Sixteen-year-old IM Alice Lee is once again the champion of The Women’s American Cup 2026 for the third year in a row. In the Grand Final Reset against IM Carissa Yip, Lee won the first rapid game and drew the second to secure the match.
GM Wesley So previously won The American Cup 2026 on Wednesday, and you can read our coverage of that event here.
Women’s Grand Final Reset: Lee Takes The American Cup Again
Lee won $40,000 plus another $9,000 bonus for winning the Champions Bracket. Both she and Yip are establishing themselves as the leading players in U.S. women’s chess—not only by rating but also by tournament wins. With a 2486 published rating, Yip still stands as the frontrunner in the race to the grandmaster title (and the $100,000 award that comes with it).
Lee 1.5-0.5 Yip
Wednesday must have been a wakeup call for Lee, who kept taking the lead but was repeatedly unable to put the match away. Or as Lee put it, “I seemed to be in control, but then somehow things just slipped away.”
After losing that match, Lee reflected calmly: “She deserved to win the match yesterday. I think she just played better and she was able to keep her nerves, but today I just thought, okay, I can play against her again, and it will be a very interesting match.”
She deserved to win the match yesterday.
—Alice Lee
Indeed, the match was off to an interesting first game in the Caro-Kann Defense, with Lee handling the black pieces. Yip gained a slight space advantage, which could have transformed into something concrete if she had found 17.Bxe4 dxe4 18.d5!, a powerful breakthrough in the center.
Instead, Yip missed the opportunity with 17.Rc1 instead, and with two trades of minor pieces, Lee extinguished the pressure. Later, the winning move of the game was a pretty one, 30…Rxd4!, and one that she played almost instantly.GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the Game of the Day below.
Lee’s job was to hold a draw with the white pieces in the next game, but surely memories from the day before must have crept up. Yip was able to win two times on demand on Wednesday, but she couldn’t pull it off a third time in the Grand Final Reset.
Lee gained a giant advantage, a winning one in fact, but traded down into an opposite-color bishop endgame—not best play, but good enough for the match situation. When all four rooks came off the board, the result was not at all in doubt, though Yip extended the game to move 117 by shuffling bishops. Both players burst into laughter when Yip, moving quickly, accidentally missed that her king was in check.
Carissa Yip isn’t conceding the championship just yet! Alice will have to work for it for, perhaps, at least 50 moves! pic.twitter.com/NsifR1NzYz
— chess24 (@chess24com) March 12, 2026
Finally, the game—and the match—between two friends came to a smiling end. Alice did it again. She’s made it to the Grand Final every single year since the event’s inception in 2022, and next year the salient question will be the same. Can she do it again?
She thanked many people, including the Sinquefields, the tournament directors and commentary team, family, friends, teachers back at school, the Kasparov Chess Foundation, and ChessKid for supporting her “for over half a decade.” ChessKid’s FM Mike Klein said:
I cannot think of a better player to represent the game of chess than Alice. She is so accomplished and successful while exemplifying a true joy of the game. I only hope we can have one more episode of “Alice’s Pawn Palace” one day!
Congratulations to Alice Lee, all the tournament participants, and the Saint Louis Chess Club!
How To Review
The American Cup 2026, which took place from March 3 to 12 in St. Louis, brought together the United States’ strongest players to battle in a high-stakes double-elimination knockout bracket across classical and rapid time controls. There were an open tournament and a women’s tournament, with the two time controls of 90+30 and 25+10 (with 3+2 blitz and potential armageddon as tiebreakers). The prize fund was $250,000 in the open and $150,000 in the women’s.
Previous coverage:
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- Day 9: Wesley So Wins Maiden Title, Yip Takes 1st Match Vs. Lee
- Day 8: Wesley So Scores In 1st Game, Lee & Yip Stay Deadlocked
- Day 7: Aronian, Yip Advance To Grand Finals Vs. Wesley So, Lee
- Day 6: Wesley So, Alice Lee Reach Grand Finals
- Day 5: Caruana Wins Game 1 Vs. Wesley So; Dominguez, Sevian, Tang, Li Eliminated
- Day 4: So Vs. Caruana, Yip Vs. Lee In Champions Finals
- Day 3: Robson, Mishra, Krush, Zatonskih Eliminated On Day 3
- Day 2: Liang Beats Aronian, Tang Reverses Match Vs. Krush In Early Upsets
- Day 1: Caruana Scores 1st Win In Open; Krush, Lee Lead In Women’s