GM Fabiano Caruana missed a huge chance to grab the sole lead at the 2025 U.S. Chess Championship in St. Louis on Saturday, failing to force a checkmate in nine moves against GM Wesley So. Alongside several more draws, GM Andy Woodward won his second game, against GM Dariusz Swiercz.
There was more action in the 2025 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship, where IM Anna Zatonskih caught IM Alice Lee in the lead as she defeated WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan, while Lee could only draw with WGM Thalia Cervantes. Further wins were scored by IM Carissa Yip vs. GM Irina Krush, IM Nazi Paikidze vs. IM Anna Sargsyan and WGM Jennifer Yu vs. FM Megan Paragua.
The seventh round of the U.S. Championships starts on Sunday, October 19, at 1:30 p.m. ET/19:30 CEST/11 p.m. IST.
Standings After Round 6: Open
Little changed in the standings, although Woodward joined the group of people on three points who are in a tie for fifth place.
Standings After Round 6: Women
Defending champion Yip moved to a shared third place thanks to her win against Krush, while Zatonskih took Sargsyan’s place as Lee’s co-leader.
Open: Woodward Scores 2nd Win
Round six only had one decisive game, but that should have been two.
Round 5 Results: Open
We need to start with what happened in the Caruana-So game as it is rare to see an engine shouting “+- (#9),” a forced mate in nine, and a world number three failing to see it. It wasn’t super easy, but Caruana should have found it.
The game was kind of a Reversed Benoni where Caruana had slowly outplayed So, who also needed a bit too much time on the clock. Caruana won material and got a winning attack, but then took a rash decision on the infamous 41st move. With 6 minutes and 41 seconds on the clock, he spent only 17 seconds on 41.Qf6, whereas putting the queen on b8 or d8 does win on the spot.
“I was very shocked he played 41.Qf6 quickly, because he just made time,” said So. “That’s what I wanted. I think he just thought I was going to resign.”
“It feels great now that I saved it,” said Miracle Man So afterward. “I mean, obviously I’m very unhappy with my play because I try not to focus too much on results but I try to be a better chess player which is almost impossible these days, but obviously a wonderful save, as Rex Sinquefield outside told me.”
As a result, Caruana and So are still sharing the lead with GM Hans Niemann, who held GM Levon Aronian to a draw in an interesting Nimzo-Indian game. This author hadn’t seen the plan of Nf6-d7-b6 before but as an 1.e4 player perhaps I can be excused.
At the end of the day, the only decisive game was Woodward’s win vs. Swiercz, the second win in a row for Woodward and the second loss in a row for his opponent. Swiercz was doing fine initially (“He tricked me a little bit in the opening” – Woodward) but should have taken on d7 with the rook on move 17. It went downhill surprisingly fast after that, as GM Dejan Bojkov shows below.
Round 7 Pairings: Open
Women: Zatonskih Catches Lee
Once again, the Women’s section was more dramatic with four decisive games again, including Sargsyan suffering her second loss in a row.
Round 6 Results: Women
In a tournament with more and more decisive games, Zatonskih is the only player left still undefeated. She had mixed feelings about her win against Pourkashiyan, who is in month seven of her pregnancy.
“It feels great because usually I’m not playing very well in recent U.S. Championships, and so far I’m very happy with my results,” said Zatonskih, adding: “I feel very sorry for Atousha. It’s like last person I wanted to beat in this tournament.”
something, you just play logical moves and you cannot, like, lose from the opening.”
This round saw the continuation of the rivalry between Yip and Krush, in which Yip continues to have the upper hand. She didn’t feel this gives her extra confidence. “Not really,” she said. “Irina is a very strong player so every time I am facing off against her, I have to take it very seriously.”
Krush tried a Petrosian system with an early h3 against Yip’s King’s Indian and at some point won a pawn (or rather, Yip sacrificed it in typical KID style). With accurate play, Krush would have had at least an equal game, but her plan of keeping her king in the middle didn’t work tactically. It was kind of a model game for this opening by Yip:
Early leader Sargsyan dropped down the leaderboard with a second consecutive loss. With just queens and opposite-colored bishops, the endgame seemed drawish, but that was not the case as Black always had the plan of entering with her king on the queenside.
“I couldn’t find a breakthrough and when I got down all the way to two minutes, I considered to offer a draw because after move 60, we can offer draws,” said Paikidze. “But I’m so glad I didn’t because at the end she just missed 82…d3 and then I’m completely winning.”
“I’m definitely a lot happier about the quality of my play compared to last few games,” said Yu after a convincing win against Paragua. She got a promising endgame right from the get-go and played it strongly.
“I just felt like this endgame was really tricky to play, because, kind of like you see in the game, it was really hard for her to defend these center pawns,” explained Yip, who hadn’t done a lot of preparation.
“I didn’t do anything crazy opening prep,” she said. “I just played something where I don’t think she would be super familiar with it. This is something I used to play, but it’s not like I just didn’t want to get any opening theory. Let’s just play a game. And so, I think that worked out quite well.”
Round 7 Pairings: Women
The 2025 U.S. Chess Championship and 2025 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship are 12-player single round-robins that run October 12-24 in St. Louis and determine the chess champions of the United States. The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves, plus 30 minutes to the end of the game, with a 30-second increment from move 1. The Open event has a $250,000 prize fund and $55,000 for first place, while the Women’s is $152,000 with $35,000 for first.
