Lee, Abrahamyan Take Leads Vs. Krush, Yip; Draws In Open Champions Bracket
After two draws in the Open Champions Semifinals of the The American Cup 2025, no one was able to break ahead. There was more action in the Open Elimination Round 1, where GM Sam Sevian eliminated GM Ray Robson in blitz tiebreaks 3-1 and GM Wesley So eliminated GM Abhimanyu Mishra 1.5-0.5 in the regular rapid games.
In the Women's American Cup Champions Semifinals, we saw decisive classical games in both matches. WGM Tatev Abrahamyan won with Black after an unsound attack by IM Carissa Yip fell short, and IM Alice Lee outplayed GM Irina Krush in a time trouble, alchemizing a losing position to a winning one. In Elimination Round 1, IM Anna Zatonskih sent WGM Thalia Cervantes home, and IM Nazi Paikidze ended the tournament for WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan.
Day four of The American Cup will be on Tuesday, March 18, starting at 12:00 p.m. CDT / 17:00 CET / 09:30 p.m. IST.
Champions:
Elimination:
Open Champions: Aronian Gets Edge, No Blood Shed
From now on, there are two brackets in each section. The Champions Brackets continue with two classical games, while players in the Elimination Bracket only play rapid games.
So far, nobody has been able to release the gridlock of draws in the Open Championship Bracket. After three days and 10 games in total, all have been draws, meaning every match has been decided in blitz playoffs. The players have one more classical game left before they play another nerve-racking two-game blitz match.
Champions Bracket After Day 3
In the Open we saw two draws, while the Women's continued to deliver decisive classical games.
Champions Bracket Day 3 Results
GM Hikaru Nakamura vs. GM Leinier Dominguez was the first classical game to end, and there just isn't much to say about it. In the words of Dominguez himself, "I don't think much was happening, not many chances really for any of us, pretty correct game, I suppose."
Nakamura, in his recap video, said he believed it was the first time he played 6.Nc3 in this Catalan, but he recalled a game from 2019 against GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu where Nakamura remembers getting "crushed" on the black side. Dominguez, however, didn't accept the pawn sacrifice and played very solidly, and the players just traded down to a king and pawn endgame that ended in stalemate.
There was a bizarre moment at the end of the game when Nakamura took 11 minutes to play 45.Kh5 in the dead-drawn endgame, leaving the commentators confused. Both players were seated, but neither player was looking at the board, and Nakamura's clock was still running.
Dominguez explained what happened: "I understood he was very anxiously following his wife's game, who was playing the tiebreaks. It was nice because we got some time to watch the really exciting part of the games that were going on." Ultimately, Pourkashiyan lost that match.
You can watch Nakamura's recap video below.
GM Levon Aronian vs. GM Fabiano Caruana was a game with more life. In an Italian Opening, Caruana got a slight—and then serious—advantage, but Aronian resourcefully defended the endgame to a draw. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the Game of the Day.
The players will switch colors on Tuesday. If someone wins, that's the end of the match; if they make another draw, we will see blitz playoffs.
Women's Champions: Abrahamyan, Lee Take Leads
Both games in the Women's Champions Semifinals were decisive, leaving Krush and Yip in must-win situations on Tuesday.
Lee 1-0 Krush
Before this game, Lee and Krush had traded eight wins and losses each, with nine draws. Now, Lee leads their head-to-head record.
The 95-move slog was an emotional one, and it very well could have gone in the other direction. On move 49, the best course of action was to continue shuffling and eventually somehow reach a draw, but Lee bluffed with 49.a4?. Krush took advantage and achieved a winning position, but she missed the only knockout 53...a5!, so we were back to equality.
Then, after another period of shuffling, Lee won the a-pawn, and after the trade of queens, she went on to win the game. Instead of entering day two with a black win under her belt, Krush will be fighting for her life.
Lee, who admitted she was shaking after the game, said, "I felt like I was defending the whole time. I would have, of course, been happy with a draw. I think once I started targeting her a6-pawn, then I thought I was in good shape." Bravery was rewarded this time!
Yip 0-1 Abrahamyan
"I feel great," said Abrahamyan after the game. "Winning with the black pieces [was] kind of unexpected!" She played solidly against the Catalan Opening, and the game was more self-destruction by Yip than anything else. After an opening mistake, Yip went for an all-in attack with f5, f6, and an exchange sacrifice, but it didn't work at all.
Abrahamyan just had to keep her cool, facing an unsound attack. She narrated her thought process:
I have to trust myself and not just believe what she is doing.... I just thought, why should I get attacked? All my pieces are good, my king is pretty safe, why should I get checkmated? Then she immediately sacrificed her exchange and I was like, okay, let's see what you have.
There was no rabbit coming out of the hat. White was busted.
Open Elimination: So Gets It Done, Sevian Wins In Playoffs
So and Sevian continue to survive in the Elimination Bracket, and they'll have a rest day on Tuesday. The players who lose in the Champions Bracket will be their opponents.
Sevian 3-1 Robson
Sevian had some pressure with the white pieces in game one, but Robson, as he has done several times in this event, found many precise moves with little time to hold the balance. Robson was winning in game two, but that also petered out to a draw.
The match was then decided in two blitz games, which Sevian won. He summarized it quite well: "That was an insane match. The first game, second game, we had one second so many times."
In the first one, Robson had an objectively defensible position, but it was hard to save it in practice. It became that much harder when he hung one of his two bishops, but he had one second when he played the move.
Robson, with one second, hangs the bishop and Sevian takes the lead in the blitz playoffs!https://t.co/DfydJ0Mq87#AmericanCup pic.twitter.com/ijbzJYadQZ
— chess24 (@chess24com) March 17, 2025
Game two actually ended with checkmate on the board. 25...Bxd4! was a nice sacrifice to force perpetual check, but instead of a draw, Robson put his king to the sword. It made no difference in the match; either way it was goodbye, St. Louis.
So did it the professional way: win with White, draw with Black. Mishra said of game one: "For a very long time, it was always a bit unpleasant but within defendable territory, and eventually we got to this very interesting queen endgame. I think ...Kh4 was the final mistake," adding that "almost every active square you can go to with the queen loses by the same... mechanism" of Qh1-Qh3-Qf3-Qf5. The game ended with a satisfying, long line: at the end of the tunnel was a forced queen trade, an easy win.
Mishra did get a winning advantage in game two, on demand, but So managed to draw the 173-move game, holding the bishop vs. rook endgame. "I knew that this event would be very tough," said the youngest grandmaster in history, who will at least leave with a good memory of putting Nakamura on the ropes on day two. He and Robson also walk away with $10,000 for 7th-8th.
Women's Elimination: Zatonskih, Paikidze Stay Alive
Both matches ended in the rapid portion without the need for tiebreaks. Like in the Open, Zatonskih and Paikidze get a rest day as Tuesday will decide their next opponents.
Zatonskih 2-0 Cervantes
Zatonskih swept Cervantes 2-0, a sad end for the Cuban American who was winning against Lee on day one, went on to lose, and never recovered from that shock.
The winner was beaming afterward, saying: "My husband [GM Daniel Fridman] told me, 'Please don't play for draw!' I didn't choose the most aggressive moves, but still I was trying to go forward in this game, even when sometimes I had safe choices. Of course, if I would see perpetual check, I would give it!"
My husband told me, 'Please don't play for draw!'
—Anna Zatonksih
Since no perpetual check came, she just won both games.
Game two was a nice demonstration of how to meet a premature attack on the flank with a strike in the center. 10.g4? was desperation, since White was in a must-win game, but Black's response was simply a model of how to react.
Pourkashiyan 0.5-1.5 Paikidze
Game one, which was a Modern Defense that transposed to a Caro-Kann Exchange Variation, ended in a draw, though Paikidze had some advantage with the black pieces in the rook endgame.
Game two was decided in a mad time scramble, where once the players dropped under eight minutes, they traded several mistakes. In the screenshot below, you can see that Game Review marks mistakes orange or red.
Despite the objective swings, White's position just seemed easier to play, and that reflected in the players' time usage. When Pourkashiyan played 37...Qd1?, the last error, she had 58 seconds. She just collapsed from there.
Still, 7th-8th place comes with a $8,000 prize each for Cervantes and Pourkashiyan.
Six players are left in each tournament, and nobody's getting eliminated again until Wednesday. Tuesday's games will decide which four players drop down to the Elimination Bracket.
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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