GMs Ray Robson and Abhimanyu Mishra were the first to leave The American Cup 2026 after matches in the Elimination Bracket didn’t go their way. The quadragenarian GMs Levon Aronian and Leinier Dominguez won respectively and advanced, while GM Fabiano Caruana vs. GM Awonder Liang and GM Wesley So vs. GM Sam Sevian in the Champions Bracket will be end on Friday. Game one of both those matches ended in draws.
GM Irina Krush and IM Anna Zatonskih were eliminated from The Women’s American Cup 2026 by debutants WIM Rachael Li (an upset!) and IM Anna Sargsyan, respectively, with the latter match going all the way to armageddon tiebreaks. In the Champions Bracket, IM Alice Lee nicked a point off of WGM Zoey Tang in game one, as did IM Carissa Yip against IM Tatev Abrahamyan in our Game of the Day.
Day four of The American Cup is on Friday, March 6, starting at 1:10 p.m. ET / 19:10 CET / 11:40 p.m. IST.
Champions Semifinals:
Elimination Round 1:
Open: It’s All Tied Up
Two solid draws left no feelings hurt among the four players still in the Champions Bracket. This means that any win in game two gets the match point.
Caruana ½-½ Liang
Liang held a sold draw with the black pieces in the Ruy Lopez Deferred Exchange Variation. Caruana had a bit more space and said that if there was any missed chance it was not playing 31.Rg2, but he also said that he thought for too long in the earlier stages and, “he had double my time, so it’s not very likely that I’m going to convert this, even if I did start to get chances.”
Asked about what kind of chess we’ll see on Friday, Caruana said he truly didn’t know. “A lot depends on him. He has the white pieces… at least in his match against Levon, he played super safe,” he said, though, “I don’t know, he may have a different strategy for me.”
So ½-½ Sevian
Though it lasted 72 moves, the result of this game was never really in doubt. The players followed a 2023 correspondence game in the English Opening for 18 moves until Black deviated. So ultimately achieved the maximum, winning a pawn in the endgame, but it didn’t change the evaluation and Sevian held with no mistakes.
Women’s: Yip, Lee Score Points
There were no draws for the ladies. Yip and Lee stand a half-point away from the Champions Final.
Yip 1-0 Abrahamyan
Yip won an exciting game in the Winawer Variation of the French Defense. “Maybe it was a standard game for me,” she said, “just classic, riddled with mistakes.” She added a bit of Gen Z flavor on the broadcast: “But yeah, it was actually a cray game, bruh.”
GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the full Game of the Day below.
Abrahamyan will have the white pieces in a must-win game on Friday. GM Maurice Ashley asked what Yip was planning and she said, “You’ll see tomorrow.”
Lee 1-0 Tang
Lee, the defending champion, is the only player to have won all three classical games in a row so far, no draws. The two-time The American Cup winner got a pleasant position out of the opening, but the final result came down to a one-move blunder.
Lee said the opening line was one she prepared against Li a few days ago, but happened to use in this match. But move 19 was the critical moment of the game, when Lee was given a tactical knockout on a platter.
“There’s something about this event that kind of suits me,” said Lee, “but of course, but I can’t really be too happy with myself because the next day is going to decide the match. I don’t want to let her do what she did to Irina.” Against Krush, Tang also lost the first game but rebounded in the second and then won the match in playoffs.
In the Elimination Bracket, the players settled matches in two rapid games played with a 25+10 time control. If tied, blitz tiebreaks ensued, as in the Women’s section.Â
Open: Aronian, Dominguez Take Younger Opponents To School
Neither Aronian nor Dominguez needed tiebreaks to take the match and advance to the Elimination Quarterfinals.
Aronian 1.5-0.5 Mishra
“I knew I was in trouble. That was part of the plan!” quipped Aronian about game two after the match. “I told myself I’m not playing well, let’s have some fun.” It was a tough match for Mishra, considering he got advantages in both games.
Mishra was on the better side of a draw with the black pieces in game one, but really missed just one move for a clear advantage before it fizzled to a draw.
In game two, the players followed a line Aronian had just played recently at the 2025 FIDE World Cup, and Aronian’s deviation in this game was a mistake. Mishra had the initiative, but playing 19.Qxg4? allowed a sudden counterattack that equalized the game, and then a bit more.
“In this type of format, at some point you have to take some risks,” Aronian told Ashley. “I wouldn’t say I’m too proud of my play, but I’ve just had zero pressure.”
Dominguez 2-0 Robson
Dominguez won both games, though the critical game was the first. Acknowledging the double-elimination format, he said, “It’s nice to have a second chance!”
“I feel that I’m playing decently,” he said. “I lost the first match, but we played a good game. I was fighting, I made some mistakes, I lost, but I didn’t feel like I was playing badly.”
Robson sacrificed a pawn in the first game, but his follow-up wasn’t ideal. White got an advantage, and he did it by figuring out the optimal squares for his pieces. Dominguez said, “I understood that I need to put the queen on d4,” and after putting his king on d2 and placing the pawn on h4, he was simply a pawn up with a safe king. Â
The second win had more to do with Robson self-destructing in a must-win game, as there was no difference between a draw and a loss.
Women’s: Li Upsets Krush, Sargsyan Wins Marathon Match
Li won her match against Krush in the first set of blitz tiebreaks, while the other match went all the way to armageddon.
Krush 1-3 Li
Just as on the previous day, Krush played good moves but took too long to make them. She had outplayed Li in all four of the games they played, but as Ashley likes to say, time trouble makes fools of us all. Li won the first game, then lost, but came back by winning both blitz playoff games.
Li said of her opponent, “She plays very well. The only way I thought I would have a chance would be to get her low on time, and it worked out pretty well.”
The contours of the entire day were painted in game one, where Krush had in her hands the easiest win of all four games. She completely outplayed her younger opponent in a King’s Indian Defense, but with low time the hesitation started to creep in. Ashley pointed to 33.Qd3 as the first moment of hesitation, and the lack of a knockout blow for many moves gave Black the chance to muster a counterblow.
As it often happens in the King’s Indian Defense, a turnaround often doesn’t mean just a draw but a win for Black instead.
Krush struggled on the clock again in the second game, but managed to snag the full point in return. She had just 22 seconds against two minutes at the last critical moment, but instantly played the checkmate.
The next two games were disaster. She blundered a rook from a winning position and then her queen in the next one.
Surprised by her own win, Li has given her next match zero thought so far. She said:
This is quite sudden on me actually. I didn’t even think I would honestly be able to somehow clutch back the games, you know, because it was a rough start, but I’m hoping that maybe I’ll have more chances in the future.
Sargsyan 4-3 Zatonskih
Sargsyan won the longest match so far, which happened to be the battle of Anna versus Anna. Sargsyan won the first game, then Zatonskih struck back; then it was Sargsyan who won on demand in blitz tiebreaks; and finally Sargsyan won on demand again in the second set of blitz tiebreaks. It all came down to armageddon.Â
Colors in the armageddon were decided by a drawing of lots, so it was just by chance that Sargsyan got Black with two minutes and draw odds, while White had three minutes and had to win, with a two-second increment for both. Zatonskih was up a pawn in a queen and rook endgame—though the position was equal—when she lost on time.
Sargsyan said that it’s her first time playing a knockout event, and the nerves are intense. “It’s not what I expected and I definitely don’t like it so far!”
It was a tough and nervy match, and Sargsyan was a bit hard on herself even after winning. “Honestly, I feel a little embarrassed to qualify for the next stage because I was playing very badly each game, even the ones I won.” Nevertheless, she’s in the Elimination Quarterfinals and will face whoever loses in Lee vs. Tang.
On Friday, we will see only the Champions Bracket while players in the Elimination Bracket will have a rest day. Somebody will make it through to the Champions Finals, whether through the classical game or through blitz tiebreaks.
How To Review
The American Cup 2026, which takes place from March 3 to 12 in St. Louis, brings together the United States’ strongest players to battle in a high-stakes double-elimination knockout bracket across classical and rapid time controls. There is 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 is $250,000 in the open and $150,000 in the women’s.
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