GM Fabiano Caruana picked up a win against GM Wesley So in the first game of The American Cup 2026 Champions Final. In the Elimination Bracket, GMs Sam Sevian and Leinier Dominguez were eliminated by GMs Levon Aronian and Awonder Liang, respectively.
In The Women’s American Cup 2026, IMs Carissa Yip and Alice Lee made a draw in the first game of the Champions Final. In the Elimination Bracket, WGM Zoey Tang and WIM Rachael Li were eliminated by IMs Anna Sargsyan and Tatev Abrahamyan, respectively.
With eliminations coming in fast, just four matches remain in The American Cup. Day six is on Sunday, March 8, starting at 1:10 p.m. ET / 18:10 CET / 11:40 p.m. IST.
Champions Finals:
Elimination Quarterfinals:
Open Champions Final: Caruana Strikes
It’s a dream scenario for Caruana, who will return to play on Sunday with draw odds. It will be a must-win game for So, who will have the white pieces.
Caruana 1-0 So
“I actually didn’t expect it,” said Caruana about his win against the notoriously solid Berlin Defense—and it was also So’s first loss in the first five days of the tournament. Caruana continued:
I mean, the opening, I got no advantage, but then I started to misplay it. I was thinking, just try to equalize the game at this point, but then I got a position that seemed a little bit pleasant, so I figured, why not keep playing it? And it continued to get more and more unpleasant for him.
After missing a chance to keep the initiative earlier, it was in the endgame that Caruana outplayed his opponent. By move 30, GM Rafael Leitao writes, “A draw is certainly the most likely outcome here, especially with a defender of So’s caliber with Black, but White has a distant passed pawn and this is enough for a slight practical advantage.” You can read his full analysis of the Game of the Day below.
With this win, Caruana is a single rating point away from rejoining the 2800 club on the live rating list, one that currently has just two members.
Fabiano Caruana’s live rating is 2799 after his win against Wesley So in the American Cup!@2700chess pic.twitter.com/VNYDJIC2Kz
— chess24 (@chess24com) March 7, 2026
We should expect fireworks from So, who can reach blitz tiebreaks only if he wins the next game. Although the two Americans have played over a hundred games, Caruana said there’s something novel about Sunday’s encounter:Â “I haven’t, I think, been in this position against him before, in classical, where I need to draw. In rapid, we’ve had this kind of situation, but not in classical.”
Will Caruana finish the job, or will So pull off the kind of comeback Tang staged against GM Irina Krush on day two?Â
Women’s Champions Final: Solid Draw
Nothing’s changed in the match between Yip and Lee except that the second game doubles in value. A single win is the match point on Sunday, or they’ll go to blitz tiebreaks.
Yip ½-½ Lee
We saw a very solid draw in the Petroff in the first classical game of this match. Yip, who had the white pieces, explained she didn’t want to reveal too much about her preparation, but said:
Overall, the Petroff is a lot of theory. I think the last time I had a real game against it was quite a while ago. So, I figured, you know, I could pick a line, see if she knows it. If she knows it, it’s a draw. If she doesn’t, then you know, it’ll be good.
Judging by Lee’s clock time, she knew the line inside and out and drew without any difficulty. By move 18, she had seven more minutes than she had started with. There was one silly moment at the end when Yip prolonged the game; with 40.Rc7, she declined an inevitable move repetition. Finally, Lee claimed the draw five moves later.
Open Elimination Quarterfinals: Aronian Wins In Rapid, Liang In Blitz Playoffs
Aronian won the first game and then (barely) held a draw in the second, while Liang convincingly took his match in blitz.
Aronian 1.5-0.5 Sevian
Aronian won a convincing first game in the Italian. Space gained on the queenside led to the aesthetic 25.Rb5! rook lift, which helped with the creation of an outside passed pawn. Combined with a later attack against the king, it was too much for Sevian to defend both sides of the chessboard.
The needed draw in game two was anything but smooth. By his own admission, he was flat out lost after what Aronian called “a senior moment.” His first idea was 27…Ne6, but he changed his mind and went for the reasonable-looking alternative 27…Ba6??.Â
White won the two pieces for a rook and made no mistakes in his conversion until clocks got low, and Sevian’s 49.Nh3? was essentially his first and last mistake. Aronian showed some real magic to save this one.
Aronian talked about his ability to come back from dire straits:
I know I’m capable of playing badly, so I’m not surprised. I know I’m capable of blundering. When blunders happen, I just tell myself, okay, this is something that was bound to happen… and I just have to get myself together and play like nothing happened.
He’ll play Liang next, in the Elimination Semifinals.
Dominguez 1.5-2.5 Liang
This match took four games to conclude. Liang won the first game, but then Dominguez struck back on demand in the second—both players winning with the black pieces in the rapid portion.
They had a long, maneuvering endgame in the first one, but Dominguez crumbled with just two minutes against 10. But in game two, Liang tried too hard to trade pieces in his attempt to draw and allowed a strong initiative. He said:
I practiced a lot for this scenario, drawing with White…. I think in training I almost never lose with White on demand, but it happened…. I think he played an amazing technical game.
He also quipped, “It’s probably harder to draw him than it is to beat him.”
In the playoffs, Liang was on the better side of the first blitz game, pressing in a rook endgame that ended in a draw. In the second, Liang looked like he should have landed a checkmate somewhere in the middlegame, but Dominguez survived to a strange position. Up three pawns, Black still had technical difficulties converting the advantage due to the obvious threat of checkmate on h7. At least in theory, White could have held the game by sacrificing a fourth pawn with 43.e5!!.
A much less energetic Liang than on previous days said, “It was a very tough match. I didn’t really sleep at all last night, l so I guess things sort of worked out, I don’t know.”
He’ll play Aronian next, and he looks forward to it. “He’s a fun opponent for me to play against. I think every time I feel like a learn a lot from his games. He has huge expertise, and yeah, just a nice guy to be around in general.”
Women’s Elimination Quarterfinals: Abrahamyan, Sargsyan Advance Without PlayoffsÂ
No blitz games were needed in the Women’s, with both players advancing after two games.
Tang 0.5-1.5 Sargsyan
Sargsyan was ahead in both games of the match, though she let it slip in the first one. She was up three pawns in the endgame, but Tang escaped by a miracle into a draw. “My second was saying that it was good that I didn’t win,” explained Sargsyan, saying that when she beat IM Anna Zatonskih she played too passively for the draw in the subsequent game.
“I was so frustrated, but I’m happy that I could forget the first game before the second one started,” said the winner of the match. Tang’s 42.Bc4?? was the critical mistake, walking into a deadly pin, but the miracle did appear again in the form of one move: 46.Rd6!. When that was missed, the position collapsed.
Sargsyan was happier with her quality of play in this match than with the previous ones. Looking ahead to her rematch against Abrahamyan, she said, “I feel like I have better chances than the last time.” Abrahamyan won their encounter 1.5-0.5 in the Champions Quarterfinals.
Li 0.5-1.5 Abrahamyan
“Relief” was the first word that came to mind for Abrahamyan after winning the match. She won the first game and was on the better side of a draw in the second to close out the match.
She felt in total control of the game until 16…Ng4 appeared, a move she had missed. Li followed it up correctly with the sacrifice 17…Nxf2!, and if the knight is taken, Black has a perpetual check. Abrahamyan declined the sacrifice, and when Black started retreating, the position went decisively back into White’s favor.
“I think I’m playing the only other adult in the tournament!” said Abrahamyan, though it depends on the definition of an adult. Yip is 22 years old. She also said, “Overall, I’m not very happy with my level of play. I keep missing a lot of things.” But, on the bright side, she’s happy to be playing her friend. “At least one of us will go through,” she added.
Two more players will exit the tournament from the Elimination Bracket, while two players will drop down from the Champions Bracket, all on Sunday. Tune in to catch the action!
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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