126th US Open Recap

Hi Friends,

We just returned from a wonderful week in the Midwest with family and friends and competed at the 126th U.S. Open Chess Championship! In this blog we'll touch on all seven categories: #travel, #chess, #food, #sports, #gaming, #yoga, and #music, so whatever you're here for, read on!

First, let's shoutout Port of Seattle and their epic SeaTac airport C concourse expansion! There was lots of space to sit, quiet areas to chill, a yoga room, nice views, and amazing food like Port of Subs and Great State Burger! We took a flight to ORD (Chicago O'Hare) and enjoyed some Beecher's Mac 'n' Cheese onboard our Alaska Airlines direct flight.

We spent the next few days with our grandparents in Buffalo Grove, IL. My grandma's cooking is on another level, especially her chinna vengaya sambar with her ghee roast dosa! We took lots of walks locally, played a bunch of basketball and frisbee, as well as bridge and some OG Mario Kart Double Dash on Nintendo GameCube. Overall, it was a nice, relaxing time to get our heads right before the big tournament.

It was lovely to enjoy one of our favorite fast casual spots outside of Seattle, Noodles & Company (if you're reading this, please open a shop in Seattle, we'll help fund you). Noodles from all over the world and that epic customized Coke freestyle machine can't be beat! We then took a four-hour road trip over to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Shoutout Starbucks in Portage, Indiana for the fabulous pitstops both ways!

Before we get to the tournament itself, here are some overall Grand Rapids, Michigan highlights. Our parking garage had a rooftop sports deck with a full basketball court we played on every day, a track I ran on, and tennis and pickleball courts. We had a lovely view of the Grand Rapids skyline and famous blue bridge (as you can see in the cartoon below). We also saw the Van Andel Arena, home to the NBA G League Grand Rapids Gold, a part of the Denver Nuggets organization.

We got to spend a lot of time with our good buddy Benji, who along with me and my brother, make up The Chess Friends, a world famous and now national journalism award winning writing group of homeschooled chess kids! I also got to meet many of my fellow coaches at Pawn to Queen Chess Coaching, like Aadit, Yekshit, Pranshu, and Nicholas. Every morning I did my yoga to lock in for the grueling games ahead (read about my routines here: Just Breathe... A Yoga Intro and Surya Namaskar: A Yoga Flow). Every day I also made tons of beats on GarageBand to relax, and we also listened to music several hours every day in the hotel and car rides.

The Bistro in our Courtyard by Marriott was great! Breakfast burritos and quesadillas really hit the spot and their late-night burgers, fries, and drinks after a long round were amazing. Field & Fire Cafe was a revelation found by Benji's parents, Sasha and Scott. They use 100% local food, and that red pepper jelly grilled cheese had the perfect smokiness (so gouda), spiciness, stringiness (sweet mozz), and it really hit all the right notes. Also, shoutout Panera for being on the walk between the hotel and the DeVos Place where we competed.

Speaking of DeVos Place, there was also the 2026 Ringside King of the Jungle Boxing National Championships happening in a different wing. During one of our Panera stops, we met four boxers. They were as fascinated by us as we were by them. When one of our new boxer friends said: "I love chess. I'm a 130 on chess dot com. How do you think I'd do against you over the board?" I replied: "About as well as I'd do against you in the ring!" We saw each other periodically over the next several days and kept encouraging one another in our respective competitions. One of the guys we met actually won the event! More than anything, that conversation helped reinforce the idea that whatever your passion is, if you work really hard and keep rising, there's an amazing common language and camaraderie with anyone else grinding.

Photo by Dad, Animated with ChatGPT

Now the moment you've been waiting for, maybe: The 126th U.S. Open Chess Championship! Over 500 of the best chess players from around the United States of America and a few visiting from abroad competed in a single section over 9 rounds. There were many side events as well like rapid quads, a blitz championship, age-based invitationals, and more. Vivaan and Dad played two days of rapid quads and the blitz event. I played the main event. All of us played opponents from under 10 to over 60, one of my favorite parts of the chess world! Age, race, class, gender, you name it, none of it matters here, everyone comes together to enjoy the game we love.

Vivaan played his best chess yet, sweeping both his quads and going 6/6 overall, earning him a whopping 171 rating points to reach his USCF peak of 1582! He also cooked in blitz, earning 7/14 paired up every single game, beating several class A players (between 1800 and 2000). Bravo bro! Dad played his best chess in a while, winning his first quad with 2.5/3 and getting second in his second quad with 2/3, earning 66 rating points to reach 1466, his best since his brain tumor (all good now) and being a floored 1400 for a while. He also played blitz, had fun, and got 5/14.

As for me, I definitely played my best tournament ever! I finished with 3 wins, 4 draws, and 2 losses, for a total of 5/9, with a rating performance of 1932, raising my USCF rating from 1587 to my peak now of 1724! After each game, regardless of the result, I noted three takeaways to help me grow moving forward. A major step for me here was to play less passively and more aggressively. Perhaps the biggest leap for me was attitude and self-belief. Shoutout to my Mom, Dad, and coaches for helping me with this, especially Mom and Dad on the ground during the tournament, as well as Sasha and Scott! I genuinely believed I would win or draw against anyone under 2000, and I did! With some more practice and preparation, perhaps that threshold will continue to rise in my mind.

Before I let you go, let's talk about the journey home. After some celebratory post-tournament Insomnia cookies with Benji, we departed toward O'Hare. Enroute, we stopped at a cute town called St. Joseph, Michigan, on Lake Michigan. We had a nice lunch at Chan's Garden (yummy Chinese food), and enjoyed the sunshine, shops, and views for a while. At O'Hare, I got to experience Jabbrrbox! These are amazing little soundproof pods that you can find in airports around the world. I taught my last two Pawn to Queen group classes for the summer from there and they went great! Next to my work pod near Gate E1, we had some epic Japanese food at Wicker Park Seafood and Sushi. The edamame was the best!

The flight was delayed quite a bit but we ultimately made it home around 1am, shoutout to my uncle Niranjan for still picking us up! There's a lot of fun new stuff upcoming these next few weeks on the homefront, which I'll surely blog about, and we plan to resume chess tournaments in September. I'm thinking I'll do an approximately 3 blogs/week cadence here moving forward on Prodigy Strats but let's see how it goes.

That's all for today! See y'all next time! Sarang out.