In this episode:

• Team USA drew 2-2 with Armenia in round seven of the 46th Chess Olympiad — Awonder Liang won on board four, Wesley So lost a rook ending on board two — and sits 13th on 11 match points ahead of Thursday's match with Serbia on table four.
• The US women beat Switzerland 3-1 — Carissa Yip over Alexandra Kosteniuk on board one, Tatev Abrahamyan over Ghazal Hakimifard on board three — and stand eighth on 11 match points, two behind co-leaders China and Kazakhstan, with Armenia next on table five.
• Uzbekistan beat China 3-1 for a seventh straight match win — chess.com says only India's 2024 team has matched a 14/14 start under the current scoring — and leads by two match points with Germany next on board one.
• The Total Chess World Championship Tour has completed its 24-player field for the Budapest pilot, and the six late additions include Americans Levon Aronian, Abhimanyu Mishra and Andrew Hong alongside Liem Le, Jorden van Foreest and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.
• Ahead of Saturday's FIDE presidential ballot in Samarkand, Jan Henric Buettner told EL PAÍS he will not withdraw, claims 41% of the votes and has proposed that favorite Timur Turlov join his ticket as number two to beat Wadim Rosenstein, while Ukraine's federation accused Turlov and Mykhailo Podolyak of an attempted hostile takeover.

The Opening is written from the day's evidence and checked by the same fact rules as the newsletter; the voice is synthetic. Powered by AI, guided by human expertise.

In this episode:

• Team USA meets Armenia on table two when the Olympiad resumes Wednesday, with Levon Aronian not lined up against his former federation; the US women, without Alice Lee on FIDE's card, face Switzerland with Carissa Yip against Alexandra Kosteniuk on board one.
• Uzbekistan, the only team to win all six matches, plays China on table one at 3 p.m. Samarkand time, while India — whose title defense Rediff frames against FIDE's "winner's curse" — faces England.
• Alireza Firouzja won Titled Tuesday on 10/11 with ten wins — his second title this year and 22nd overall, a total only Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen exceed — on a rest day when Fabiano Caruana reached 8/8 and finished 11th.
• Ahead of Saturday's FIDE presidential vote, EL PAÍS reports Timur Turlov has announced a defamation suit in a Michigan court against David Llada — the photographer, former FIDE employee and independent vice-presidential candidate who claimed Turlov kept his Russian nationality — while a Samarkand prediction market moved the Turlov–Anand ticket from 40 to 82 percent in a single hour.
• 35 US events were newly rated across 18 states at a median of 17 players, led by the 49-player Buffalo Grove Swiss 6 in Long Grove, Illinois, won on 4 by Gaofei Wang, No. 16 on the US Chess Girls Under 16 list; Missouri's state championship brought 70 players to Rolla's Kaleidoscope Discovery Center, where Julian Proleiko took a fourth title.

The Opening is written from the day's evidence and checked by the same fact rules as the newsletter; the voice is synthetic. Powered by AI, guided by human expertise.

In this episode:

• Team USA split its round-six Olympiad matches on the eve of the rest day: the Open team beat Norway 2½-1½ on Hans Niemann's board-three win, while the women lost 1-3 to defending champions India.
• Uzbekistan beat India 2½-1½ and leads the Olympiad alone on 12 match points after Nihal Sarin — better on the board, with about half an hour on his clock against Nodirbek Yakubboev's three or four minutes — played 37...Nf5?? and lost his queen to 38.Ne6+ Rxe6 39.gxh4+, a shot chess.com calls "likely the move of the tournament so far".
• Both Israeli teams forfeited their round-six matches after the Netherlands and Bulgaria declined to move the games off Yom Kippur, and the Israel Chess Federation says FIDE had committed in writing in January to a later Monday start.
• US Chess has opened its 2026-2027 Title I School Outreach Program: affiliates running chess at Title I-designated schools can apply for donor-funded support of 16 student memberships and eight board-and-piece sets per school, with applications closing once capacity is reached.
• TWIC #1663 arrived overnight with 22 events, led by the Olympiad's first week; its US-side note is Fabiano Caruana's win over Christopher Woojin Yoo in the first of chess.com's 3-0 Thursday arenas on September 17.

The Opening is written from the day's evidence and checked by the same fact rules as the newsletter; the voice is synthetic. Powered by AI, guided by human expertise.

In this episode:

• The United States lost 1½–2½ to Germany in round five of the 46th Chess Olympiad, its first defeat of the event, and dropped to 11th on 8 match points and 13.5 game points; Awonder Liang returns on board four for Monday's match with Norway.
• The US women drew 2-2 with hosts Uzbekistan and stand fifth on 9 match points with 17 game points, level with China for the most game points in the top ten; Alice Lee won a fifth straight game.
• Uzbekistan, India and Germany share the Open lead on 10 match points, and the hosts meet the defending champions on board one in Monday's round, the last before the rest day.
• FIDE has named Freedom Holding Corp. general partner of the Salesforce FIDE World Championship Match, the Gukesh–Sindarov match that opens November 22 in Geneva and runs to December 12 over 14 classical games.
• Eighty-five US events were newly rated across 23 states at a median of 21 players, led by Kumbaya #166 in Skokie, Illinois (162 players, Michael D. Aizenberg on 2.5), the 34th David Zofchak Memorial in Virginia Beach (113) and PCL Round 1 in Pittsburgh (111).

The Opening is written from the day's evidence and checked by the same fact rules as the newsletter; the voice is synthetic. Powered by AI, guided by human expertise.

In this episode:

• Team USA beat Ukraine 3½-½ in round four of the 46th Chess Olympiad and goes to table two against Germany on Sunday, with Levon Aronian winning chess.com's Game of the Day from a position he called "dead lost".
• The US women lead the Women's Olympiad outright after a 3½-½ win over Spain — 8 match points, 15 game points — and Alice Lee is 4/4 on board two, an early contender for an individual medal in chess.com's reading.
• The Open section's eight perfect teams now play each other: Hungary–Uzbekistan, Germany–United States, India–Netherlands and China–Armenia.
• Wesley So, whose team is the Olympiad's top seed, named the hosts his favorite for gold and said the American squad has not been at its best: "A number of US players were not in their best shape," he told Kursiv Media.
• Seventy-eight US tournaments were newly rated over the weekend across 25 states at a median of 22 players, led by the 191-player Tri-Valley Open in Pleasanton, California, won by Arnav Solan on 3.

The Opening is written from the day's evidence and checked by the same fact rules as the newsletter; the voice is synthetic. Powered by AI, guided by human expertise.

In this episode:

• Team USA needed two wins on the middle boards to get past 25th-seeded Denmark 2½–1½ in round three of the 46th Chess Olympiad: Wesley So (FIDE 2774) beat Jesper Thybo (2579) with a queen sacrifice chess.com called "a quick and beautiful win" and an r/chess results thread a "brilliant queen sacrifice," Hans Niemann (2725) beat Mads Andersen (2549), Fabiano Caruana (2789) escaped with a draw against Jonas Bjerre (2615) from a position chess.com and Lichess both describe as winning for the Dane, and Awonder Liang (2693) lost a second straight game to a sub-2500 opponent, Bjorn Moller Ochsner (2478).
• The US women lead the Olympiad on tiebreaks after a 3½–½ win over Cuba: Carissa Yip (FIDE 2468) beat WGM Maritza Arribas Robaina (2257) on board one, Alice Lee (2453) beat WGM Yerisbel Miranda Llanes (2251), Tatev Abrahamyan (2347) beat WGM Yaniela Forgas Moreno (2249) and Rose Atwell (2342) drew WIM Ineymig Hernandez Gil (2157).
• Gukesh Dommaraju is back above 2700 on the live list at 2702 after beating Sabino Brunello with Black in 33 moves on India's board four — a board he says he asked for.
• A week before the FIDE presidential vote, Wadim Rosenstein told Reuters he would try to bring Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura back into classical competition, keep the classical title as the sport's premier one, follow the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Russia and Belarus, and bar FIDE employees from working simultaneously for private chess organizations.
• Abhimanyu Mishra, 17, told The Hindu that he has no sponsors and that being a full-time player in the United States is "quite difficult," crediting the Kasparov Chess Foundation as his support.

The Opening is written from the day's evidence and checked by the same fact rules as the newsletter; the voice is synthetic. Powered by AI, guided by human expertise.

In this episode:

• Team USA edged Mongolia 2½–1½ in round two of the 46th Chess Olympiad: Fabiano Caruana (FIDE 2789) won his first game of the event on board one and Levon Aronian (2725) converted a narrow win, after Awonder Liang (2693) lost on board four to IM Khuyagtsogt Itgelt (2435) and Hans Niemann (2725) drew IM Amilal Munkhdalai (2491).
• The US women swept Belgium 4-0, a second straight whitewash: Carissa Yip (FIDE 2468) made her Samarkand debut on board one with a win over WIM Hanne Goossens (2248), and Alice Lee (2453), Irina Krush (2393) and Rose Atwell (2342) beat WFM Daria Vanduyfhuys (2123), WFM Nele Vanhuyse (2041) and Radoslawa Lascar (1975).
• Team USA finished fourth at the 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities — its best placing yet, per US Chess — after beating Ukraine 3-1 in Thursday's last round, while Poland took gold on 13 match points ahead of Cuba (12) and hosts Uzbekistan 1 (11).
• World champion Gukesh Dommaraju dropped below 2700 on the live rating list for the first time since August 2022 — to 2699.5 after a draw with 18-year-old IM Satria Duta Cahaya (2412) — on the day his November challenger Javokhir Sindarov opened his Olympiad with a double queen sacrifice against Peru's Diego Flores Quillas, capped by 31...Kf7!!, a game FIDE credits at 98% accuracy and chess.com made its Game of the Day.
• The October US Chess rating supplement has arrived with 1,314,408 names on the rating list, 2,821 more than the September list; the official October top-100 lists follow.

The Opening is written from the day's evidence and checked by the same fact rules as the newsletter; the voice is synthetic. Powered by AI, guided by human expertise.

In this episode:

• Team USA opened the 46th Chess Olympiad with a 3½–½ win over Iraq, Fabiano Caruana rested and Wesley So (FIDE 2774) leading from board one, as Hans Niemann won his Olympiad debut in 23 moves and Levon Aronian was held to a draw by 2163-rated CM Ali Ehsan Aryan — the only other upset of a 2700 player all round, chess.com says.
• The US women swept Andorra 4-0 with Carissa Yip rested: Alice Lee (FIDE 2453), Irina Krush (2393), Tatev Abrahamyan (2347) and 17-year-old Olympiad debutante Rose Atwell (2342) all won, one of nine 4-0 scores among the top ten women's seeds.
• The day's chess shock came on India's top board: IM Prin Laohawirapap (THA, FIDE 2363) beat Arjun Erigaisi (2759) with Black after Erigaisi, a pawn up in a level queen-and-rook ending, played 50.Qg7?? instead of the only defence 50.Qf4 and resigned on move 54 with mate in two unavoidable — chess.com's Game of the Day, "a beautiful mating attack" in the words of an r/chess results thread, across a 396-point gap per Sportstar.
• FIDE will reimburse teams that had to rent their own rooms in Samarkand for up to three days and pay an additional compensation to teams kept in official hotels below FIDE-approved standard — and its Council, in a separate statement, says the FIDE Congress "can be held only" if every voting delegate can attend, and will consider moving it to other dates and a different location if visas are not granted.
• Poland leads the 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities alone on 11 match points after a 4-0 win over the Czech Republic, and the United States goes into Thursday's final round on 8, level with Israel, Mongolia, IBCA, Ukraine and Hungary, per ChessBase's German standings.

The Opening is written from the day's evidence and checked by the same fact rules as the newsletter; the voice is synthetic. Powered by AI, guided by human expertise.