GMs Wesley So and Awonder Liang continued as joint leaders with 2.5 points after their mutual encounter ended in a draw in the third round of the 2026 U.S. Chess Championship. GM Andy Woodward was rewarded with a win for his dynamic play against GM Ray Robson, and joined GM Fabiano Caruana in the second-place group with two points.

IM Alice Lee benefited from a blunder by IM Nazi Paikidze to score a win and join WGM Thalia Cervantes and FM Megan Paragua at the top with 2.5 points each in the 2026 U.S. Women's Chess Championship. IM Tatev Abrahamyan scored a creditable win against IM Carissa Yip, the defending champion and four-time winner of the tournament, pushing the latter near to the bottom of the table with 0.5 points.

None of the players managed to score full points after three rounds in either event, which means that the 'Fischer Prize' of $64,000 awarded to any player winning the U.S. Championship with the same perfect 11/11 score as the legend GM Bobby Fischer from the 1964 national championship is off the table already.

The fourth round of each tournament will be on Monday, October 12, starting at 1 p.m. ET / 19:00 CEST / 10:30 p.m. IST. 

Standings After Round 3: Open

Standings After Round 3: Women

Open: Impressive Wins For Woodward, Shankland

Round 3 Results: Open

We had an interesting reveal from the commentators of the live relay on the favorites to win the tournament.

The game between the joint leaders, So and Liang, ended in a draw in 30 moves without much action. In the rest of the games, GM Sam Shankland and Woodward scored impressive victories over GMs Jeffery Xiong and Robson, respectively.

Xiong's strategic handling of the middlegame against Shankland was concerning, to say the least. After allowing the creation of an isolated queen's pawn, he also weakened his kingside to accept the traditionally brittle pawn structure with h3-g2-f3. 29...Nxf3! was Shankland's strike to exploit his advantage, which you can find in the notes of GM Dejan Bojkov, who has annotated the Game of the Day.

Woodward's exchange sacrifice against Robson was a classic example of dynamism and the pressure of competition triumphing over objectivity on the chessboard. Woodward's 29...Rxe5 was not met with approval from commentator GM Maurice Ashley, who pronounced, "It's a bad, bad, bad exchange sac!"

But such sacrifices played on the board do not strictly conform to pragmatic analysis of the position. After all, it is next to impossible to find perfect moves to play when one is short of time and has a weak king.

It was admirable of Robson to play for a win even when he could have settled for a draw, especially with just half a minute left on his clock. He appeared stressed in time pressure, however, shaking his head as the tension built. The crucial 40th move was an error from Robson, as often happens in such situations.

Round 4 Pairings | Open

Women: Alice Lee Joins The Leaders

Round 3 Results: Women

On the favorites to win the women's tournament, we had the following predictions.

Perhaps bolstered by being the favorite of the predictions, Lee benefited from a blunder from Paikidze, 20...Qg7??, which allowed for a simple pawn fork with a further 23.g4 winning her a piece. 

Abrahamyan scored a smooth and one-sided win over Yip. "I think we are still suffering after the Olympiad. Maybe we are still tired," was Abrahamyan's pronouncement about the quality of her encounter against Yip, as her opponent played a series of mistakes in the middlegame to end up in a clearly worse position.

I think we are still suffering after the Olympiad. Maybe we are still tired

—Tatev Abrahamyan

Yip indeed looked to be out of sorts in the game. With 21.0-0! Abrahamyan gained a clear advantage, and her handling of the middlegame culminating with 26.e6! was admirable. After that she had a clear advantage.

The other decisive game of the day was also due to a tactical oversight. IM Anna Sargsyan's 26...Nxa3 was a surprising blunder, giving away a free piece, and WIM Rachael Li went on to win the game soon, enabling her to join IM Anna Zatonskih in the group behind the leaders with two points each.

Round 4 Pairings | Women