Eight out of 12 games were decisive on Wednesday, making it the bloodiest round across both tournaments in this year's 2026 U.S. Chess Championship. GM Andy Woodward took down defending champion GM Fabiano Caruana to join GM Wesley So in the lead on 3.5/5. So drew GM Grigoriy Oparin. The other three winners were GM Jeffery Xiong (against GM Levon Aronian), GM Ray Robson (against GM Hans Niemann), and GM Abhimanyu Mishra (against GM Sam Sevian).

Seventeen-year-old IM Alice Lee leads the 2026 U.S. Women's Chess Championship by a full point after beating IM Tatev Abrahamyan with the black pieces to land on the nearly perfect 4.5/5 score. Her closest trailers are WIM Rachel Li (who beat WGM Jennifer Yu), FM Megan Paragua (who beat IM Nazi Paikidze), and WGM Thalia Cervantes (after a draw with GM Irina Krush). IM Rose Atwell won a brilliancy against defending champion IM Carissa Yip but is on 2/5.

Round six is on Thursday, October 15, starting at 1 p.m. ET / 19:00 CEST / 10:30 p.m. IST.

Standings After Round 5: Open

Standings After Round 5: Women

Open: Woodward Leapfrogs Caruana

Round 5 Results: Open

There were just two draws in each tournament. In the open section, the draws were in Oparin vs. So and GM Awonder Liang vs. Sam Shankland. So held a Berlin Defense to stay in pole position, and Shankland's Dragon Sicilian still petered out to an equal endgame. Liang is a half-point behind the leaders, while Shankland is a full point back.

The Game of the Day was, without a doubt, Woodward's win against Caruana with a slow, positional squeeze in the QGD Ragozin Variation.

The teenager confirmed with GM Maurice Ashley that it was his career-best win, saying, "I've beaten some low 2700s, but this was the first time beating Fabi." He made fantastic use of the bishop pair advantage, and even though the conversion wasn't engine-perfect, it was enough to beat the third-highest-rated player of all time.

GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the full game below. (The annotations will be added soon.)

Woodward said, "I'm of course very happy with how the event's went so far. Lots of games I've gotten pretty lucky, but I also think I'm playing pretty well, so hopefully I can continue."

Xiong's win with the black pieces against Aronian was another blow to the older generations. His first win ever against Aronian helped Xiong—who has not made a single draw—get back to a +1 score with three wins and two losses.

Aronian temporarily sacrificed a piece and should have won it back sooner; after 23...Bb5!, it turned out that the sacrifice wasn't so temporary.

In both tournaments, just one older player beat a younger opponent, and that was Robson (already a veteran at 31 years old) against Niemann (23). He managed to eke out a rook endgame with equal pawns, but his outside passed a-pawn decided the game.

The longest game of the day was Mishra's win against Sevian.

Even with a rook and pawn against a bishop, the win wasn't easy, and it took over 100 moves for Mishra to find the decisive breakthrough. When he played 103.Kc6, however, he could breathe a sigh of relief knowing he'd done it—earned his first win in the tournament.

In round six, So faces Mishra and Woodward is up against Niemann. So and Woodward will have their direct encounter in round eight.

Round 6 Pairings | Open

Women: Lee Dominates

Round 4 Results: Women

The women's championship was no less exciting, with four decisive games all won by the younger players. The only draws were Krush vs. Cervantes and IM Anna Zatonskih vs. IM Anna Sargsyan.

Since her draw with Yip in round one, Lee has won all four subsequent games. 

Yip entered the tournament as U.S. number-one woman, but with two draws and three losses has dropped 24 points; it is Lee who has risen to the number-one spot and world number-14 among women on the live rating list.

Alice Lee wins a fourth game in a row and rises to number 14 woman in the world! https://t.co/P4xtAGXM3q

— chess24 ( @chess24com) October 14, 2026

"I just slept in, and I got ice cream" is how Lee spent her rest day, and who's to question her process? It's clearly working! A tense middlegame against Abrahamyan liquidated into a pawn-down endgame that the latter could have objectively held, but 29.Rd4? was a step in the wrong direction, allowing Lee to keep her pawn. 

Though she had been worried about her king safety earlier, Lee said, "Once it got to the endgame, I thought it was very pleasant." She converted the extra material.

Is she nervous about holding onto the lead? No, she quickly answered Ashley. "Because the results are good, I kind of feel like I can keep it up."

As the tournament unfolds like a dream for Lee, the nightmare continues for Yip—who started the tournament less than 20 rating points away from the 2500 rating mark. Atwell won an absolute brilliancy, playing the crushing exchange sacrifice when other winning moves worked as well. "I know she's not in the best form, but neither am I," said Atwell. She was happy with a draw, "but I thought I'll take my chances if I get them."

Atwell also pointed out that she had to play an exchange sacrifice in round four to win, but chose the safe option and ended up only drawing the game. So the lesson was: "Knock them out before things get to that point!"

Li's win against two-time champion Yu was another massive result. She said, "It's kind of surprising, but in this tournament anything can happen."

It's kind of surprising, but in this tournament anything can happen.

—Rachael Li

Yu was slightly worse out of the opening, but 11...Nd5 was the prelude to disaster. With 12.a3, White threatened to trap the full piece, and already the best move for Black was to give up a pawn for no compensation with 12...b5. Yu understandably didn't go for that variation—but got steamrolled in the game.

Paragua accompanied Lee for ice cream on the rest day, and indeed they talked about the previous round. Paragua lost, but precisely on move 33 she could have won on the spot. She even saw the winning move 33...Rxc5, but what she missed was a later ...a5 that was necessary to hold onto the advantage. She said, "Obviously I was disappointed, but the only way to go forward is to move on."

Obviously I was disappointed, but the only way to go forward is to move on.

—Megan Paragua

Winning games is certainly the way any player wants to move forward, and that's just what she did against Paikidze in round five. Paragua gained the edge with an early b4 in the Caro-Kann Exchange Variation, and the move that really stands out in the conversion phase is the counterintuitive 30.a5!. She explained that although it may be tempting to go for the b5 pawn break, she realized Black is deprived of all counterplay if the queenside is locked, and her play was extremely obvious from there.

As a sign of maturity, despite being just 13 years old, she never grabbed the exchange in the end.

There is only one question as we approach the second half of the tournament: can anyone stop Alice Lee? The next in line to answer that question is Rachael Li.

Round 6 Pairings | Women