Caruana Catches So as Lee Leaps

In Round 4 of the 2026 U.S. Championships, we witnessed brilliant sacrifices, complex endgames, and missed opportunities.

Going into the first rest day, GMs Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana are tied for first in the Open, while IM Alice Lee has taken the sole lead — half a point ahead of WGM Thalia Cervantes — in the Women’s event.

Play resumes Wednesday, Oct. 14, at noon CDT.

Open: Caruana Catches So

With four decisive results (and just two draws), there was clearly blood in the water today. The co-leaders — So and GM Awonder Liang — were a combined ½/2, leading to a standings shakeup, too.

An impressive day for Jeffery Xiong, who won in a Berlin endgame down a piece against Awonder Liang. (Photo courtesy SLCC/Crystal Fuller)

While So drew peacefully against his Olympiad teammate GM Levon Aronian, Liang found himself in a difficult position. What appeared to be a bland Berlin Endgame draw suddenly turned into a position where Liang, up a piece, was fighting for his life!

Caruana scored his second win of the event, this time against GM Ray Robson, to jump over Liang and catch So in the standings.

Fabiano Caruana (L) moved into a share of the lead with his win Monday over Ray Robson. (Photo courtesy SLCC/Crystal Fuller)

The other decisive results came from GMs Hans Niemann and Grigoriy Oparin, who scored wins against GMs Abhimanyu Mishra and Samuel Sevian, respectively, to get back to an equal score.

Graphic courtesy of SLCC.

On Wednesday, Woodward – Caruana is the key pairing. The in-form Woodward is currently tied for third with Liang, just a half-point behind the co-leaders. So plays Black against Oparin, and Liang has White against Shankland.

Women's: Lee Leaps Over Leaders

On paper, Round 4 was tame by this event’s standards. With only two decisive results, it was the first round where over half the games ended peacefully. But far from tame draws, there were turning points in every single game.

Alice Lee won her third game a row to move into clear first. (Photo courtesy SLCC/Lennart Ootes)

The most important result was IM Alice Lee defeating one of the youngest player in the field, co-leader FM Megan Paragua, who missed a golden opportunity.

GM Irina Krush has seemed to fully recover from her tragic blunder in the first round by scoring another victory, this time over two-time former champion IM Nazi Paikidze.

Irinia Krush moved into a share of third place with her second win. (Photo courtesy SLCC/Crystal Fuller)

With the other games ending peacefully, Lee now leads with 3½/4, a half-point ahead of Cervantes. With her second win, Krush has moved up to a tie for third with WIM Rachael Li at 2½/4.

Graphic courtesy of SLCC.

Can anyone stop Alice? IM Tatev Abrahamyan will try, taking the white pieces on Wednesday. The resurgent Krush has White against Cervantes in a key game for the standings.