Chess · Worth knowing

GM Wesley So celebrated his 33rd birthday with a victory over GM Sam Shankland in Round 1 of the 2026 U.S. Chess Championship held in St. Louis. GMs Jeffery Xiong and Awonder Liang also secured wins, with Xiong defeating GM Sam Sevian in a complex pawn endgame featuring the "related squares" theme, while Liang won against GM Hans Niemann despite calling it a poorly played game by both sides. In the Women's Championship, WIM Rachael Li benefited from GM Irina Krush's queen blunder in an otherwise winning position, while IM Anna Zatonskih and FMs Thalia Cervantes and Megan Paragua also won their opening matches. The two-week championship runs through October 22, serving as the U.S. FIDE zone qualification event for the next World Cup, with prize funds of $250,000 for the Open section and $152,000 for the Women's section.

Robert Ris, an International Master, has developed a comprehensive series of opening courses on ChessBase that go beyond memorization to teach strategic understanding. His courses combine concrete opening theory with foundational concepts, covering systems after both 1.d4 and 1.e4. Notable offerings include "Mastering Pattern Recognition in the Opening," which teaches ten universal opening themes through interactive exercises, and "Basic Opening Strategy," which covers fundamental principles like center control, development, and king safety. Ris's repertoire courses for Black against 1.d4 feature the Queen's Gambit Accepted, Budapest Gambit, and various anti-systems, while his 1.e4 repertoires include comprehensive coverage of the Sicilian Defense alongside courses on the Scandinavian and Open Games. His approach emphasizes understanding middlegame transitions and responding to deviations rather than pure memorization, supplemented with interactive exercises and model games to reinforce learning.