Travel Time! 2025 US Open Recap!
- Chess Friends Books
- Aug 7
- 4 min read
Howdy! It’s the Chess Friends!
Sorry about skipping last week’s blog! We were playing in the 2025 US Open, and there was no time to write anything, but now we want to share our experience! We'll talk about the history of the US Open and feature some cool chess people! Let’s begin!
Last week we traveled to Middleton, Wisconsin to play in the 125th US Open!
125th, everybody! …which means the first one was in 1900! That year it was held in the city of Excelsior, Minnesota, and won by Louis Uedemann. Back in the days, the tournament would usually be small, so it was played as a round robin, meaning you play everyone once, and the tournament lasted around 2 weeks. Slowly but surely, the participation grew, so in the 1950s, the tournament was transformed into an open format, in one big section, where everyone could play, paired by the Swiss System (we explain the Swiss pairing system in our book!).
The largest ever US Open was in 1983 in Pasadena, California, with 836 participants, including a noteworthy name Viktor Korchnoi, who also played in the World Championship. In the year of 1966, the US Open was hosted in our hometown of Seattle and co-won by Pal Benko and Robert Byrne.
This year, the US Open featured around 500 players in one big section with 9 classical rounds plus additional side-events, such as blitz, quads, and scholastic! Alongside the US Open, there were invitationals tournaments, where the best in each state competed among each other. The elementary school state champions participated in the Rockefeller Championship (National Tournament of Elementary School State Champions), middle school champs participated in the Barber Championship (Dewain Barber National Tournament of Middle School State Champions), high school champs attended the Denker event (Arnold Denker National Tournament of High School State Champions), girl state champs played the Haring Tournament (Ruth Haring National Tournament of Girls State Champions), and finally, best of the best Seniors competed in the Irwin Championship (John T. Irwin National Tournament of Senior State Champions).
The US Open is a lively tournament, full of people of all ages, from all walks of life and rating levels, who come together to play chess, talk chess, read chess, reconnect with their chess friends from around the country and world and make new ones! We love the atmosphere! It has a pretty good vibe: everywhere you turn there are people discussing theoretical endgames, or best systems against the London, or how they blundered, or what books they bought in a chess store there, or simply what they had for lunch. (Chipotle for us!)
The best thing about it? Meeting all the amazing chess people and making new friends! That’s one of our favorite parts of chess tournaments. Just to name a few…
Coach Jay Stallings. In this US Open, Coach Jay received the Award for Excellence in Chess Instruction! He runs a huge academy of chess in Southern California and wrote a system of chess books designed to take you from not knowing how to play chess to a competitive player, starting from white belt all the way to black belt! He also made a cool card game called Triple Check (in the photo above) that sharpens your tactical skills without any screen time! We recommend his books and cards a lot! Check them out on his website here!
The Myth Sarang got to play Coach Stephanie Ballom. She is an awesome teacher who runs a chess school called The Chess Quarter and has achieved many distinctions as a top trailblazing African American woman in her storied career.
IM Stuart Rachels. Back in 1989, Stuart was the youngest (since Bobby Fischer) to win the US Chess Championship. This year, he became a co-champion in the Irwin tournament of Senior State Champions, representing Alabama.
He is also a chess author! You can check out his book The Best I Saw in Chess: Games, Stories and Instruction from an Alabama Prodigy Who Became U.S. Champion.
Stuart has a degree in Philosophy, and he shared his chess thoughts with us. He talked about how most players, particularly young ones, tend to play much better when they are losing, but struggle to keep that focus and intensity when they feel they are winning. He also shared that for him, the moments he is winning are actually the most challenging as he has to think deeply about his plan and how to convert.
Indeed, “the hardest game to win is a won game,” as Emanuel Lasker, the second World Chess Champion, once said.
Stuart connected with us through legendary Spanish chess photographer David Llada, who captured some amazing shots of both Stuart and Sarang at the event. You can view many of his photos on his Instagram page. Stuart also shared some amazing stories about his career and talked at length about our local legend Uncle Vik, Viktors Pupols, who has beaten Bobby Fischer. Stuart and Vik played an awesome game at the 1987 US Open, the 88th edition of the tournament, held in Portland, Oregon, just down I-5 from us.
That’s all for today! We hope you make many new friends in your tournament journeys! Feel free to leave a comment on interesting people YOU met in a chess tournament!
Three Cheers, Fellow Future Master Chess Friends!
The Man Benji, The Myth Sarang, and The Legend Vivi
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