US Chess Championship: Wesley So and Awonder Liang Stay Perfect — But What Is the 'Perfect Score' Hiding?

In the first rounds of the US Chess Championship, Wesley So has won every game. Awonder Liang has won every game too. Two names, two generations, sitting on the same flawless column of the standings, and within hours the chess forums were flooded with the word "perfect". I read those lines at 2 a.m. Delhi time, a cold cup of tea in my hand, and one question nobody bothered to ask ran through my head: perfect compared to what?

Mistakes are not what frightens me; kneeling to pick up the tape at 2 a.m. is what makes a forecaster. I rewound those games not to find beauty, but to find numbers. And what I found was an information gap so large it was suspicious. Not a single Elo rating, not a specific round count, not one opponent's name. Just the word "perfect", passed from hand to hand like goods at a market.

To be fair, I must set the context before I criticise. The US Chess Championship is a national event, usually run as a single round-robin, gathering the strongest players the US Chess Federation invites or grants wild cards. It is one of the strongest national championships on the planet, because the United States currently owns a golden generation: Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura, Leinier Dominguez — names hovering around 2700 Elo.

Wesley So is no newcomer. He is a former US champion who once reached world number two at his peak, known for an extremely solid style, almost never blundering, and very hard to beat in long games. When a player like So starts with all wins, that is normal for his class, not an event that makes news.

Awonder Liang is different. He belongs to the young American generation, once noted for earning the grandmaster title at a very young age, and part of the rising wave alongside Christopher Yoo and Abhimanyu Mishra. If a young player starts with all wins at a national event, that is the signal worth watching — not because of the score, but because it hints at his ability to handle pressure against older opponents.

Here I must tell a story most coverage of the US Championship skipped. While reading about those two perfect scores, I stumbled upon an advertisement embedded in the feed: a set of six instructional videos by an international master, teaching how to play Black against the opening systems White likes to use after 1.d4 d5.

That is a very real, very specific topic, and one worth discussing seriously. After 1.d4 d5, if White plays 2.c4, we enter mainstream theory: the Queen's Gambit, the Slav, the Semi-Slav, the Queen's Gambit Accepted. These are systems dissected move by move for over a century, where every line has a name and every name has a book.

But most club and intermediate players do not play that way. They avoid 2.c4. They play the Colle System, the Trompowsky, the Torre Attack, the London System. These four names share one thing: White delays or omits c4, builds a solid structure, light on theory, light on risk, and waits for Black to create his own problems.

The London System: White puts the bishop on f4 then plays e3, fixing a structure solid as concrete. The Colle System: the same spirit but with the bishop on d3, aiming at the e4 break. The Trompowsky: 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5, an early irritant attacking the f6 knight. The Torre Attack: 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bg5, the same philosophy.

All four revolve around one idea: avoid main-line theory, play solidly, and force the opponent to solve the puzzle himself. For Black, preparing against them is a mandatory part of any serious repertoire — but it is a different skill from mastering the Slav or the QGD.

The product I stumbled across also includes the Catalan (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3), the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.e4, a notorious pawn sacrifice beloved at club level), and the Richter-Veresov (1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Bg5). These are low-frequency systems. The Catalan is high-frequency and serious; the Blackmar-Diemer and Richter-Veresov are rare lines whose study cost is high relative to their practical value.

And here is my core claim: this product is not a theoretical invention but a repackaging of long-existing sideline systems, sold through fear. They are not teaching you something new; they are selling you a feeling of safety in front of names you have not yet learned.

When an instructional product calls the Colle, Trompowsky, Torre and London "extremely dangerous", that is a language trap. The Colle and London are not dangerous because they are sharp. They are dangerous because they are boring — they strip Black of theoretical games, where the stronger player usually wins. It is a psychological and structural threat, not a tactical one.

The real danger lies elsewhere. If you are a club player, you will face the London System every week. You will not face the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit once a month. Yet they sell you a product covering both, at the same price and with the same promise.

That is when I remember 2026, when stadiums around the world stood empty because of the pandemic. In those empty stadiums, I found tactical diagrams lying quietly under the seats instead of the roar of the crowd. I sat through twenty matches from the 2026 to 2026 World Cups, and I discovered that when the crowd noise is gone, players expose their true structure — nothing is concealed. An opening course is the same. Peel off the marketing and you see the real structure: an old body of theory, freshly packaged.

There was another detail that made me pause. In that mixed feed, the results portion mentioned Mark Paragua beating a player named "Yip". Mark Paragua is a Filipino grandmaster, an experienced player of real strength. "Yip" is very likely a player in the US women's field. If so, those two results belong to two different brackets, merged into a single line. That is a sign of an editing error, not a chess event.

I do not say this to nitpick for fun. I say it because it directly affects how readers judge the reliability of information. When a report blends tournament results with product advertising, and blends two brackets into one line, the reader loses the ability to tell event from sales pitch.

In today's chess-news environment, where feeds are aggregated automatically, this blending is a systemic hazard. An auto-collected source can attach one article's headline to another's body, and nobody checks. Readers read, believe, share, and a small error becomes a large fact.

I once mispronounced a player's name, and then read the game correctly when the slow-motion replay appeared before my eyes. In 2026, at the World Cup opener, I mispronounced a player's name three times in the first half. Afterwards I promised myself I would rewatch the full footage of all thirty-two teams' matches within two weeks. I kept that promise. And precisely because of it, during the semi-finals, I dared to publish a claim everyone mocked: the eventual champion would win not through a young scoring star, but through a striker who scored no goals yet made the entire defensive system function.

When that team won, my name became attached to one of the most debated predictions of the tournament. But the lesson I carried away was not "I was right". The lesson was: when you watch enough, you begin to see what others overlook — and most of it lies where nobody bothers to look.

That is why I apply the same method to this US Championship story. I do not ask who is leading. I ask: which information can be verified, and which is just a label? Two perfect scores, with no opponents, no round count, no Elo ratings — that is not data. That is a story.

And stories can be sold. That is the intersection of the two halves of the mixed feed I read: both are products sold to a specific audience. One sells the thrill of an ongoing tournament. One sells the safety of a complete repertoire. Both work, and neither gives you what you actually need: a way to judge information for yourself.

Now comes the part where I correct myself, as I always do when I catch others in error. There is a chance I am wrong, and I want to say it plainly.

Perhaps that opening product is genuinely useful to a specific group: club players, online players around 1500 to 2026 Elo, people who really do face the London System every day and really do lose to it. For them, a document systematising the counter-plans could save dozens of hours of fumbling. I have no right to dismiss that.

And I must also admit: there is nothing ethically wrong with selling an opening course. It is a mature market, low cost, low risk. The problem is not the selling. The problem is placing it beside a tournament-results report and letting readers confuse the two.

Perhaps I am also wrong to undervalue the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. At some levels, preparing for rare moves has great psychological value: you do not want to be surprised by a reckless opponent. But the study cost of those systems is high, and their encounter rate is low. For someone with limited time, that is a far from obvious trade.

Perhaps I am wrong on a larger point too. Perhaps "perfect score" is not a meaningless label but a real signal of form — just presented without data. If so, the fault lies with the writer, not the event. And that, in turn, reinforces my point: the problem is information quality, not chess quality.

I have stood amid arguments like this for ten years. The fire lit by a question I asked in a press room in 2026 still burns. That year I was the only female reporter in the room, and I asked a question nobody wanted to hear about a star striker dropping deep while no one pushed forward. A male colleague sneered, asking what a woman knew about pressing. I wrote plainly: a woman does not need to understand pressing; the coach does. The next match, that team lost for exactly that flaw.

That lesson has followed me through my career. I never apologise for my direct tone, but I always ensure every criticism carries a specific number to silence anyone who doubts my competence. That is why I will not accept a report with nothing behind the word "perfect".

Now I want to address something that, as someone covering chess for the Indian market, I cannot ignore. While the United States boasts of its depth — Caruana, So, Nakamura, Dominguez — India is closing the depth gap frighteningly fast. This is no longer a story of a few stars. It is the story of an entire youth-development system.

If a young American like Awonder Liang starting with all wins at a national event makes news, then in India, a teenager beating a 2700 Elo grandmaster has become routine. That is a bigger signal than any perfect score at a national event.

I watch both systems from Delhi, where I live and work. I see the difference in model. The US is strong through platforms and private capital — the ecosystem of online chess sites, player-streamers, private academies. India is strong through a large-scale youth-development system, with both state and corporate involvement, and a near-inexhaustible talent supply.

These two models are competing at the deepest layer of world chess: the layer that produces talent. And in that competition, a national event with two perfect scores is just a small data point. An interesting one, but small.

This brings me back to that opening product. If talent depth is shifting toward large-scale youth systems, the demand for opening study will shift too. Products teaching how to face the London, Colle and Trompowsky will not disappear. They will grow, because the more people play chess at club level, the more need a repertoire that is easy to learn, easy to remember, easy to apply.

That is why I do not dismiss this market. I only dismiss how it is presented. A decent opening product should say plainly: this is what you will learn, this is how often you will meet it, this is the Elo level it suits. Instead, everything gets the label "extremely dangerous", and the buyer is left to guess.

In my trade, there is one principle I have kept for forty-four years: never let readers guess what you could state clearly. If I call an opening dangerous, I must say dangerous to whom, at what level, and based on how many games. Without those three, I am selling a feeling, not information.

So I return to my opening question and answer it seriously. "Perfect" at the US Championship, all things considered, means what? It means two players have won all the games played so far. It does not mean they will win the title. It does not mean they are at their career peak. It does not mean they are stronger than every remaining opponent. It only means that, over a certain number of rounds, they did what needed to be done.

In chess, as in football, a short win streak is a small sample. And a small sample is, by definition, a weak predictor. A player can win three opening rounds through a favourable schedule, through opponent blunders, or simply through luck at decisive moments. Without specific opponents and round counts, we cannot tell strength from schedule.

That is why I do not predict a champion from the word "perfect". But I still watch, because one variable is genuinely worth attention: Awonder Liang. If he keeps winning, and if his performance rating exceeds his own Elo across the event, that is the signal worth discussing. That is how I judge a young player: not by score, but by the gap between performance and rating.

Wesley So is different. He has been at the top long enough for us to know who he is. A good start by So merely confirms what we already know. It opens no new question. And in my trade, an event that opens no new question is not news.

Now let me say plainly what I think of how this report was presented. It merges two articles into one: a tournament-results report and a course advertisement. It merges two brackets into one line. And it stamps "perfect" on a data sample with nothing to support it. Those three errors, combined, produce a read that looks complete but is actually empty.

I am not writing this to attack an anonymous editor. I am writing to say that information quality is a skill, and that skill is being undervalued. In a world where chess news is aggregated automatically and spread within minutes, readers need a better filter. And writers need a higher standard.

My standard is simple: every claim must carry a number. If I say a player is rising, I must give his performance rating. If I say an opening is dangerous, I must give its frequency and level. If I say a tournament is underway, I must give the round count and opponent names. Without those three, I am only telling stories.

And telling stories is fine, as long as you call it by its right name. A course advertisement should be called a course advertisement. A results report should be called a results report. When you blend them and label the result analysis, you harm both the reader and the very product you are selling.

I know some will say I am making too much of this. Chess is a game; what is the harm in one mixed report? But I have spent my career covering sports, and I know that small errors in how information is presented tend to accumulate into large misunderstandings. Today it is one merged feed item. Tomorrow it is a decision made on bad information.

That is why I work until 2 a.m. That is why I rewind the tape. That is why I ask "perfect compared to what" instead of nodding along with the crowd. My job is not to make readers comfortable. My job is to help them see a little more clearly than last time.

And I think the same holds for that opening product. If its sellers spoke plainly about its scope and limits, it would be far more useful. A course that says "this is what I teach, this is what I do not" is more credible than one that promises everything. Honesty, after all, is a better marketing strategy than exaggeration — it is just a little slower.

Now I want to close with something I believe firmly. The US Championship will go on, and the perfect scores will soon break, like every perfect score before them. One player will draw, another will lose, and the "perfect" story will vanish within days. What remains will be real numbers: performance ratings, Elo, opponent quality.

That is why I do not build my judgement on what will vanish in days. I build it on what remains after the event ends. Wesley So will still be Wesley So, a player above 2700 Elo. Awonder Liang is the real variable, and I will track his performance against his own rating. As for that opening product, it will still be there, selling to people afraid of the London System — and that is a market that never dries up.

What I want readers to take away is not a prediction about the champion. It is a habit: every time you read the word "perfect", ask "perfect compared to what". Every time you read "extremely dangerous", ask "dangerous to whom". Chess does not lack information. It lacks people willing to spend two hours at 2 a.m. rewinding the tape and asking where they read it wrong.

Ten years amid arguments, the fire lit by a question I asked in 2026 still burns. That fire does not warm me. It only reminds me that most truths in sport are buried under three layers of advertising, and that the job of someone in my trade is to dig them up.

So when the US Championship closes, I will not remember who stayed perfect in round three. I will remember who proved something with a number. That is the standard I keep, and the standard I want my readers to keep too.