With five of 11 rounds completed in the United States Chess Championship, Wesley So and Andy Woodward lead with 3.5 points out of a possible five, but four-time defending champion Fabiano Caruana lurks just a half point behind at 3/5 points, tied with Awonder Liand and Jeffery Xiong. Sam Shankland, Grigoriy Oparin, and Abhimanyu have 2/5 after five rounds of play. Controversial GM Hans Neimann sits a distant T-9 with just 2/5, along with Levin Aronian and Ray Robson. Sam Sevian brings up the rear with just one-half a point in five games.
Tomorrow’s round 6 features a match up between leader So handling the white pieces and Mishra defending with black. Andy Woodward handling the black pieces must fend off Neimann playing as white, while Caruana defends the black pieces against Sam Shankland.
Looking ahead, round 8 features a match-up between So as White and Andy Woodward, currently co leader, as Black. So would face Caruana in round 9 with Fabi handling the white pieces. That may be the game that determines the winner of the event. Fabiano is trying for a record fifth consecutive U.S. Championship title.
Leader Wesley So, one of the most affable men in chess, is a three-time U.S. Champion (2017, 2020, 2021) and two-time Grand Chess Tour Champion (2016, 2021). Originally from the Philippines, he transferred federations to the U.S. in 2014. He has represented the United States in multiple Olympiads since, winning both team and individual gold in the 2016, and team silver medals in 2018 and 2024. He played along with Caruana and others for the U.S. team in the Chess Olympiad in Uzbekistan this fall that came in fourth place. Uzbekistan won the tournament. Their 20-year old wunderkind, Javokir Sindarov is highly favored to wrest the world championship this fall from India’s Gukesh Dommerju, who has slumped to below 20th n the FIDE world rankings.
So has been in excellent form of late, winning the 2025 and 2026 Sinquefield Cups (he and Fabiano Caruana are the only players to win this event three times) and the 2026 American Cup and finishing second at Norway Chess 2026, defeating Magnus Carlsen in their individual game.
Currently the 5th highest rated player in the world on the FIDE rating list, So has previously been as high as number two, with a peak rating of 2822. This makes him the fifth-highest rated player in history.
