Caruana Wins Champions Showdown: The Kings
GM Fabiano Caruana won the Champions Showdown: The Kings in St. Louis convincingly after a strong final day when he beat GM Ray Robson twice. Caruana scored 6.5/9 and pocketed $51,625 for his three-day workweek.
GM Wesley So, who won his blitz game against GM Leinier Dominguez, came in second with a 5.5/9 score. Despite a slow start, GM Levon Aronian finished in third place after losing his blitz game but winning his semi-classical game against GM Hikaru Nakamura. So won the Best Game Prize for his semi-classical victory against Aronian on the first day.
Champions Showdown: The Kings Final Standings
Here's a reminder of the prize distribution:
| Time Control | Total Purse Per Game | Winner's Share | Loser's Share | Draw | Total Amount |
| Blitz | $4,500 | $3,375 | $1,125 | $2,250 | $40,500 |
| Rapid | $9,000 | $6,750 | $2,250 | $4,500 | $81,000 |
| Classical | $14,000 | $10,500 | $3,500 | $7,000 | $126,000 |
| Best Game Prize | $2,500 | ||||
| $250,000 |
Caruana started with a win right away in the blitz segment, outplaying his opponent with the black pieces in what was a Semi-Slav by transposition. Move 18 was a critical moment when Robson miscalculated and lost a pawn for nothing. Also later on, when he was given a chance to get back into the game, he missed the strongest continuation.
Nakamura put pressure on Aronian from an equal middlegame that started as a French Exchange. It can be "a very dry and boring line," he admitted in his recap video, but somehow he still managed to create something out of it.
"One of the things that I'm doing here is understanding it's a blitz game, and I'm trying to play to my strength of simply maneuvering the pieces, getting my opponent low on time, and winning the game," Nakamura explained his strategy.
Close to the end, he missed a win and instead played a combination that led to a drawn position. A classic pawn break on the kingside shouldn't have been enough, but it did win the game as Aronian flagged.
Nakamura's recap video after the tournament ended.
The third blitz game also ended decisively as So outplayed Dominguez from the black side of the Italian. Under so much pressure on the queenside, it seemed only a matter of time that White would lose a pawn, although when it happened, perhaps it was just a blunder.
Dominguez switched to the Ruy Lopez for the rapid game and was very much in control in a Berlin Endgame—in fact, totally winning. So pulled a Houdini to get away with a draw in the end:
Caruana secured tournament victory with another good win in the semi-classical game. He managed to confuse Robson in a Reti where Black didn't really survive the opening. Caruana was a pawn up by move 13 and needed some time for the technical phase, but he was always winning.
Afterward, he revealed he wasn't sure whether he should wait until the American Cup next week to try this Reti and particularly the move 7.e3, suggested by his second GM Grigoriy Oparin.
"I thought, okay, if I get a chance to get my idea on the board, I should take it in any event," said Caruana. "After that, he was on his own, and it's just really tough to figure this out. I think he played one very natural move 8...Nbd7 and then already after that Black is under pressure, and
to top it off I had a huge time advantage."
Aronian took revenge for the blitz loss by winning the more lucrative semi-classical game against Nakamura, thereby overtaking his opponent in the standings. A good game by Aronian with a classy finish:
After receiving the trophy, Caruana said: "I have no plans to do anything crazy, and I also have another tournament coming up soon, so there's not much rest in between. I'm really happy with how I played here, of course happy with the result as well. I always seem to be in a good mood when I'm playing in St. Louis, and I guess the results have been overall throughout the years pretty good, so I'm happy to add another to the collection."
I always seem to be in a good mood when I'm playing in St. Louis.
—Fabiano Caruana
How to review?
You can review the broadcast on the Saint Louis Chess Club's YouTube channel. The games can also be checked out on our dedicated 2025 Champions Showdown: The Kings events page.
The live broadcast was hosted by GMs Yasser Seirawan and Cristian Chirila, IM Eric Rosen, and WGM Katerina Nemcova.
The Champions Showdown: The Kings was a three-day exhibition event held March 4-6, 2025, in St. Louis. Six American grandmasters played blitz, rapid, and semi-classical chess for a $250,000 total prize pool. The participants played three games a day in different time controls: blitz at 3+2, rapid at 15+10, and semi-classical at 60+15.
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Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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