GM Fabiano Caruana and IM Carissa Yip repeated their U.S. Championship victories once again on Friday in St. Louis. Caruana tied GM Bobby Fischer‘s record of four consecutive U.S. titles, earning $76,000, while Yip has now won it three times back-to-back, earning $45,000.
With GM Wesley So trailing by half a point, a playoff was definitely a possibility, but six draws didn’t change the standings of the 2025 U.S. Chess Championship. Yip kept fate in her own hands by also winning her last game against FM Thalia Cervantes, securing her victory at the 2025 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship.
Standings After Round 11: Open
Standings After Round 11: Women
Open: Six Draws
Round 11 Results: Open
It hadn’t happened before in the tournament, but with six draws, the final day was a bit of an anticlimax in the Open section. The first question was whether GM Levon Aronian would be able to put pressure on the tournament leader with the white pieces.
A draw was fine for Caruana and, although the Petroff or the Berlin would normally be the openings of choice, he went for a topical line (6…Be7) in the Open Ruy Lopez. The reason? This is rather solid too.
Aronian had played the same line as Black in March of this year in the same city and didn’t have anything strong prepared. Therefore, the game quickly petered out into a draw.
It surely played a role that Aronian was one and a half points behind and out of contention himself. “Levon would have probably pushed more if he was within a point of me,” Caruana explained his opponent’s play.Â
The next question was similar: how much pressure could So put on GM Grigoriy Oparin, who often serves as Caruana’s second? During his post-game interview, Caruana was a bit worried as his friend had responded inaccurately to So’s 9.Nab1 line in the Sveshnikov.Â
So could be happy with the outcome of the opening, but didn’t make the most of his chances, also later in the game. He just lacked punch on the final day, and afterward explained why:
I actually was not in a playing mood today because I think the death of GM Daniel Naroditsky has still traumatized me. Maybe not only me but also many other players in this event. Of course, his death and then the Kramnik scandal has been like, it’s hard to sleep at night.
Oparin could steer the game into a safe haven, helping Caruana to his fifth U.S. title in total:
One of the most interesting games of all the draws was Robson-Sevian. GM Rafael Leitao will soon provide analysis of the Game of the Day below.
Women: Yip Never Stops
Round 11 Results: Women
As soon as she was warmed up, Yip just never stopped. Finishing with four wins and 6.5 points out of her last seven rounds was just too much for anyone in the field to keep up the pace with. Yip won the tournament convincingly, for the third year in a row and for the fourth time in total.
It should be noted that she was quite a bit worse out of the opening against Cervantes, who first gave away most of her advantage and then blundered an important pawn, after which the rest was technique for the reigning champion.
“I think I’m still a little bit in shock,” Yip said after her last game. “Everything happened so quickly, you know. At some point I was two points behind the leaders and then I just won a bunch of games, and now I’m here.”
In a round with four draws and three wins for Black, IM Anna Sargsyan beat IM Alice Lee to secure second place, an excellent result in her debut year. It helped that Lee, who was leading by a full point after round eight, blundered heavily on move 34, but Sargsyan’s final move was cute.
“I feel so excited and so happy to get a medal on my first U.S. Championship,” said Sargsyan. “You can’t imagine the amount of prayers it took me to win these last two rounds. I was so nervous for these two games, especially today.”
It was a brave decision by WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan to play such a grueling, 11-round event while being seven months pregnant, but it didn’t go too well. With a last-round loss to FM Megan Paragua, GM Hikaru Nakamura‘s wife finished at bottom place with just two points. In the final game she was worse, then winning, but eventually made the last two mistakes without being in time trouble.
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.Â
