US Championship 2003 — Seattle
Seattle hosted the national championship for a second straight year, again as a 58-player Swiss with the men's and women's titles decided in one field. Alexander Shabalov needed six hours to grind down 18-year-old Varuzhan Akobian in the last round, but the win carried him to 6½/9 — a clean half-point ahead of a seven-player pack — for his third of four US titles, no playoff required. In the women's event, Anna Hahn beat two former champions in a three-way rapid playoff to take her only national crown.
A 58-player field returns to Seattle
America's Foundation for Chess (the renamed Seattle Chess Foundation) staged the championship a second time at the Northwest Rooms of Seattle Center, with a prize fund again above $250,000 and $25,000 for the winner. The 58-player field mixed 20 automatically seeded players (12 men, 8 women), 36 qualifiers from around the country, and two wildcard entries, playing nine Swiss rounds with the men's and women's titles decided together, as in 2002.
Shabalov survives the last round
Six players were within half a point of the lead entering the final round. Sixth-seeded Shabalov outlasted Akobian in a six-hour final-round game to close at 6½/9, finishing a clear half-point ahead of a seven-way tie for second on 6/9 that included Joel Benjamin, John Fedorowicz, Alexander Goldin, Boris Gulko, Alexander Ivanov, Gregory Kaidanov and Alexander Stripunsky. With most of the rest of the round drawn, Shabalov's win settled the title outright and gave him his third of an eventual four US Championships (1993, 2000, 2003, 2007); sponsor Erik Anderson awarded both Shabalov and Akobian $5,000 fighting-spirit prizes for the game.
Hahn beats two former champions in the women's playoff
Defending women's champion Jennifer Shahade, 1998 champion Irina Krush, and Anna Hahn all finished at 4½/9, forcing a three-way rapid playoff that Hahn won to claim her only US Women's Championship. The title qualified her for the 2004 Women's World Chess Championship, where she was eliminated in the first round by Pia Cramling.
Result
The 2003 championship was a 58-player, nine-round Swiss at Seattle, men and women in one field. All 261 games are archived here in round order; a Swiss has no round-robin cross table, so none is computed.