Quiet Move Journal · Vol. 012 · October 10, 2026
Every October, twelve of the strongest players in the country gather in Saint Louis for the national title. This year's opens with Round 1 on Thursday, October 9: a single round-robin of eleven classical games, everyone playing everyone once, with the final round on October 21 and a playoff the next day only if the top of the table is tied. Rest days fall on October 13 and 18. The open and women's championships share a combined prize fund of $402,000.
The question hanging over the hall is a simple one. Can anyone stop Fabiano Caruana?
A short history
The U.S. Championship traces its history to 1845. Its defining figure is Bobby Fischer. He won his first title at 14 and then won all eight championships he entered, each by at least a full point, a record that still stands.
His most famous edition came in 1963–64, when he won all eleven of his games. No one has posted a perfect score in the event before or since.
The modern era belongs to Saint Louis. The Saint Louis Chess Club has hosted every edition since 2009, and the event has been a round-robin every year since 2014. Caruana, with five titles, is still three short of Fischer's eight.
The man to beat
Caruana arrives as the defending champion, the top seed at 2831, and the owner of five U.S. titles, the last four of them in a row (2022 through 2025). A sixth would make it five straight.
Last year he did it the hard way. In round six he built one of the best attacking games of the event against Wesley So, reached a forced checkmate, and let it slip into a draw. The next day he walked into a game against Hans Niemann with the black pieces and won with a kingside pawn storm. He took the outright lead in round nine, held it to the end, and finished on 8 out of 11 without losing a game.
That is the Caruana problem for everyone else: he rarely loses, and he recovers quickly when things go wrong.
The chaser
If anyone has the patience to outlast him, it is Wesley So. The three-time champion finished a half point behind Caruana last year, also unbeaten, and the title was decided only when So could not win his final game. He comes in as the second seed at 2796, and in March he won the open section of the American Cup in the same building.
Caruana and So have also been teammates this autumn, both on the U.S. squad at the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand last month. For two weeks in Saint Louis, they are rivals again.
2025 U.S. Championship podium: Fabiano Caruana first with 8 of 11, Wesley So second with 7½, Levon Aronian third with 6½.
The contenders
Hans Niemann (2770) is the third seed and the most combustible player in the field. He shared the lead at the halfway mark last year, ending Abhimanyu Mishra's 71-game unbeaten streak along the way, before that loss to Caruana slowed him down. He made his Olympiad debut in September.
Levon Aronian (2768), who has represented the United States since 2021 and lives in Saint Louis, took bronze last year with 6.5 points, and like the two players above him he did not lose a game.
Awonder Liang (2753) and Sam Sevian (2736) round out the top six. Liang also debuted for the U.S. at this year's Olympiad.
The next wave
Three of the twelve earned their places in very different ways.
Andy Woodward qualified by winning the U.S. Junior Championship in July, unbeaten, for the second year in a row. He is 16. Last year, in his championship debut, he won his first game at this level against Sam Sevian and briefly strung together two wins before So stopped him.
Abhimanyu Mishra is this year's wildcard. Last year he had Caruana under pressure with preparation in round ten before the defending champion ground him down in a long endgame, one of the games that decided the title.
Grigoriy Oparin earned his seat by winning the 2026 U.S. Open.
Ray Robson, Jeffery Xiong and Sam Shankland complete a field in which the lowest seed is rated 2683. There are no easy rounds.
Who isn't here
Hikaru Nakamura, the world No. 2, is not in the field, as was also the case last year. Saint Louis fans will still see him at the end of the month: he plays the Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown from October 27 to 29, alongside Caruana, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and world championship challenger Javokhir Sindarov.
Our picks
Winner: Fabiano Caruana. It is the obvious pick, and it is obvious for good reasons. He is rated 35 points clear of the next player, has won four straight titles, and did not lose a game last year. Anyone who wants the title will probably have to beat him head-to-head.
Dark horse: Awonder Liang. The fifth seed arrives in form. In August he won the Rubinstein Memorial in Poland outright, ahead of a field whose top seed was Vladimir Fedoseev, then made his Olympiad debut in September. He is the kind of player who could sit quietly in the pack for a week and still be there at the end.
Player to watch: Andy Woodward. At 16, he is a two-time national junior champion playing his second U.S. Championship. Last year's debut brought his first wins at this level. In January, at the Tata Steel Challengers, he beat Carissa Yip in a 131-move game that came down to a long queen ending. He doesn't need to win the event to make it his story.
Quiet Move Journal's picks: Fabiano Caruana to win, Awonder Liang as dark horse, Andy Woodward as player to watch.
Beyond the board
Four years of Caruana have made this event feel settled. It isn't. Last year's title came down to a missed mate, a single comeback win and a final-round game on another board. Eleven rounds is a long time to hold a lead, and the players chasing him have now seen exactly how close they came.