GM Fabiano Caruana bulldozed his pawns through GM Hans Niemann‘s kingside to reach a forced checkmate on Saturday in St. Louis. America’s number two now leads with GM Wesley So, who put an end to GM Andy Woodward‘s winning ways. A very adventurous round saw five decisive games at the 2025 U.S. Chess Championship, while a draw with GM Ray Robson was enough for GM Levon Aronian to move to a shared third place.
IM Alice Lee is the sole leader after seven rounds in the 2025 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship thanks to a win against WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan. Co-leader IM Anna Zatonskih remains undefeated but dropped half a point by drawing with IM Tatev Abrahamyan.
The eighth round of the U.S. Championships starts on Monday, October 20, at 1:30 p.m. ET/19:30 CEST/11 p.m. IST.
Standings After Round 7: Open
Caruana and So top the field, half a point ahead of Aronian and Niemann. Both Shankland and Sevian got back to a 50 percent score.
Standings After Round 7: Women
Lee is now half a point ahead of Zatonskih and Sargsyan with four rounds to go. Pourkashiyan and Paragua are suffering.
Open: 5 Decisive Games
Day seven saw by far the most dramatic round thus far with four wins for White and Caruana’s potentially crucial win as Black.
Round 7 Results: Open
Unsurprisingly, Caruana wasn’t in the best of moods after his game with So the other day. “I saw every way to win,” he explained after the next round. “I just… somehow I think the game is over and then all the tension goes away and then that is when I make some very serious mistake.”
Whether it was that missed win in the previous round or the dominating head-to-head score against his next opponent (five wins, one draw), Caruana really went for it in his game with Niemann. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 the move 3…d6 put a little smile on Niemann’s face, but things got more serious soon after. Caruana followed it up with 4.c3 f5!? 5.d3 Qf6…
…and here Niemann’s 6.0-0? allowed the ensuing pawn storm starting with 6…f4!. Things remained complicated and White was doing OK at some point, but eventually, Caruana got his dream attack that forced checkmate, a day after missing it against So.
We’ll have GM Rafael Leitao analyzing the Game of the Day soon.
So kept the pace with Caruana with an easy-looking win against Woodward, who had just won two games in a row. Losing a pawn right after the opening wasn’t the end of the world for the 15-year-old GM from Frisco, Texas. However, he made a strategic error of going for a passed pawn, which would end up which would end up being more a weakness than a strength, instead of playing for activity.
“Who wouldn’t be in a good mood?” said So. “I won today, I didn’t lose yesterday!”
Robson vs. Aronian was the only draw of the day, but at the same time, quite a spectacular game. The whole affair was, however, almost completely played before and surely stored somewhere on the laptops of both gentlemen. Still, it’s worth having a look:
Round 8 Pairings: Open
Women: Lee Grabs Sole Lead
“Black was OK” in round 7 of the women’s section with three 0-1’s and four draws.
Round 7 Results: Women
“I feel good obviously,” said Lee after grabbing the sole lead. With the black pieces she beat Pourkashiyan, who was supported by GM Hikaru Nakamura in the playing hall, but to no avail. With four minutes on the clock for two more moves in a double rook endgame, she wrongly took a pawn where a tactic could have forced a draw instantly.
Hikaru is in town! He walked his wife, Atousa Pourkashiyan, to the playing hall of the U.S. Chess Championships and took a moment to chat with the players, saying with a smile as he left, “Enjoy, guys!”#uschesschamps pic.twitter.com/uCJmr3LhJr
— Saint Louis Chess Club (@STLChessClub) October 19, 2025
“I think today was a pretty difficult game because kind of throughout it was very equal,” explained Lee. “I didn’t have very much chances but then around move 40 I kind of got some passed pawns going on aside and it was hard for her to play. I’m happy that I won and I’m happy that I’m in the sole lead!”
Sargsyan kept hopes alive of winning the tournament while making her debut. Her win against Cervantes was largely the result of her opponent’s bad time management, who was already in severe time trouble by move 30 when she made the decisive mistake.
Round 8 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.
