15/16 Points in Samarkand and a Knock on the Door from the Najdorf Board

Last night, when the Round 4 scoreboard from the Samarkand event refreshed on my computer screen, I sat in silence for a long while. Fifteen board points out of sixteen. The United States women's team is leading the field, and a number like that, even if it doesn't yet tell us the final story, forces you to stop and look again. I have followed women's chess for many years, from world championships played in near-empty halls to packed online viewing rooms, and I know that there are moments when the scoreboard itself tells a story. Fifteen out of sixteen, with a single draw across four rounds, is the kind of start that no team achieves twice in a decade. The 2026 shock was not merely a single match. It was a knock on the door of a generation. Tonight, in Samarkand, I hear that knock again, though the scene behind the door has changed somewhat. In this piece I want to do two things that I believe are necessary for anyone genuinely following women's chess in Vietnam and around the world. First, I want to examine the 15/16 figure with a clear head, neither inflating it into a myth nor dismissing it as an accident. Second, I want to discuss a quieter but longer-lasting development: Daniel King's Najdorf update, which I happened to see the same day. Two stories that appear unrelated, but to me they speak the same truth about how women's chess and chess in general are operating. Some context before we get into the details. Samarkand is an ancient city in Uzbekistan with a deep chess tradition dating back to the Soviet era. Uzbekistan is not the most prominent nation in Asian women's chess, but it has notable infrastructure and organizational heritage. The event there, based on what I have gathered, is a team-format competition where each round sees teams face off across multiple boards, with points accumulated per board. A team can win all four boards, or three wins and a draw, or any other combination. The maximum per round is four points. After four rounds, the maximum is sixteen. I remember the first time I watched a team event like this in the early 2000s, when I was still in Melbourne and following international chess tournaments as a young observer. Back then I thought team chess had a particular cruelty. You could play brilliantly, win convincingly on your board, but if the other three lost, you walked away quietly with a sense of emptiness. Conversely, you could play poorly, be forced into a defensive draw, but if your teammates won, you sat in the analysis room laughing like a child. Team chess is a sport where the ego dissolves. Fifteen out of sixteen board points. To understand what this number means, we need to strip away the halo. If it is indeed cumulative across four rounds with four boards per round, then the US women's team has won fifteen individual games and drawn one. Not a single loss. Not two draws. Just one player, at one moment across four rounds, allowed her opponent to hold. Everyone else, in every match, won. Under this reading, the US women's team has won all four team matches, with three clean 4-0 victories and one 3.5-0.5 win. That makes me pause for a long time. In high-level team chess, a 4-0 victory is rare. Four consecutive rounds without dropping any points is something I cannot recall witnessing at national women's team level since I began keeping records. But I need to be careful. And here is why I am not rushing to celebrate. A 15/16 figure, in purely statistical terms, is a strong signal but admits two interpretations. The first: the US women's team is genuinely far stronger than the opposition in the early stage, and this result reflects the true gap in strength. The second: the US women's team got a favorable draw, faced weaker teams in the first four rounds, and this result will adjust when they meet real opposition. My twenty years of watching team events says the second possibility cannot be ruled out. In many tournaments, organizers deliberately match strong teams against weaker ones early on to establish rhythm, to give spectators a chance to follow the stars before the knockout stage. With four opening rounds, if the US team is a top seed, they are almost certain to face lower-tier teams in the first two rounds. But even granting that, 15/16 remains a signal that cannot be ignored. Because to reach such a number, even against weaker opponents, the US women's team has to maintain absolute focus. In chess, a single small error against a weaker opponent can cost you half a point, and that half point, accumulated across rounds, can be the difference between a title and third place. I remember once, around 2026, watching a women's team event in Europe. A team considered a title favorite opened with three straight wins, but in Round 4 they met a weaker team and drew two boards. In the final standings, they lost the title to another team by half a point. In team chess, consistency matters more than brilliance. And that is what makes the 15/16 at Samarkand worth noting. Not because of the absolute number, but because it reveals a level of consistency very few women's teams achieve in the opening phase. Back then I sat in the stands, never knowing I would step onto the field through words. Just as when I watched the US women's football team in Le Havre in 2026, I had no idea that years later I would look at that same national women's team's chess scoreboard and see a similar rhythm. There is one thing I want to make clear to readers following women's chess in Vietnam who have limited access to international events. Team format differs from individual format in that collective scores can hide a great deal. When you see 15/16, you do not see the specific games, the moments when a player on board three nearly let half a point slip, the times when someone on board four had to calculate with only two minutes on the clock. The scoreboard is the result of moments outsiders never see. That is why I often advise Vietnamese friends following international chess to seek out the specific games rather than stopping at the scoreboard. For the event in Samarkand, that means waiting for the organizers to publish detailed games, or searching databases like ChessBase, or following reliable specialty media. If 15/16 is cumulative after four rounds, we can infer structurally that the US team used a relatively stable lineup, perhaps rotating on the lower boards to conserve energy for later rounds, and succeeded in winning even with substitute players. This is the mark of a team with genuine depth, not just one star. But this is precisely where I want to pivot to the second story, because it relates directly. On the same day I reviewed the Samarkand scoreboard, I also read an update to Daniel King's Najdorf opening course, released as a supplement to the Power Play 18 DVD. This is not a sporting event. It is a content event. But to me, its parallel appearance with the Samarkand result is a coincidence worth pondering. Najdorf is one of the most complex opening systems in modern chess. It begins with 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6. The move 5...a6, seemingly modest, is in fact one of the deepest moves in all opening theory. It prepares ...e5, controls the b5 square, and opens up one of the most intricate structures humans have ever devised. The update I saw covers a range of specific branches. 6.h3 e5 7.Nde2, a direction I saw in top-player games about a decade ago. 6.Bc4 with English Attack ideas. 6.Be3 with ...a5, a common defense against the classical English Attack. 6.Be2, a slower direction but no less dangerous. And 5.f3, a move favored by players who want to avoid heavy theory. Those familiar with Najdorf will recognize these as branches whose theory has shifted considerably over the past fifteen years. What Daniel King is doing is not inventing a new system. He is updating an old system with new insights, based on engine analysis and top-level practice. Tactics are like people: you must know who you are before you try to become someone else. This applies both to Najdorf and to the US women's team in Samarkand. Both stand in positions where they know exactly who they are, and are trying to grow from that foundation, not from imitating someone else. Najdorf is a system many women chess players have used and continue to use. In high-level women's events, Najdorf appears regularly. I recall watching many games by top women players employing Najdorf as their main weapon with the black pieces. This says that Najdorf theory is not something reserved for open men's events. It is the shared language of anyone playing chess at a high level. And here is the point I want to make clear. When Daniel King updates the Najdorf course, he is not speaking only to male players. He is speaking to anyone who uses Najdorf, including women players, including coaches developing young female talents, including people like me who follow and analyze women's chess in Vietnam. One thing I have learned in thirty-six years of observing the chess world: opening content is among the least gender-differentiated things there is. A Najdorf line can be played brilliantly by a woman as by a man, and vice versa. What differentiates is not gender, but preparation, memory, calculation under pressure, and post-game analysis. When the cheers fade, I hear the true breathing of the match. I wrote this for football, but it applies to chess in a different way. In chess, there are no cheers to begin with. From the start, breathing is all there is. And that is why women's chess, to some extent, has always been a more equal sport than many others. There is no loud stand to hide weakness. There is only the board and the clock. But equality on the board does not mean equality of opportunity. And that is where we need to talk about the larger context. The Najdorf theory Daniel King updates is not free. It is a commercial product. To access it, learners must have the means to pay, the equipment, the time. And this is where gender inequality in chess truly occurs: not at the board, but around the board. I have said many times, in articles and in conversations with colleagues in Vietnam, that youth development in women's chess needs more than free scholarships. It needs an ecosystem. Mentors. Access to high-quality content without prohibitive cost. Tournaments with commensurate prize money so young women players can pursue careers without worrying about bread and butter. How does this relate to the Samarkand story? In that: the US women's team, to achieve 15/16 after four rounds, does not rely on individual talent alone. They rely on a years-long training system, on access to the most updated opening theory, on having analytical experts alongside. That is what developing countries, including Vietnam, need to look at with clear eyes rather than envy. Uzbekistan, the host, is a notable example. It is a country with a strong chess tradition from the Soviet era, but its women's chess developed unevenly for decades. Over the past twenty years, the Uzbek government has invested heavily in chess as a national sport, and this has begun to pay off. Their hosting of an event at this level in Samarkand is not just economic, but also about prestige and long-term strategy. I want to spend a paragraph on my perspective as an Australian living in Vietnam. I was born in Melbourne, but I have lived in Da Nang for many years. I follow chess from an outsider's angle, but I have also witnessed the growth of Vietnamese chess over a decade. One thing that makes me love the chess scene here is its resilience and its quietness. Vietnamese players, especially women, often must walk a longer road than peers in countries with stronger infrastructure. And that is why when I look at the Samarkand scoreboard, I do not only see the US women's team. I see a model other nations can learn from, but with caution about differing economic and social conditions. Now back to Najdorf, and more technical detail. In Najdorf, the 6.h3 branch became popular again in the past decade after a long period overshadowed by the English Attack. The move 6.h3 prepares g2-g4 and a kingside attack. After 6...e5 7.Nde2, White preserves piece mobility while preparing g4. This is a system that engines re-evaluated around 2026-2026, and as a result it has reappeared at the top level. The 6.Bc4 branch, connected to English Attack ideas but with a different move order, is a way to avoid the heavy theory of the classical Najdorf. This is a move many young players choose when they want a more strategic game than pure theory. The 6.Be3 with ...a5 branch is the classical English Attack. The English Attack is characterized by White playing Be3, f3, Qd2, and often 0-0-0. It is called "English" because English players popularized it in the 1980s, though its roots run deeper. The ...a5 defense against the English Attack is one of the key ideas: Black attacks on the queenside to open lines for his pieces while White attacks on the kingside. The 6.Be2 branch is one of the most modest approaches to Najdorf. White does not attack immediately, but develops soundly, then attacks later. This is a system players like Karpov once used, and it remains alive in modern chess. Finally, 5.f3 is one of the most controversial moves in Najdorf. It strongly prepares Be3 and Qd2, but it also blocks the development of Nf3 in later rounds. Many players use 5.f3 as a psychological weapon to avoid heavy theory and create a game they feel more comfortable in. What Daniel King does in this update is give players an up-to-date picture of all these branches, based on specific requests from DVD users. This is an interesting business model: content developed not only from expert analysis, but from the practical needs of users. Signing a contract is black-and-white, but staying is a matter of the heart. In opening content, the same holds. An opening DVD can be sold, but for it to have genuine value to a player, it must reflect their practical needs. Daniel King understands this, and that is why the update targets specific requests rather than simply refreshing everything. The empty hallway of 2026 taught me that the field never dies, it only waits. In chess, this means: even when tournaments are postponed, theory keeps developing. When tournaments return, players already hold new tools, new insights, and the new games will carry the breath of compressed time. Now, having gone through both stories, I want to say what I really think. The 15/16 story in Samarkand and Daniel King's Najdorf update, on the surface, are unrelated. One is elite sport. One is educational content. One is a competitive result. One is a commercial product. But both point to one thing: modern chess is run by people who understand not only chess, but how to develop themselves systematically. The US women's team in Samarkand, if truly at 15/16 after four rounds, did not achieve this by luck. They are operating a training program I can only envy from Vietnam. They have analysis, strategy, discipline. Daniel King did not make a simple opening DVD. He made a product with a short life cycle but long influence, because those who learn from it will bring those ideas into their games for years. And both remind me of why I am still here, at fifty-two, writing about women's chess from a coastal city in central Vietnam. Not because I believe chess will change the world. But because I believe that in chess, the women playing, teaching, analyzing, organizing deserve recognition not merely as representatives of a movement, but as experts in the truest sense. Now comes the hardest part of the article: the counter-view. I have seen too many articles about women's chess in Vietnam and worldwide fall into the safe-position trap. They dare not question results. They dare not doubt numbers. They dare not say that a strong start may not hold to the end. I will be different. If 15/16 is the cumulative score after four rounds, I have two serious concerns. First concern: with a denominator of only sixteen, a single small error can overturn the entire picture. In high-level team events, teams typically face stronger opponents after Round 4 or 5. If the US women's team loses a match 2-2 in the next round, their lead narrows immediately, and the "setting the pace" narrative shifts. Second concern: fifteen out of sixteen is too pretty a number. In chess, too-pretty numbers rarely last. This is not malicious skepticism. It is the healthy skepticism of someone who has watched hundreds of tournaments and knows chess is a game of constant correction. After a team reaches 15/16, others begin preparing more carefully. They review games. They find weaknesses. They attack those weaknesses. For Najdorf, I have a similar concern. Opening content has a short shelf life. A line deemed a "new idea" today can be refuted next month by a top-level game. Engines keep changing. Top-level players can access the strongest engine versions and analyze deeper than anyone. This means any opening update has value only for a limited window. This does not mean Daniel King's product is worthless. On the contrary. For players not yet at elite level, having an expert guide through complex branches remains extremely valuable. But we must be clear-eyed about what we are buying. The biggest blind spot in both my stories is not about results or content, but about transformation. A good start in Samarkand does not automatically transform into a title. And a good opening update does not automatically transform into real improvement in the learner's strength. Both require what I call "non-stubborn persistence": continuing to work with the right principles, but constantly adjusting when new information arrives. In women's chess specifically, I believe this matters even more. Because women players often must work in environments with fewer resources, they need to optimize the efficiency of each resource. Choosing an opening course that fits one's style, rather than buying everything new, is a strategic decision. Choosing which tournaments to enter, rather than spreading energy thin, is also a strategic decision. And this brings me to the final takeaway. What I want you to carry from this article is not the 15/16 number, nor the list of Najdorf branches. I want you to carry a question: when you see a beautiful result or compelling content, are you looking at it with clear eyes? Women's chess is at a moment I believe is important. Women players are increasingly invested in, noticed, valued. But that attention needs to come with substantive analysis, not mere praise. The US women's team deserves credit for 15/16 board points after four rounds. But they also deserve serious evaluation over the remaining six rounds. Daniel King deserves recognition for continuing to update one of the most complex systems in modern chess. But learners deserve to know that this content has a short shelf life and must be verified independently. I write these lines from Da Nang, as dawn breaks outside. I do not know how the Samarkand event will end. I do not know whether the Najdorf branches I just read will become a trend in the coming years. But I know one thing: chess, whether at the highest level or in a small tournament in a coastal city, remains the story of patient people facing uncertainty. And that is the story I still want to tell, every week, every month, until my pen can write no more.