US Chess Championships: Perfect Scores for So and Liang, and a Defensive Repertoire Packaged Wrong

On the live results board of the US Chess Championships, one line made me read it three times: Paragua beat Yip. Not because the result was shocking, but because it sat directly beneath the news that Wesley So and Awonder Liang remain on perfect scores — two different contexts folded into a single frame. Mark Paragua is a veteran grandmaster; "Yip" most likely belongs to the women's field. A strong male player facing a female player in the same result line allows only two readings: the organisers ran a combined open bracket, or there is a data-mapping error. I lean toward the second, and that is why I am writing this instead of scrolling past.

The US Chess Championships is a national event, typically a round-robin gathering the strongest American players. It is prestigious for titles and sponsorship, but it sits outside FIDE's world championship cycle. Winning the US title does not automatically send anyone to the Candidates — a fact worth repeating whenever someone inflates a domestic result. Wesley So is one of the most stable 2700+ grandmasters of the past decade and a former US champion. Awonder Liang is younger, part of the next generation. Both opened with perfect scores, but a perfect score in the early rounds of a round-robin is a small sample and says little.

The strange coincidence is that the same source also carried something entirely different: a promotional piece for six instructional videos by IM Valeri Lilov, on Black's plans after 1.d4 d5. Two unrelated topics merged into one item. For an analyst, that is a data-hygiene warning, not a chess story.

The technically valuable content lies here. Lilov's six videos target a specific gap for Black. After White plays 1.d4 and Black replies 1...d5, White may choose 2.c4 and enter main-line theory — Slav, Semi-Slav, Queen's Gambit. But a large share of amateur and semi-professional players avoid 2.c4, choosing quieter systems: the Colle System, Trompowsky Attack, Torre Attack, London System. Their common trait is that White dodges heavy theory, builds a solid structure, and only then looks to attack.

The London System is the textbook case. White need not memorise hundreds of theoretical moves, only repeat a pattern: knight to f3, bishop to f4, e3, bishop to d2, then improvise. For amateurs this is an efficient weapon because it cuts memory load. For Black it is a headache because there is no mandatory standard counter to memorise. The Trompowsky differs — it attacks the f6 knight directly on move two, forcing Black out of comfort. The Torre Attack is close to the Trompowsky in spirit but gentler. The Colle System builds a centre with e3 and c3, keeps a bishop waiting on c1, then switches to the e4 break.

Notably, Lilov does not list only the four main systems. He adds the Catalan, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, and the Richter-Veresov. The Catalan is a kingside fianchetto system, fairly common at high level. But the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.e4) and the Richter-Veresov (1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Bg5) are low-frequency sidelines. The Blackmar-Diemer is a bold pawn sacrifice that modern theory judges unsound, appearing mainly at club level. The Richter-Veresov is also rare in elite play. Putting these two rare lines into one repertoire reflects a cover-everything mindset — to leave no possibility uncovered. But study cost is inversely proportional to encounter rate. A club player might spend dozens of hours on the Blackmar-Diemer and not meet it once all year. This is a time-optimisation problem, and I think the product's marketing ignored that cost.

In eight years of watching chess events, I have learned that the hardest part of opening preparation is not remembering moves but classifying which moves deserve remembering. No tactic is ever old; only the way we read a game expires. A system like the London may be obsolete in experts' eyes, yet for an 1800-rated player facing it in round five of an open, it remains current. That V-League summer I learned one thing: a formation is only beautiful when the opponent agrees to stand still. The same holds in chess. The London System is dangerous only when Black accepts a passive standstill. If Black actively strikes the centre with ...c5 or ...e5 at the right moment, the structure can collapse.

Here I must be blunt: the original article's packaging is flawed. Describing the Colle, Trompowsky, Torre and London as extremely dangerous is a classic sales hook — turning a defensive repertoire into a survival story. The truth is that none of these systems is an objective threat at the top level. They are dangerous because they are popular, not because they are strong. Those are two different things, and an analyst must separate them.

The second problem is more serious: the very item I am analysing contains a data error. The title and first two points concern the US Championships; the core viewpoint and article type concern a video product. Two articles were merged into one. A heat map can lie, but five consecutive failed presses cannot — and here, the mismatch between title and body is undeniable evidence that this source is unreliable for verbatim citation.

As for the perfect scores of So and Liang, I refuse to read them as a championship signal. A perfect score over a few early rounds is a small sample, and the opponents are unnamed. If Liang sustains this form to the end of the event, that would be the development signal worth tracking — more than So doing exactly what a 2700+ player is expected to do. The same applies to chess at large: we inflate openings and ignore endings.

I will track the final standings, compare Liang's performance rating against his rating, and verify the identity of "Yip" in the official pairing sheets. Those three data points will say more than every perfect-score headline now circulating. In chess, a conclusion is only valid when we know we are reading the right game.