Two Perfect Scores at the US Chess Championship and the Echo of Forgotten Sidelines

One morning in Saigon, I reopened the standings of the US Chess Championship and lingered on two names. Wesley So. Awonder Liang. Both are on a perfect score, meaning neither has dropped half a point since the first round. On a few forums, people have started using phrases like "unstoppable" and "destroying form". I read those lines, then closed the tab. For anyone who has sat long enough beside a chessboard, a perfect start has never been the answer; it is only a question placed in the right spot.

What caught my attention was not the number, but the emptiness around it. No Elo rating, no number of games, no opponents' names, no complete standings. We know two players are leading, and we know very little beyond that. In the craft of writing about chess, that is precisely the moment to slow down. A perfect score, after all, is only a small, unfinished sample — it cannot predict the final standing, and it certainly should not be extrapolated into a conclusion about strength.

The US Chess Championship is a national-level event, and it does not sit on the direct path to the Candidates. It does not grant a place on the road to the world title. Its value lies elsewhere: national prestige, sponsorship contracts, and Elo points defended or gained. For a 2700 player, it is an event that must be won to hold position; for a young player, it is a springboard into the light.

Wesley So is a familiar face. He is a former US Champion who has lived in the 2700 zone for years. A perfect start from him fits his class, but it is not news in itself. Awonder Liang is the one worth tracking: a young grandmaster, and if this winning run lasts to the end of the event, that would be the real generational signal. Between the two, the younger one always tells the longer story.

In another corner of the results table, the line "Mark Paragua beats Yip" appears. Paragua is a veteran grandmaster; "Yip" most likely belongs to the women's field. Seeing these two names on the same line made me suspicious — quite possibly the open and women's events are running in parallel, and the feed merged them together. It is a small detail, but for anyone working with data, small details like that are often the first sign of a larger error.

The United States is currently one of the three strongest nations in terms of elite chess depth. Caruana, So, Nakamura, Dominguez — four 2700 names coexisting in a single country. Below them is a rising tier of young players, and below that, a scholastic system. What stands out is how America funds this layer: not only through the federation, but through online platforms, through players who double as streamers. That is a different model from India, where corporations and the state push together. India's depth is closing in fast, but the United States still holds the top tier.

The real technical story in this feed item lies in another section, and it comes from a nearly unrelated source: six instructional videos by IM Valeri Lilov on how Black should respond after 1.d4 d5.

Picture the board. White plays 1.d4, Black replies d5. Normally, White will play 2.c4 to enter the main systems — Slav, Semi-Slav, Queen's Gambit. But a group of players chooses another path: they delay or skip 2.c4 entirely, seeking a solid setup without memorizing too much heavy theory. These are the Colle System, the Trompowsky, the Torre Attack, the London System.

The product also brings in the Catalan, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and the Richter-Veresov. Technically, this is a well-trodden coaching field, repackaging secondary systems that have existed for a long time, without carrying any new invention. And there is nothing wrong with that — most club players do not need cutting-edge theory; they need something usable on a Saturday night.

The Richter-Veresov, with 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Bg5, is a system so rare that many players have never prepared for it. The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, with 1.d4 d5 2.e4, is a pawn-sacrifice gamble that club players love. Both share one trait: they appear rarely enough to be ignored, and suddenly enough to be annoying when encountered. But "rare" does not mean "dangerous". It only means "unprepared for".

But here is the point I want to stress: the true value of an opening repertoire lies not in how strong it is, but in how often it is actually used. The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and the Richter-Veresov are rare branches. For a Black player, the cost of learning them far exceeds the frequency with which they are actually faced. That is an economics of time, not a measure of strength. Theory writers often forget this, because they love completeness more than efficiency.

The feed calls these sidelines "extremely dangerous". I do not believe that is a measurement. It is the opening line of a defensive product: to sell a set of weapons, you must make the buyer believe the enemy is frightening. Fear is an effective business model. And in chess, that fear is measured in study hours, not in points.

The blind spot here is that we are reading two stories merged into one. The headline concerns the US Championship — a results item. The technical body concerns Lilov's video product — an advertising item. These two parts almost certainly come from two different articles, bundled into a single source. The real worry lies in the data. The chess is only the shell. A self-contradictory feed item is one that cannot be reused. If we build analysis on it, we are building on sand.

But if we set the mess aside, one signal is genuinely worth recording: the market for Black-side opening content is still alive. Courses like this exist on subscription platforms, serving the club-to-intermediate player — people who face the London or the Colle every week. For them, this is no small matter. It is a mature, low-risk market, and it will likely outlast any single championship.

Meanwhile, at the US Championship, two names remain on a perfect score. I am not writing about them as winners. I am writing about them as two questions still left open.

The true death of a golden generation is when we stop remembering them. But there is something that dies more quietly: a true story merged into the wrong place, and then no one bothers to check it again. Generations will pass, but the poem about them keeps being written — as long as the writer still bothers to pause and verify. An empty stand still has an echo — you only need to be quiet enough to hear it. Perhaps this time, the echo does not come from the board, but from the very way we tell its story.