Nakamura, Lee Crowned American Cup Champions
A solid draw with the black pieces vs. GM Fabiano Caruana was all GM Hikaru Nakamura needed to win The American Cup Grand Final on Sunday in St. Louis. Nakamura won the $75,000 first prize plus a $15,000 Champion's Bracket bonus, with $55,000 going to Caruana.
IM Alice Lee ($40,000 plus a $9,000 bonus) managed to tie the score with a classical win before beating WGM Tatev Abrahamyan ($30,000) twice in the blitz playoff to secure her second consecutive Women's American Cup title, aged only 15.
Having lost the first classical game on Saturday, it was a tough task to win on demand, but at least Caruana had the white pieces to do so. He had played mostly 1.e4 in the tournament, but Caruana this time went for 1.d4 instead, a slight surprise for his opponent.
The rare line 1...d5 2.c4 c5!? was Nakamura's choice, something he calls "The Box" (because of the pawns on four adjacent squares) and which he has played from time to time and quite successfully since December 10, 2023. That's when he tried it first, when he drew GM Magnus Carlsen with it in the Champions Chess Tour Finals in Toronto. A few months later, in the same city, he beat GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu in the Candidates (via 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 c5) and soon after he also beat the reigning world champion at the time, GM Ding Liren, in Norway.
Caruana was prepared for it and initially followed that Ding-Nakamura game from Norway Chess 2024, but deviated on move nine. After a 17-minute think, Nakamura produced a new move, placing his bishop on g4 even though he knew it was not the most accurate.
White had alternatives on moves 12 or 14 perhaps, but even in the double-rook endgame he was slightly more comfortable for a while. Nakamura felt that he only completely equalized on move 25. By drawing the game, he won his second American Cup, after the 2023 edition (he didn't play last year).
In his video recap, Nakamura noted: "I'm very, very happy that I got the job done in classical chess. One of the ironies of this tournament is that when I played in 2023, I was the only player to have decisive classical games. That year I won two classical games and in 2025, history repeats itself, we get a bit of deja vu, as I am the only player to have decisive games and lo and behold I have two victories once again, while everybody else drew their classical games."
It was a completely different story in the women's event. Abrahamyan had the white pieces and needed only a draw, although she would have had to win a rematch on Monday to claim the title as Lee had an "extra life" as the Champions Bracket winner. Instead, Abrahamyan was gradually outplayed by Lee in a Caro-Kann endgame.
The position was obviously equal when the queens were traded, but Abrahamyan played it just slightly too passively. Especially moving her knight to g1 (twice!) was not good, and the endgame got more and more unpleasant for her until she got her rook trapped. The score was equal again.
It was quite a tough loss for Abrahamyan in the blitz playoff because she was completely winning in the first game. With a minute and 21 seconds on the clock, she couldn't work out the tactics on move 19 and two moves later, the tables turned.
Abrahamyan had no problems in the second game, a Catalan, but creating winning chances was hard and she needed too much time on the clock. With the seconds ticking down, her position collapsed quickly as Lee found a winning setup with Nh5 and (the threat of) Qg4.
"I was just very happy that I was able to win the classical game," said Lee afterward. "I thought, even if I lost the blitz playoffs I would be happy with the result today, so after I won the classical, I mean, I knew like in blitz, anything could really happen."
How to rewatch?
You can rewatch 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, that took place from March 15-24, was an over-the-board tournament featuring some of the strongest players in the United States. The time control was 90 minutes for the entire game plus a 30-second increment starting on move one; rapid games were played at the 15+10 time control. The prize fund is $250,000.
Previous coverage:
- Day 8: Abrahamyan, Nakamura Start With Wins In American Cup Grand Finals
- Day 7: Caruana, Abrahamyan Bounce Back To Qualify For American Cup Grand Finals
- Day 6: Nakamura Beats Caruana In Blitz Playoffs, Wins Champions Final
- Day 5: Lee Beats Abrahamyan In Game 1; Nakamura, Caruana Stay Deadlocked
- Day 4: Nakamura, Caruana Advance To Champions Open Final
- Day 3: Lee, Abrahamyan Take Leads Vs. Krush, Yip; Draws In Open Champions Bracket
- Day 2: Nakamura Shuts Down Near-Upset From Mishra
- Day 1: Nakamura, Caruana Miss Wins Vs. Mishra, Robson
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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