Lee Beats Abrahamyan In Game 1; Nakamura, Caruana Stay Deadlocked
After an 18-move draw, GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana are tied ½-½ in the Open Champions Final of The American Cup 2025. In Open Elimination, however, we saw GMs Wesley So and Leinier Dominguez eliminated, respectively, by GMs Levon Aronian and Sam Sevian. The two Armenian-Americans have set up a rematch in the Elimination Semifinals.
IM Alice Lee continues full steam ahead, now in the Women's American Cup Champions Final. She defeated WGM Tatev Abrahamyan in the first classical game, which is our Game of the Day. In the Elimination Bracket, GM Irina Krush knocked out IM Anna Zatonskih 3-1 in blitz tiebreaks, and IM Nazi Paikidze eliminated the top seed IM Carissa Yip with a 2-0 sweep in rapid.
Day six, featuring just the Champions Brackets, will be on Thursday, March 20, starting at 12:00 p.m. CDT / 17:00 CET / 9:30 p.m. IST.
Champions:
Elimination:
Open Champions: Quick Day At The Office
Nothing has changed in the Open Champions Final except that we have one classical game less. If that's drawn, the match will be decided in blitz tiebreaks.
Nakamura ½-½ Caruana
This was the first game to end, after half an hour. Nakamura confused something in his opening, and he bailed out quickly before things took a turn. He explained:
Something went wrong. So when Fabiano played this ...a6 and ...b5 sac'ing the knight I had this tough decision where Fabiano is clearly very well-prepared, he hasn't used any time, and I have to decide do I want play on in a position where I'm on my own and Fabiano's still in prep and I'm going to be down on time, or just sort of bail out and make a draw?
The answer was: kill the game. We saw a quick draw, with Caruana having five more minutes on his clock than he started with; Nakamura had used nearly half an hour. Caruana will have White on Thursday.
Women's Champions: Lee Takes Lead
Lee lost her second game in the event, but since then she has been on fire. After that one loss, she has won all but one of her games, two of them in the classical portion.
Abrahamyan is in a must-win situation with the white pieces in game two. If she wins on demand, they'll have blitz tiebreaks.
Lee 1-0 Abrahamyan
Lee said that the opening—a King's Indian Defense—surprised her, "but I never thought I was in any trouble." She'd recently faced this 6...Na6 line against GM Daniel Naroditsky in Titled Tuesday, but she admitted that she hadn't analyzed the game after, so she wasn't going to repeat those moves.
Instead, they followed a game between GMs Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Karthikeyan Murali until Lee deviated with the fancy, tactical novelty 15.Ng5!?. She sacrificed a pawn, but in exchange she got the bishop pair and the open d-file. The file, and the light squares, ultimately spelled Black's doom. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the Game of the Day.
As Naroditsky pointed out on his stream, by the way, this Ng5 motif isn't completely new! He showed the following youth championship game from seven years ago, where the knight again headed for the e6-square:
Lee, the defending champion, is having a tremendous tournament so far. She also revealed in the interview that she's a sophomore in high school and plans to graduate next year. This way, she can devote her senior year completely to chess. As mentioned in previous articles, there is a $100,000 award for the next American woman to earn the grandmaster title, a feat only Krush has achieved so far.
Elimination Open: So And Dominguez Are Out
Thanks to the faster time control, there was no shortage of thrills and spills in the rapid and blitz games of the Elimination Brackets.
Aronian 2.5-1.5 So
The two rapid games ended in sterile draws, with 99 accuracy, both in the Italian Opening. Very "Giuoco Piano."
In the first blitz game, Aronian had two chances for an advantage, but overall the game was even—another draw. He explained in the interview that one usually has to take significant risk to get So out of his comfort zone, and that's what he did in the last game, with the black pieces.
Aronian played the ambitious plan of ...h6, ...g5, and ...h5 in the Queen's Gambit Declined Ragozin, throwing forward his kingside pawns for space. It backfired in the middlegame, but that didn't matter so much as So had just one minute to figure out the best plan—and he didn't. They reached an equal endgame and, sadly and anticlimactically, So lost the game on time.
Aronian was in a good mood during the interview, as was every other player that won their match. He grinned: "It's much more relaxing once you get knocked out of the classical phase [or Champions Bracket], so you can just play rapid!"
Dominguez 2.5-3.5 Sevian
This match was the longest of the day, and it nearly got to an armageddon game. Sevian only triumphed when he won the third blitz game and drew the fourth.
Dominguez won the first rapid game, which was a deep theoretical battle in the French Defense. White sacrificed an exchange in the corner on move 20, but it had all been played before until move 22. They actually played a perfect game after that, and a draw would have been the expected result until Sevian dropped a whole bishop with check.
Either he missed the check or he thought he was regaining the piece tactically, but no such tactic existed. Dominguez found the critical 34.Bf7! to block the f-file, hold onto the material, and win the game.
But then Sevian won on demand. In a very complicated position, with just 20 seconds, Dominguez played a Botez Gambit. That being said, there was only one non-losing move, 45...Rb5!, which isn't the easiest move to find.
So we were off to the blitz, where the players traded wins with the black pieces. Sevian was up a pawn in game one, but he had to still convert the advantage with both players under five seconds each. After a long struggle, however, Dominguez dropped a rook and resigned.
Dominguez was lost anyway, but he hung his rook in the time scramble!https://t.co/OHTEbf32GW#AmericanCup pic.twitter.com/tKaxfFjzXT
— chess24 (@chess24com) March 19, 2025
Dominguez then won on demand, with Black, with two distant passed pawns overpowering a knight in the endgame. So we reached game three, which ultimately decided the match.
The Sicilian Defense was what brought Dominguez his last victory, so he repeated it and we got a Najdorf (Sevian opted for the Alapin in the last game). In a tense middlegame, however, Dominguez erred with 24...Qd8? and Sevian found a sequence that won the exchange, and he then converted the advantage perfectly.
Sevian managed to draw game four and thus win the match. The lesson Sevian took away from the match was, concisely said, "Honestly, just keep fighting. You might get a chance."
He'll have a rematch with Aronian next, after losing their first one in the Champions Quarterfinals. All he revealed about his preparation was the following: "I have some stuff, and he has some stuff as well."
Elimination Women's: Zatonskih, Yip Eliminated
Krush had to recover from a tough loss, while Paikidze enjoyed an incredible one-sided match.
Krush 3-1 Zatonskih
The match could have been much more one-sided than it was, when Krush won game one and was "coasting" to victory in game two, but a costly blunder from Krush meant that she had to win it all over again. She said:
It was a high-adrenaline day. I had a setback in the rapid... after winning with White, I was really kind of cruising with Black. I had more time, I had a great position, she could barely make any moves. And I just blunder a piece in one move.
The first game was nice, as she won by pressuring, and then winning, an isolated queen's pawn. She then had a huge advantage in the second game again, needing just a draw, but 21...Qxc5?? allowed Zatonskih to win a piece, win the game, and fight her way back in.
Fortunately for the grandmaster, she allowed no further shenanigans. She won both blitz games. The ending of the very last one shows just how brutally decisive opposite-color bishops can be when the queens are still on. More so than the two-pawn advantage, the light squares spelled death for the black king.
That means that the two-time American Cup champion is still alive and well in the Elimination Bracket. If she can win two more matches, she'll have her Grand Final rematch with the reigning champion, a rematch from last year.
Yip 0-2 Paikidze
Paikidze eliminated the top seed from the tournament with a 2-0 sweep. It was an easier day than expected, as Paikidze said, "Carissa is definitely the strongest player in this event, and maybe I just caught her on her bad day."
She won an easy first game when her opponent blundered her knight in one move, walking straight into a decisive pin.
"That was a gift, but in the second game, I do think I played really well." She explained that Yip doesn't like to be attacked, and castling opposite sides, Paikidze hardly let up.
It's the end of the road for Yip, who was gracious enough to give an interview after getting eliminated. "Probably I'll be having nightmares about the last four games for many many years, but you know, it's life."
She mentioned that she was studying abroad in Paris until just last week, and that she's preparing to step away from school to focus full-time on chess. What would she change for next time? "I think I would've started preparing for the event a bit earlier."
How to watch?
You can watch the event on the Saint Louis Chess Club YouTube or Twitch channels. You can watch coverage of Nakamura's games on his Kick and YouTube channels. You can also check out the games on our dedicated events page.
GMs Yasser Seirawan, Ioan-Cristian Chirila, and WGM Katerina Nemcova hosted the broadcast.
The 2025 American Cup, taking place from March 15-24, is an over-the-board tournament featuring some of the strongest players in the United States. The time control is 90 minutes for the entire game plus a 30-second increment starting on move one; rapid games are played at the 15+10 time control. The prize fund is $250,000.
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