U.S. Championship Looms Large...As Do Chubby Arbiters

The word from Sheboygan this morning is that the 2011 US Championships begin Friday in St. Louis.

(I'm told that St. Louis himself is not expected to participate in this year's event, having been dead for over eight hundred years--though that didn't stop Korchnoi from playing him in a 2006 "seance match.")

Two separate Round Robins will determine who plays in the semifinals. This actually irks me, because first of all: who the hell are these Robin guys? And what does their body type have to do with it? What, like a Svelte Robin or a Gangly Robin wouldn't be qualified to make this determination?

More importantly: what gives these guys the right to just arbitrarily determine who plays in the semifinals? Why not have the players compete to determine that, as in previous championships?

Nevertheless, as the table below indicates, these corpulent arbiters (who, in true Dr. Seuss fashion, have been designated "#1" and #2) have already divided the field as they see fit:

Round Robin 1				Round Robin 2
No.	First Name	Last Name	FIDE Rating	No.	First Name	Last Name	FIDE Rating
1.	Gata	Kamsky	2733	1.	Alexander	Onischuk	2678
2.	Yury	Shulman	2622	2.	Yasser	Seirawan	2636
3.	Varuzhan	Akobian	2611	3.	Alexander	Shabalov	2590
4.	Jaan	Ehlvest	2586	4.	Larry	Christiansen	2586
5.	Alexander	Stripunsky	2578	5.	Gregory	Kaidanov	2569
6.	Alexander	Ivanov	2540	6.	Robert	Hess	2565
7.	Ray	Robson	2522	7.	Sam	Shankland	2512
8.	Daniel	Naroditsky	2438	8.	Ben	Finegold	2500
Average Rating			2578.75	Average Rating			2579.5

The women--while much more interesting-looking than the men--apparently don't get their own crosstable: 

1. IM Anna Zatonskih
2. IM Irina Krush
3. IM Rusadan Goletiani
4. WGM Camilla Baginskaite
5. WIM Tatev Abrahamyan
6. WIM Sabina Foisor
7. FM Alisa Melekhina
8. WIM Iryna Zenyuk