10/11/2026 – Wesley So and Awonder Liang remain the only players with perfect scores in the open section of the US Championship after two rounds. Fabiano Caruana stands alone in third place, half a point behind. In the women's tournament, the two lowest-rated participants, Thalia Cervantes and 13-year-old Megan Paragua, share the lead on 2/2. Paragua defeated defending champion Carissa Yip, who blundered in an equal position. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club
new: ChessBase Magazine 225
Chess Festival Prague 2025 with analyses by Aravindh, Giri, Gurel, Navara and others. ‘Special’: 27 highly entertaining miniatures. Opening videos by Werle, King and Ris. 10 opening articles with new repertoire ideas and much more. ChessBase Magazine offers first-class training material for club players and professionals! World-class players analyse their brilliant games and explain the ideas behind the moves. Opening specialists present the latest trends in opening theory and exciting ideas for your repertoire. Master trainers in tactics, strategy and endgames show you the tricks and techniques you need to be a successful tournament player! Available as a direct download (incl. booklet as pdf file) or booklet with download key by post. Included in delivery: ChessBase Magazine #225 as “ChessBase Book” for iPad, tablet, Mac etc.!
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You will learn how Black's dynamic piece activity and structural counterplay more than compensate for White's extra tempo in the colour-reversed setups.
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Open: So and Liang lead, Caruana moves into third place
Two players remain in contention for the Bobby Fischer Bonus Prize in the open section after the second round of the US Chess Championship in Saint Louis. The $64,000 prize will be awarded to any player who finishes the tournament with a perfect score of 11/11, matching Bobby Fischer's achievement at the 1963/64 US Championship - players can receive smaller bonuses for winning streaks of five to ten games, provided the streak begins in round one.
Wesley So and Awonder Liang are the only players to have won both their games so far, and they share first place with 2/2 points.
Five-time US champion Fabiano Caruana stands alone in third place on 1½ points after defeating Grigoriy Oparin with the white pieces on Saturday. The defending champion obtained a slight advantage and gradually increased the pressure as the game entered its technical phase. In a rook and knight endgame, Caruana converted his small edge into a full point.
The third round will feature a direct encounter between the two co-leaders. Liang will have the white pieces against So on Sunday, with at least one of them certain to lose his perfect record.
In this video course experts examine the games of Bent Larsen. Let them show you which openings Larsen chose, where his strength in middlegames were, how he outplayed his opponents in the endgame & you’ll get a glimpse of his tactical abilities! Bent Larsen (1935–2010) was the greatest chess player in Danish history, and for a time, the second-strongest player in the Western world behind Bobby Fischer. Between 1954 and 1971, he won the Danish Championship six times, and achieved numerous international tournament victories throughout his career.
Free video sample: Introduction to Bent Larsen by Peter Heine Nielsen
Free video sample: Introduction to the Opening Section
Israeli living legend Boris Gelfand visited the playing hall | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Fabiano Caruana scored his first win of the event on Saturday | Photo: Lennart Ootes
So collected his second consecutive victory despite once again finding himself in considerable difficulties during the middlegame. Playing white against Jeffery Xiong, the three-time US champion faced a strong initiative on the kingside from his 25-year-old opponent. Xiong obtained the upper hand and had promising attacking possibilities, but failed to find the most effective way to increase the pressure.
After So managed to neutralise the immediate threats and restore the balance, Xiong began to struggle as the players approached the time control. A series of inaccuracies left the black position increasingly vulnerable, and So took advantage of the change in circumstances to secure the full point.
While tactics decide the game in concrete moments, strategy guides the entire battle. Understanding how to improve your pieces, create weaknesses, execute maneuvers, and steer the game toward favorable structures is what defines strong players. After exploring the fundamentals of calculation in his first ChessBase course, International Master Kostya Kavutskiy now turns to the other half of chess mastery: positional play.
This course offers a structured and practical introduction to the core elements of positional chess.
For the second day in a row, So survived a difficult position before eventually emerging victorious. On Friday, he had similarly benefited from a missed opportunity by Sam Shankland.
Liang's second victory was more straightforward. Playing black against Sam Sevian, he faced a King's Indian Attack and successfully contained his opponent's initiative on the kingside. While Sevian attempted to generate attacking chances, Liang gradually advanced his pawns on the opposite flank, gaining space and creating weaknesses in White's position.
The contrast between the two players' plans eventually favoured Liang, whose queenside play proved more effective than Sevian's kingside operations.
Grandmaster Dr. Karsten Müller, one of the world’s leading endgame experts, guides you step by step through everything you need to know in this second volume. Picture this: you’ve outplayed your opponent move by move, you’re clearly better – and then the endgame slips into a draw, simply because you lacked the crucial theoretical knowledge. That is exactly where this course comes in. Without solid endgame skills, there’s no way forward. Rook endgames are most essential: they occur more often than any other type of endgame, and often make the difference between victory and half a point. If you master them, you’ll confidently convert your advantages into wins!
Free video sample: Introduction
Free video sample: Bodycheck
Having already defeated Hans Niemann in the opening round, Liang maintained his perfect score with a second win, this time with the black pieces.
Standings after round 2
All games
Women's: Underdogs Cervantes and Paragua still perfect
The women's championship also has two players still in contention for the Bobby Fischer Bonus Prize. Rather unexpectedly, the co-leaders are the two lowest-rated participants in the event, and the only players in the field rated below 2300.
Thalia Cervantes, aged 23, and Megan Paragua, aged 13, have both started with two consecutive victories and share first place on 2/2 points.
Paragua, the youngest participant across both sections of the US Championships, has made a particularly notable start, defeating Anna Sargsyan in the opening round before getting the better of defending champion and top seed Carissa Yip on Saturday. Cervantes, meanwhile, has twice recovered from inferior positions to score victories, demonstrating her tactical alertness in complicated middlegames.
The two leaders are followed half a point behind by Anna Zatonskih and Alice Lee, both on 1½/2. Zatonskih followed up her first-round victory with a draw on Saturday, while Lee has had a rather different route to the same score. After escaping with a draw from a losing position against Yip in the opening round, Lee found herself in difficulties again against Jennifer Yu. This time, however, she managed not only to recover but also to turn the tables and claim a full point.
The continuous stream of new ideas in the Sicilian makes 1..c5 the most popular answer to 1.e4. On this DVD I do give an introduction to the most important Sicilian systems.
Irina Krush talks both about her round-one blunder and her bounce back victory
Cervantes obtained her second victory by defeating Rachael Li with the white pieces. As in her first-round encounter against Tatev Abrahamyan, the 23-year-old found herself in an inferior position but managed to generate sufficient counterplay to pose practical problems for her opponent. Her willingness to seek active possibilities paid off once again, as she successfully turned the game around.
Having benefited from Abrahamyan's tactical oversight on Friday, Cervantes demonstrated similar resourcefulness against Li.
Besides in-depth theory and exciting tactical exercises in the Scotch Game, this video course also includes a bonus section on the Scotch Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Bc4), a lively variation often leading to very dynamic positions.
Thalia Cervantes | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Paragua's victory over Yip was arguably the most significant result of the second round. Facing the four-time US women's champion with the black pieces, the teenager emerged comfortably from the opening, having equalised against the Sicilian Alapin. She subsequently obtained a positional edge, although she was unable to turn it into a more substantial advantage.
Yip managed to restore the balance and appeared to have weathered the difficulties. However, with the position objectively equal, the top seed committed a decisive blunder that allowed a forced checkmate in four moves.
The mistake brought the encounter to an abrupt conclusion and handed Paragua her second victory in as many rounds.
Carlos Alberto ColodroCarlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
10/11/2026 – The 2026 US Chess Championships are taking place on 9-21 October at the Saint Louis Chess Club. Each tournament is a 12-player single round-robin with a classical time control. Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Levon Aronian are the highest-rated players in the open, while Carissa Yip (pictured), Alice Lee and Irina Krush head the women's field. | Follow the action live starting at 19.00 CEST (13.00 ET, 22.30 IST) | Photo: Lennart Ootes
10/10/2026 – Wesley So, Awonder Liang and Jeffery Xiong scored victories with the white pieces in the opening round of the US Championship in Saint Louis, while defending champion Fabiano Caruana drew his game against Levon Aronian in just 17 moves. In the women's tournament, four lower-rated players claimed victories, including Rachael Li, who benefited from a surprising blunder by eight-time champion Irina Krush. | Photo: Crystal Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club
What to do against the Pirc? Many players find it difficult to play against Black’s set-up. Try the Austrian Attack! It is a solid but dangerous weapon and guarantees White an effective attack from the very start! Learn the key tricks of this deadly line and crush the Pirc with ease!
YOUR PERSONAL CHESS COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
The Nimzo-Indian has stood the test of time for over a century: Still a top choice for elite players today, from Magnus Carlsen to Praggnanandhaa, it remains one of Black's most reliable ways to fight for real chances against 1.d4 2.c4 3.Nc3.
1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Bb4!? is an opening idea well worth considering. Black immediately threatens to double the pawns on c3 in the style of the Trompowski or Sicilian Grand Prix attack.
Italian Game Powerbase 2026 is a database and contains 8571 top class games from Mega 2026 and the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 479 are annotated.
Videos: Nico Zwirs discusses the Sicilian with 2…e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Qe3 Nf6 6.Nc3. Mihail Marin examines Sindarov’s 6.Ne5 in the Queen’s Pawn Defence. Plus the ‘Lucky bag’ featuring 41 analyses by Berg, Ftacnik, Gupta and many others.
If you're looking for a dynamic alternative to the Slav, Queen's Gambit Declined, or other mainstream systems, the Chigorin Defence offers exactly what modern tournament players need.
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