US Masters
The tournament venue will be open to the public and will have several activities such as live commentary, blitz challenges, and lectures during the five days of tournament play. However, during the competition, only players and officials are allowed into the tournament halls. So, the best way to watch the top matches is to live-stream the CCC broadcast of the US Masters. Visit charlottechesscenter.org for the live-stream link as well as more details on the Masters and North Carolina Open.
