The official entries for this year’s US championships have just been released by the St. Louis Chess Club. They are billing this as the strongest championship in history with three world top 10 players: Hideki Nakamura (6), Fabiano Caruana (3), and Wesley So (10). Four-time champ Gata Kamsky also will be playing. Also of interest is that there is a pair of 15-year-olds, Akshat Chandra of Texxas and Jeffrey Xiong of New Jersey. The oldest competitor is veteran Alexander Shabalov from Pennsylvania at 48. The only player on the men’s side with a local connection is Sam Shankland, who hails from California but attended Brandeis University

The women’s field includes defending champion Irina Krush and her main rival for many years, Anna Zatonskih. Twelve-year-old Carissa Yip from Andover has been invited based on her high rating, and also in the field are two 13-year-olds from Virginia, Jennifer Yu and Gorti Akshita.

The championships run from April 12 to 30 at the St. Louis Chess Club and will feature a total prize fund of $294,000, not including a special prize of $64,000 if someone should go 11-0 as Bobby Fischer did in the 1964 championship. For more information, visit SaintLouisChessClub.org.

The entire list of players is below:

Men’s field: Hikaru Nakamura (2869), Fabiano Caruana (2858), Wesley So (2848), Ray Robson (2752), Alexander Onischuk (2745), Gata Kamsky (2737), Alex Lenderman (2727), Varuzhan Akobian (2704), Sam Shankland (2723), Jeffrey Xiong (2675), Alexander Shabalov (2622), and Akshat Chandra (2608).

Women’s field: Anna Zatonskih (2542), Irina Krush (2535), Tatev Abrahamyan (2428), Katerina Nemcova (2428), Nazi Paikidze (2367), Anna Sharevich (2367), Sabina Foisor (2332), Jennifer Yu (2306), Carissa Yip (2305), Agata Bykotsev (2239), Ashritha Eswaran (2238), and Akshita Gorti (2297)

American Hideki Nakamura has pulled out another major victory. This time at the Zurich Challenge that has just concluded in Switzerland. In a somewhat offbeat format which included blitz, rapid and G/60 classical time limit games, Nakamura tied with Vishy Anand for first but had the better tie-breaks. He also won this event last year again over Anand and again on tie-break.

Winners: Boylston Winter G-80 Open: 1st: Aidan Sowa: 3-0, 2nd-3rd: Brandon Wu and Jason Tang: 2.5-.5; Under 1800: 1st-2nd: Robert Oresick and Joy Cao: 2.5-.5; Waltham First Friday, Open: 1st: Sherif Khater: 3.5-5, 2nd: Robert J. King: 3-1.

Coming events: Waltham February G/5 D0 (Blitz) Feb. 26, WalthamChessclub.org, 3rd Queen City Tornado, Feb. 27, New Hampshire Chess Association, Radisson Hotel Manchester, Contact: HalTerrie@Comcast.net, Concord Spiegel Cup Series Championship, Feb. 27, Concord-Carlisle Chess Club, www.Ace.Colonial.net/ChessClub

Answer to today’s problem: 1…Bc3! and there is no stopping 2…Ra1 mate.