Every story in this episode is in the First Look Chess newsletter, with the links, the games, and the PGNs to download: firstlookchess.com

In this episode:

• US Chess membership stood at 118,303 on October 31, which the federation calls a new all-time high: an increase of 2,184 over September that passes the March 2024 record of 117,716.
• Ding Liren is out of the Chinese Rapid Championship in Shaoxing, eliminated in the quarterfinals by Xiao Tong (2476) in a blitz tiebreak after four drawn rapid games, and defending champion Yu Yangyi (2679), whom ChessBase calls the only rating favorite to survive the round, won the first three games of his semifinal against Xu Xiangyu (2594) on the relay.
• GM Liam Putnam (FIDE 2495), No. 7 on the US Chess Under 21 list, beat Canadian CM Karson Lu (2049) as the 20th SPICE Cup Open opened with 20 Americans on its relay, and IM Evan Park (FIDE 2452), No. 13 on the Under 21 list, drew reigning German champion GM Leonardo Costa (2557) in round five of the Open Bavarian Championship at Tegernsee.
• Khumoyun Begmuratov of Uzbekistan won the World Junior Rapid Championship in Al Ain on 7.5/9, ahead of V. Pranav, who had opened with six wins from six, and Azerbaijan's Read Samadov, while Eline Roebers of the Netherlands took the girls' title; the two reports of her final score differ.
• IM Hussain Besou, 15, beat Hungarian GM Peter Acs (2555), the 2001 World Junior champion and seventh seed, in round five of the Open Bavarian Championship to join five grandmasters on 4½/5, and in Chennai GM Pranesh M (2673) beat GM Leon Luke Mendonca (2617) to take the sole lead in the Chola Chess Open after six rounds.

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.

Every story in this episode is in the First Look Chess newsletter, with the links, the games, and the PGNs to download: firstlookchess.com

In this episode:

• Alireza Firouzja beat Fabiano Caruana in the last round of Titled Tuesday to take the event ahead of Hikaru Nakamura, Hans Niemann and Caruana, as chess.com confirmed the first eight qualifiers for Speed Chess Championship XI — a $250,000, 16-player knockout whose live finals go to London's 180 Studios on February 5-7, 2027.
• Denis Lazavik won the KazChess Masters in Almaty on 6½/9 without a loss, needing only Tuesday's 58-move draw with Aram Hakobyan, while 14-year-old Kazakh IM Mark Smirnov, youngest and lowest rated of the ten players, earned his first grandmaster norm by beating GM Denis Makhnev (2581) with Black for a 2666 performance.
• IM Evan Park (FIDE 2452), No. 13 on the US Chess Under 21 list, beat German FM Matthias Tonndorf (2218) in round four of the Open Bavarian Championship at Tegernsee, where three Indians who have won every game lead, and at the FIDE World Senior Championship in Vrnjačka Banja, Serbia, Frederick Rhine (FIDE 1983) beat Israeli IM Nathan Birnboim (2294) in the 65+ Open.
• US Chess newly rated 23 events across 16 states, median size 12, led by the 62-player 21st Oktoberfest Open in New Britain, Connecticut, where Nelson Castaneda, No. 61 on the US Chess Age 50+ list, won the Open section on 4½; in Indianapolis, Madison Brown, No. 40 on the Girls Under 16 list, won the Kings section of the 29-player Tuesday Weekly on 3.
• Total Chess has named the broadcast team for its Budapest pilot, which opens November 10: IM Levy Rozman, known as GothamChess, fronts a new daily Total Chess Highlight Show, with Jovanka Houska, David Howell, Fiona Steil-Antoni and Anna Rudolf on the main broadcast of the 24-player event at the Anantara New York Palace Budapest Hotel.

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.

Every story in this episode is in the First Look Chess newsletter, with the links, the games, and the PGNs to download: firstlookchess.com

In this episode:

• US Chess has awarded 23 Women's Program grants for 2026-27, the same count as a year ago, to nonprofit affiliates running programs for women and girls, with the money again coming from the Saint Louis Chess Club.
• Fabiano Caruana said on the C-Squared Podcast that the United States "didn't really have a realistic chance of gold" at the Samarkand Olympiad, where the team finished fourth on 17 match points, and that "All of us underperformed except for Levon," RookReview reports.
• TWIC #1669 closes the week with 8,091 games from 51 events: Javokhir Sindarov's Clutch Chess title in Saint Louis, Gawain Maroroa Jones's fourth English Championship, Marc'Andria Maurizzi's 8/9 at Cap d'Agde, Andy Woodward's Titled Tuesday win on tiebreak, and a 3 0 Thursday event in which Caruana beat Evan Yin, Rose Atwell and Zachary Tanenbaum.
• FIDE has named Peter Leko and Peter Svidler as commentators for the Salesforce FIDE World Championship in Geneva, ChessBase India reports from the federation's post on X, three weeks before Gukesh Dommaraju and Javokhir Sindarov open at the Fondation Martin Bodmer in Cologny on November 24.
• Denis Lazavik (2636) beat IM Sauat Nurgaliyev (2526) in round eight of the KazChess Masters in Almaty to lead on 6 points, half a point ahead of Daniil Dubov and Shamsiddin Vokhidov (2649), who beat IM Alua Nurman (2460), Trend reports; an r/chess post says Lazavik went on to win the event with an unbeaten classical run of 38 games, but Tuesday's final round is not yet on the relay.

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.