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.

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:

• Anaiy Somalwar, rated 2051 on the relay, beat GM Patrick Wolff (2528) in round seven of the 2026 November FIDE Blitz at the Mechanics' Institute. GM Sam Shankland, No. 12 on the US Chess Overall list, finished the day unbeaten; his only draw was with GM Balaji Daggupati.
• The November FIDE list's US tables go beyond the changes reported here Sunday. WIM Rachael Li's 50-point gain lifts her from 100th to 69th among active Americans on the standard list, and Ethan Sheehan climbs from 96th to 84th on 2410. Hans Niemann stays sixth despite losing 20 points to 2697.
• US Chess newly rated 85 events across 24 states, median size 17. The largest was the 519-player Packer November 2026 Tournament in Brooklyn, where Joshua Colas and Milo Su shared the Premier Championship (2000+) section on 3 points. The 2026 Chicago Fall Open in Schaumburg, Illinois, closed with 194 players in seven sections.
• Denis Lazavik beat IM Alua Nurman to rejoin Daniil Dubov at the top of the KazChess Masters in Almaty, both on five points after seven rounds; Dubov drew Sauat Nurgaliyev. Aram Hakobyan (2638) beat Mahammad Muradli (2662), and 14-year-old Mark Smirnov beat Edgar Mamedov with Black. ChessBase's German site puts Smirnov on course for a GM norm with a 2626 performance.
• IM Evan Park (FIDE 2452), No. 13 on the US Chess Under 21 list, beat Austrian FM Gunnar Schnepp (2194) in round two of the Open Bavarian Championship at Tegernsee. It was his second win, which keeps him among the 50 players ChessBase counts on a perfect score after two days.

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:

• The November FIDE rating list makes IM Alice Lee the US women's No. 1 at 2474, world No. 14, after her second place in the U.S. Women's Championship, while champion WIM Rachael Li gained 50 points to 2430 and world No. 31, Carissa Yip lost 31 points, and Hans Niemann fell 20 points and ten places to 2697, out of the 2700 group.
• Alireza Firouzja ended Hikaru Nakamura's run of Bullet Brawl titles on Saturday, scoring 55/73 for 170 points in the 232-player arena, four ahead of Nakamura, with Ediz Gurel third, Matthias Bluebaum fourth and WIM Melika Mohammadi taking the $100 women's prize, chess.com reports.
• FM Peter Giannatos's Charlotte Chess Center teaches about 500 students a week across its two sites and reaches roughly 2,000 children a week through some 60 school programs, he tells ChessBase's Sagar Shah in an interview conducted during the Naroditsky Memorial.
• US Chess newly rated 62 events across 22 states, median size 20, led by a 343-player scholastic at Hendricks Elementary in McAllen, Texas, and three ICN team tournaments in New York of 147, 143 and 140 players, while at the Chicago Fall Open FM Artemii Khanbutaev, No. 12 on the US Chess Under 16 list, won his second and third games and Hardy Gu, No. 54 on that list, beat Cuban IM Liordis Quesada Vera (FIDE 2290).
• Daniil Dubov leads the KazChess Masters in Almaty alone on 4½/6 after wins in rounds five and six, the latter over IM Alua Nurman, half a point ahead of Shamsiddin Vokhidov and Denis Lazavik; in Chennai 10-year-old FM Sarbartho Mani beat GM Dimitris Alexakis in round two of the Chola Chess Open as top seed Aravindh Chithambaram beat Sandipan Chanda; and the Open Bavarian Championship opened at Tegernsee with 551 players and 16 grandmasters.

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:

• Rooks and Roots, the girls' math-and-chess nonprofit co-founded by WGM Iris Mou and Lisa Sun, used a US Chess Women's Grant this year to stage a free festival for 60 girls in New York City and has since added chapters in Texas and online, US Chess reports.
• Wadim Rosenstein, who lost September's FIDE presidential runoff to Timur Turlov 110-85, told RBC-Ukraine he does not recognize the result and has filed complaints with the federation's Ethics Commission, alleging a side agreement between Turlov and Malcolm Pein, the deputy-president candidate on Jan Henric Buettner's ticket, and saying he was "blackmailed and threatened with the imposition of Ukrainian sanctions" to make him withdraw.
• US Chess newly rated 48 events across 21 states, median size 14, led by the 286-player 2026 CPS All-Stars in Chicago, and Brewington Hardaway and Maxim Dlugy, No. 4 on the US Chess Age 50+ list, shared first in the 51-player Marshall FIDE Blitz in New York on 8 points.
• GM Alexey Sarana won the first of Thursday's three 3 0 Thursday events on 10/11 and GM Arjun Erigaisi the other two, while IM Rose Atwell took the top women's prize in the third on 7 points — and GM Sina Movahed won Friday's Freestyle Friday for the second time in three weeks, chess.com reports.
• Volodar Murzin (2656) beat Wang Yue (2619) and Yu Yangyi (2704) held Wei Yi (2758) in round 10 of the Chinese Chess League's Division A round robin, and at the KazChess Masters in Almaty Daniil Dubov (2654) beat Denis Makhnev (2581), who had shared the lead after four rounds, while Shamsiddin Vokhidov (2649) beat 14-year-old IM Mark Smirnov (2451) and Mahammad Muradli (2662) beat IM Alua Nurman (2460).

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:

• Javokhir Sindarov won Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown in St. Louis on 20.5 points, overturning a 2½-point deficit on the final day with three wins and three draws — among them a King's Indian against Hikaru Nakamura that chess.com calls the game of the tournament — while Fabiano Caruana finished third on 16.5 after trapping Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu's queen in the last game and Nakamura, Tuesday's leader, was last on 12.
• US Chess staged a chess exhibition at a National Squash League match in Atlanta on October 24 — blitz, bughouse and a three-board blindfold simul before the Carolina Pirates met the Atlanta Tornados — as a one-match trial after NSL co-founder Timmy Brownell proposed chess at all 16 league matches this season.
• FIDE named Istanbul the host of the 2026 World Rapid and Blitz Championships on Thursday, with play December 26-30 and Freedom Holding Corp. as title sponsor, and the same day filled out Timur Turlov's new President's Office — Emil Sutovsky as Chief Executive Adviser, Victor Bologan and Dana Reizniece as Special Representatives, and four Representatives including Zhu Chen, who will head a FIDE Shenzhen Office.
• The XTX Markets London Chess Classic has its ten Masters: last year's winner Nodirbek Abdusattorov heads a field with Levon Aronian and 16-year-old Andy Woodward of the United States, Vasyl Ivanchuk in what the organizers call his Classic debut at 57, Nihal Sarin, Ihor Samunenkov and England's Michael Adams, Gawain Maroroa Jones, Luke McShane and Shreyas Royal, from November 24 at Hammersmith.
• US Chess newly rated 37 events across 24 states, median size 16, led by a 103-player K-6 scholastic in Chico, California, and Karl Dehmelt, No. 94 on the US Chess Age 50+ list, won the Open section of the 43-player Chaturanga Championship in Hatboro, Pennsylvania, on 6 points.

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:

• Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu went from last to first at Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown in St. Louis, scoring 9 of the 12 points on offer on day two — two wins over Hikaru Nakamura and one each over Javokhir Sindarov and Fabiano Caruana — to lead on 11 points going into Thursday's final six games, with Sindarov and Caruana on 8.5 and Nakamura, Tuesday's leader, last on 8.
• FM Jennifer Yu (FIDE 2354), No. 5 on the US Chess Women's list, beat GM Lei Tingjie (2552) of China in round eight of the Chinese Chess League's Division A, a day after her round-seven loss to Jiang Tianyu (2300).
• US Chess newly rated 44 events across 20 states, median size 18, led by Honolulu's October Scholastic Open and Adult Quads with 123 players in six sections, and West Newsmagazine profiles Devanshi Chowdada, a Missouri player holding a FIDE Candidate Master title who has self-published a graphic novel to draw more girls into competitive chess.
• 9z Globant won chess.com's October Chess Club Showdown for the second month running, beating Team Liquid 79-21 in a 50-board final in which GM Faustino Oro took the top board 1.5-0.5 from American GM Christopher Yoo, with Liquid missing Magnus Carlsen, who withdrew at the last minute, and Fabiano Caruana and Praggnanandhaa, who were playing in St. Louis.
• Uzbekistan's second Olympiad gold rests on state money as much as on talent, Eurasianet reports from Samarkand: President Shavkat Mirziyoyev presented the five gold medalists with checks for $200,000, a car and an apartment on September 28, top national team members draw monthly payments of up to $1,500, and chess classes entered many public elementary schools between 2018 and 2025 — the system behind Javokhir Sindarov's challenge in Geneva.

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.