Perfect Scores at the US Chess Championship: Wesley So, Awonder Liang and Six Misfiled Opening Videos

At the opening round of the US Chess Championship, the feed showed two names sharing the perfect-score column: Wesley So and Awonder Liang. The professional reflex of anyone who works with data is to open the full standings, find the opponents, find the ratings, count the rounds played. But the page gave nothing. Not a single rating. Not a single opponent name. Not a single specific round. Only the word "perfect" hanging in the void, and at the bottom of the page, an invitation to buy a set of six opening videos.

That is where I stopped. Not because Wesley So was winning. But because the second story did not belong to the first.

The headline announced the US Chess Championship. The body, however, discussed Black's plans after the move 1.d4 d5 — that is, an opening-training product. Two narrative threads run side by side without ever meeting: one is a competitive result, the other is a product advertisement. One feed, two articles, pasted onto a single page. For someone who has spent 32 years at the commentary desk, that is not a minor detail. It is a signal.

I once believed in emotion, until a number knocked on my door at 3 a.m. That night the number was not anyone's score. It was a data error.

To read this feed correctly, it must be placed in the right frame. The US Chess Championship is a national championship, gathering the strongest players of the Western chess world. It is a prestigious event, with prize money, sponsorship, and brand value — but it sits outside the qualification cycle of the world championship. Winning the American title does not take you straight to the Candidates. It is national prestige, not a stage of the world cycle. That shapes how people follow it: through pride and through rating, not through a qualifying berth.

Within that frame, Wesley So is a thoroughly familiar name. He belongs to the elite of American chess, a former national champion who has held a rating above 2700 for years. A perfect start is no surprise for him; it is consistent with his class, but on its own it is not news. Awonder Liang is different. He is younger, part of the rising generation, and a perfect start from him is the more meaningful signal to watch. There are players the world forgets, but data never forgets them — and here, the data has only just begun to record.

Then comes the second half of the page, the part that tilts everything. It is a promotion for six instructional videos by an international master, covering Black's plans after a game opens with 1.d4 d5. The set covers a range of systems: Colle, Trompowsky, Torre, London, Catalan, Blackmar-Diemer, and Richter-Veresov. In other words, this is a Black-side opening repertoire, aimed at games in which White avoids mainstream theory after 1.d4 d5 by not playing 2.c4.

The technical problem starts here.

The Colle, Trompowsky, Torre, and London systems are all approaches in which White delays or omits the move 2.c4. The Colle System is built around White holding a solid center with modest developing moves, aiming for a reliable structure rather than an early advantage. The London System follows similar logic, bringing the bishop to f4 and building a hard-to-break fortress. Trompowsky and Torre take a more flexible approach, sometimes putting the bishop on g5 to apply pressure before completing development. What they share is an avoidance of the main lines that have been analyzed to exhaustion in systems such as the Slav, the Semi-Slav, or the Queen's Gambit.

Catalan is a special case. White plays 2.c4 and then 3.g3, fianchettoing the bishop toward the kingside. This is not exactly a system that avoids theory; it is a system with its own deep and widely played body of theory at the top level. Grouping it with Colle or London shows the repertoire was assembled on a different criterion — perhaps by how Black responds, rather than by popularity. This small detail says a great deal about how a product is packaged.

One point must be made clear: these systems are not new theory. They have existed for decades, taught at club level, played in every amateur event. A repertoire covering them is not an innovation; it is a repackaging of what already exists. The value of the product lies in its presentation, not in the novelty of the theory. That is the first thing to state plainly, because advertising tends to inflate these systems into a life-or-death threat.

The phrase "extremely dangerous" applied to Colle, Trompowsky, Torre, and London is a classic sales hook. In the opening-content business, fear is the strongest conversion driver. To sell a defensive repertoire, one must make the buyer believe the opponent holds a deadly weapon. But the real danger level of a system is not measured by a promotional line. It is measured by actual encounter rate, by results at the highest level, by White's ability to gain an advantage. And at the highest level, these systems do not appear often. Leading grandmasters rarely make them a main weapon; they prepare them opponent by opponent, rather than countering them with a general repertoire.

What is more notable lies at the tail of the list. The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and the Richter-Veresov are low-frequency systems. Blackmar-Diemer is a sharp pawn sacrifice, seemingly dubious but popular at club level; Richter-Veresov is an uncommon White system. Including them in a Black repertoire reveals an ambition for total coverage. But in practice, the cost of studying these rare systems is high, while the expected benefit is low, because the probability of meeting them at a real board is not large. A wise repertoire is not measured by the number of systems listed, but by the ratio between effort spent and games actually encountered. This is the blind spot of every "cover-everything" opening product: the buyer feels reassured by a thick repertoire, but most of that equipment will never be used.

A good opening repertoire does not need to cover everything. It needs to be tight enough that the player believes in it, deep enough to withstand pressure, and realistic enough not to waste time on rare lines. That is the lesson anyone who has prepared for a long tournament understands: time is the scarcest resource.

So who is this product aimed at? Market logic points to a clear customer group: club-to-intermediate players who regularly face London, Colle, and Trompowsky in amateur and club events. At that level, the concern is real, because these systems appear densely. That is why the product exists. But precisely for that reason, its audience is not the elite, but the many who seek a defense against awkward approaches.

Coaching Black against secondary systems is nothing new. It is a long-standing niche in the chess world, because anyone who plays at club level has been troubled by an opponent wielding London or Colle. Books, videos, and courses on the subject appear steadily. That does not make this product wrong; it simply shows this is evergreen content, not a new discovery.

Back to the results section. Two names on the perfect-score column. The only thing that can be stated with certainty is that both Wesley So and Awonder Liang are winning every game. With no rating, no round count, and no opponent quality, no conclusion about strength can be drawn. A perfect score, after all, is a small and incomplete sample. It is not yet a forecast of the final standing, and it should certainly not be extrapolated into a prophecy. A perfect score in the early stage is a storytelling event, not a statistical fact. It attracts media, but it says nothing yet about who will win.

Statistically, an early perfect score must be read together with the number of rounds. If the event has only passed two or three rounds, two wins carry little weight. If it has passed half the distance, a winning streak begins to mean something. But even then, opponent quality must be checked: winning three games against weak players is very different from winning three against strong opponents. Without that information, every conclusion is merely speculation dressed up with emotion.

Between the two, the developmental signal worth watching lies with Awonder Liang. For a rising young player, sustaining a perfect run is a far more meaningful indicator than for an elite player who has been at the peak for years. If Liang maintains this form through the whole event, that is what deserves an entry in the ledger. For Wesley So, a good start merely confirms what everyone already knows.

The result line about Mark Paragua beating an opponent named "Yip" requires caution. "Yip" is most likely a player from the women's field, but Paragua — a veteran grandmaster — appearing in the same result line suggests two possibilities: either this is an open event, or there is an error in data mapping. Until an official pairing sheet exists, this result line should be placed in the unverified category. The way US championships usually operate is by running the open and women's events in parallel — which partly explains a result line spanning a male grandmaster and a name from the women's field. But "partly explains" is not confirmation.

Place the feed into the larger picture of American chess. The country is in a strong and deep phase. The elite group includes familiar names around 2700, alongside a rising generation. Based on my experience following games across many seasons, what is notable is not a grandmaster winning a few opening games, but the thickness of the reserve layer behind him. A generation of young players coming of age in an environment with online platforms, sponsorship, and a content ecosystem — that is a structural difference from many other countries.

Compared with the rest of the chess world, India is rising with formidable depth in its youth ranks, while China retains its elite standing. American chess is strong at the top but faces a long-distance race for pipeline depth. The national championship, therefore, is not merely about a title — it is a test of the health of an entire development system.

In terms of format, US championships are usually held as round-robins, where every player meets every other once. This format is fair — no one avoids a strong opponent — but it also creates a psychological phenomenon: games between players in the middle of the table are often overlooked, even though they decide the final standings. For those who follow through data, that is exactly where information hides. An opening phase with few draws is a good sign for the event's appeal — decisive games, little compromise. But it also reminds us that nothing has yet been verified.

Here, the greatest risk is not on the board. It is inside the feed itself.

A page that merges two different articles into one place is a data-hygiene incident. For an ordinary reader, it is merely annoying. But for anyone who works in news aggregation, it is a systemic hazard. When a source already contradicts itself in its very first line, everything drawn from it is fragile. The headline concerns a championship result, the body concerns an opening product — the threads do not meet, meaning the input data was mixed incorrectly. Before debating a score or the quality of an opening repertoire, one must check whether we are reading one article or two articles pasted together.

The second blind spot is subtler. When two players are both perfect in the opening rounds, the crowd's reflex is to look at the top of the table. But the real data often lies elsewhere: in the draw rate, and at the bottom of the table. The perfect scores of two players in the opening rounds do not indicate their strength; they only indicate that no one has yet faced a real test. When the schedule thickens and the strong opponents meet each other, the picture will change. A quiet feed in the middle of the table often carries more information than the cheering at the top.

The third blind spot belongs to the product market. Calling systems like London or Colle "extremely dangerous" is a marketing claim presented as a technical assessment. This is the most misleading point, because the buyer may confuse the pitch with opening truth. The value of these systems depends on the player and the specific opponent — they can be effective at club level, but they are not decisive weapons at the top. Let the number be a witness, not a judge: a training product is worth only what it helps the learner understand, not what it makes the learner fear.

From the perspective of someone working in the transfer market, I see a familiar pattern here. When a player is valued by advertising rather than by data, the market usually pays the wrong price. In chess, likewise: an opening repertoire sold through fear will sell, but it does not create matching value. The gap between valuation and true value is where every worthwhile analysis begins.

Broadly, the chess content economy operates on three tiers. Upstream is training and talent supply. Midstream is events, players, and platforms. Downstream is content, commerce, and derivative markets. The opening videos sit at the downstream tier — where value comes not from the games, but from the many people's desire to learn. This is a mature, low-risk niche, and it exists independently of any competitive result.

And here is the surprise twist. Both stories in the feed are not the real story. The championship result is routine news, to be superseded within days. The opening product is evergreen content, tied to no single moment. The only thing worth recording from this feed is evidence of a maturing opening-content market — a stable commercial niche within the chess economy. The transfer market does not buy the past; it buys what data has forgiven. And in this niche, what is bought and sold is not the game, but the feeling of safety against awkward approaches.

So what to track in the coming days? First, the final standings of the event. If Wesley So or Awonder Liang finishes near the top, the perfect-score story will be confirmed or refuted. Second, Liang's performance rating relative to his rating — if that index exceeds his rating throughout the event, the rising-player signal will become clearer. Third, the identity of "Yip" and the event bracket, to determine whether that result line is real or a data-mapping error. Fourth, activity in the defensive-opening product market — a small but memorable commercial signal.

When the stadium is empty, the true value of a person begins to speak. Here, the emptiness is not the stands, but the blank data fields. And it is precisely those blanks where the real story begins. I light a candle for data. But I always let the flame of emotion light the way for the question.