Fabiano Caruana has won his 2nd US Chess Championship title after a 30-minute draw with Levon Aronian proved enough when Ray Robson was unable to defeat Jeffery Xiong to force a playoff. There will be a playoff on Thursday in the Women’s tournament, after Jennifer Yu defeated Thalia Cervantes to catch Irina Krush, who was held to a draw by her great rival Anna Zatonskih.

A draw against Levon Aronian was enough for Fabiano Caruana to win his 2nd US Championship | photo: Lennart Ootes, St. Louis Chess Club

Replay all the games from the 2022 US Chess Championship. 

Fabiano Caruana first won the US Championship, a point ahead of Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura, when he made his debut in 2016 after switching back from the Italian Chess Federation. At the time it looked set to be the first of many, but Fabi had failed to win since… until now!

• 2016: Fabiano Caruana
• 2017: Wesley So
• 2018: Samuel Shankland
• 2019: Hikaru Nakamura
• 2020: Wesley So
• 2021: Wesley So
• 2022: Fabiano Caruana

This year’s marathon 13-round tournament has been an ordeal for most of the pre-tournament favourites, with Wesley So and Levon Aronian suffering, while Leinier Dominguez remained unbeaten but never got into the battle for first place. Only Fabiano Caruana played up to expectations, with a 4.5/5 streak between Rounds 3 and 7 getting the job done.

One feels Fabi might have found another gear if he was forced to, but instead he was able to keep his one real rival, Ray Robson, at bay with draws.

In the final round Fabi’s opponent was Levon Aronian, who played the Berlin. The players made no pretence of engaging in a battle and simply blitzed out moves to seal a draw.

Fabiano commented afterwards:

Normally I would have liked to play, at least a little bit. Of course a draw is a good result in the last round considering the tournament situation, but I’ll try to say this delicately, it’s a big day for Levon and I thought it would be wrong for me to play this game. That was also a part of the reason. I just thought a draw makes sense from every point of view.

That may have referred to something that was mentioned earlier in the tournament — Levon and his girlfriend are expecting a baby.

Fabiano enjoyed himself in the post-game press conference as he reflected on the extraordinary events in Sam Sevian vs. Hans Niemann the day before. Talking of the “disrespect” that had been the watchword of the event since Christopher Yoo’s Round 2 interview about Hans Niemann, Fabi summed up:

It culminated yesterday. I’ve never seen anything like this! I think maybe the tournament is quite long and people are starting to go a bit nuts. I just couldn’t wrap my head around this moment. These kings have loose tops, the crowns are loose. I didn’t know this, but apparently it’s a thing, but why, at that specific moment, did Sam decide to take the king off the board? It was Hans’ move! He decapitated it, and then he threw it on the board. I’ve never seen this before!

Fabiano was made to wait for his own coronation, with Ray Robson taking a slow approach and at one point looking to have real chances of getting the win he needed to force a playoff.

Ray Robson and Jeffery Xiong both had chances before eventually drawing | photo: Lennart Ootes, St. Louis Chess Club

Jeffery Xiong has been a rock, however, drawing every game but for a win over Christopher Yoo, and he pounced on the mistake 38.Qb1? to play 38…f5!

38.Qa1 or 38.Qa3 would have prevented the break, because of Qxe5+, but here Jeffery was attacking both the e4-bishop and the h4-knight. Suddenly the only real question was whether Jeffery could win, a result that would have meant him, and two more players, catching Ray.

In the end it was close, but after 72 moves Ray managed to hold a draw, taking a well-deserved clear 2nd place and $45,000.

For Fabiano Caruana, meanwhile, it meant that 2nd title was confirmed!

3rd place was shared between Leinier Dominguez and Awonder Liang, with both players having interesting final games… but for very different reasons! Dominguez-Shankland was Leinier’s 2nd 10-move game of the event, but in this case it was an early draw by repetition.

Sam was clearly frustrated and came to the studio to explain his decision.

He noted:

I just wanted to say I’m sorry for how this ended. I’ve been one of the most vocal critics of people making this Qe4 Qd4 draw in the Berlin. I wrote in my Chessable course that anyone who does this more than once with White shouldn’t be invited to tournaments. I just felt like I owe the world an apology. I know I’m playing Black and there’s not much I can do, but I remember I really wanted to win this game. I played the Najdorf and I was ready to take a lot of risks, but I remember preparing and I’d just never once seen Dominguez force a draw with White, literally zero, he’s such a principled, aggressive, strong player who really tries to fight for an edge. It hadn’t occurred to me at all. I just found myself wishing I had found some way to just play e5 and go, but I just hadn’t checked it in the slightest.

Sam called his decision to repeat moves “the adult decision”, but the e5-move, as suggested by Anish, was also one he had played before, against Leinier.

Leinier perhaps felt the need to defend himself — once again the “disrespect” was contagious!

I was already so tired a few rounds ago that I was having a hard time getting out of bed at all in the morning. I had something in mind against e5 in the English Attack, which is the line that he usually plays. We played that line a couple of times in our games, but this line with Ng4 I wasn’t expecting, it’s kind of sharp, I didn’t repeat it, and I didn’t remember at all the details.

So neither player wanted to play something they hadn’t specifically looked at before the game, which made the draw that followed, however quick, eminently logical.

Hans Niemann and Awonder Liang both made big contributions to the 2022 US Championship | photo: Lennart Ootes, St. Louis Chess Club

Awonder Liang, meanwhile, had some fears about his game against Hans Niemann.

I was quite scared for today’s game, because I think Nepo had this observation that Hans typically likes to announce his comebacks before he makes them. Three days ago, he announced he was going to make a comeback, and I see he wins three in a row…

Hans got chances, since the opening 1.e4 e6 2.Qe2!? tempted Awonder to abandon his tournament strategy of skipping the middlegame to head for relatively straightforward endgames. It could have backfired, but in the end Awonder completed his most successful US Championship, just when he’d switched his focus to academic work rather than chess.

For Hans the final draw meant that he ultimately performed exactly as expected in the US Championship, and ended back on the 2699 where he started the event. Of course his 7/13 was nevertheless a great outcome considering where he was after losing three games in four mid-tournament.

Wesley So couldn’t squeeze out a 3rd win in a row despite battling on until move 123 against Sam Sevian, so that he shared 5th place, with both Sams, Hans and Jeffery.

The decisive games in the final round were tough on the losers, with Alex Lenderman inflicting a 10th loss of the tournament on Elshan Moradiabadi, while Christopher Yoo inflicted a 3rd loss in a row on Dariusz Swiercz.

It meant a lot to the 15-year-old.

It feels really good to end the tournament with a win, especially after having a bit of a rough time and it was a bit topsy-turvy. Usually it’s the last game of the tournament you remember the most.

What had the tournament taught him about the top players?

I learned that they’re very human too and they also make a lot of mistakes, so if you take them into complicated positions there’s no reason to be that scared of them.

With attitudes like that the US Championship is likely to remain one of the year’s toughest events! The final standings looked as follows:

In the Women’s section, meanwhile, the tournament is far from over. Jennifer Yu had suffered a huge blow in Round 12 when she made a horror blunder against Irina Krush. She commented:

I played a move that I don’t think I would have played when I was 8 years old. I was literally hallucinating… I did not know what I was doing, and after I played it I thought I lost the title with that move, because otherwise I was doing fine… I honestly don’t deserve a chance! The way I’ve been playing was just awful.

Jennifer was facing a daunting task: the black pieces against Thalia Cervantes, who had put together a run of five wins in a row. How did she approach it?

I pretended this game I had no chances, that I just don’t really care, I’m just going to play normally. Just pretend it’s over!

Jennifer Yu ended Thalia Cervantes' 5-game winning streak | photo: Lennart Ootes, St. Louis Chess Club

It worked, and Jennifer got an early advantage and then managed to grind out a 57-move win.

That would still have been in vain if Irina Krush had defeated her old rival Anna Zatonskih. Anna had made 7 draws in a row, so it was never going to be easy, but there was, briefly, a chance.

It turns out 60.e4! immediately was the way to break through, while after 60.Rd4 Bd7+ 61.Kxb4 Rb5+ 62.Kc3 Rxa5 63.e4 Anna was able to consolidate and hold.

Between then Irina Krush and Anna Zatonskih have won 12 US Championships | photo: Lennart Ootes, St. Louis Chess Club

Irina Krush and Jennifer Yu were tied on 9/13, with Thalia Cervantes a point behind in clear 3rd place.

That means on Thursday Irina and Jennifer will be back for a 2-game rapid playoff for the 2022 US Women’s Championship title — if it ends in a draw, one Armageddon game will follow. Will Irina win her 9th title, or Jennifer her 2nd?

Follow all the action from 1:30pm in St. Louis (20:30 CEST, 00:00 IST)!

See also:

• Official website
• US Chess Championship | US Women's Chess Championship
• US Chess Championship 1: Hans Niemann defies his critics
• US Chess Championship 2: Yoo channels Hans anger to beat So
• US Chess Championship 3: US Chess Champs 3: Fabi & Yoo join "Disrespect Championship" leaders
• US Chess Championship 4: Fabi beats Hans to grab lead
• US Chess Championship 5: Awonder Liang stuns Aronian
• US Chess Championship 6: Fabi wins again as Hans and Lev crash
• US Chess Championship 7: 10-move loss on "very bloody day"
• US Chess Championship 8: Ray Robson closes gap on Caruana
• US Chess Championship 9: Shankland grabs only win
• US Chess Championship 10: Niemann "on path to become World Champion"
• US Chess Championship 11: Caruana and Yu lead as race heats up
• US Chess Championship 12: Sevian "decapitates" Niemann's king