Colville Takes Cadet Championship Over Das in Tiebreaks

Californian IM Julian Colville won the 2026 U.S. Cadet Championship in a playoff over New York’s FM Aditeya Das to claim the national Under-16 title.

Julian Colville won the Cadet Championship in tiebreaks. (Photo by Danial Wilson)

The 16-year-old Colville added the title to last month’s share of first place in the 126^th U.S. Open. Das, who is 15, will have another year of eligibility in this tournament.

An intense analysis session between rounds. (Photo by Danial Wilson)

Das and Colville tied for first with 4½/7 scores, each earning $750. But the $10,000 scholarship prize (provided by US Chess) was determined by a two-game blitz playoff at a time control of five minutes per side with a two-second increment from move one.

Colville survived pressure to draw the first blitz playoff game before winning on time on the better side of a rook-and-pawn endgame in the second game to pocket the scholarship for a college or university of their choice.

The 2026 Cadet field with NTD/IA Bill Buklis (L) and organizer Danial Wilson (R).

In Round 2, Das defeated Colville as White in a theoretical line of the Four Knights Sicilian. Das handled Colville’s slightly unconventional handling of the position well, and a thematic-looking pawn sac from Colville turned out to cause Black major headaches.

Das improved to 2½/3 after winning an incredibly complex struggle against IM Ethan Guo:

But Colville remained close behind with a 2/3 score thanks to wins against FM Ryan Sun and FM Lucas Jiang:

In Round 4, Das’s loss to FM Andrew Jing allowed Colville to catch the leader. Things heated up in Round 5 when Das outplayed FM Linxi Zhu to win as Black while Colville kept pace by defeating Guo in a rook-and-bishop-versus-rook marathon.

Das won again in Round 6, this time against FM Ryan Sun, to take a half-point lead into the final round. Then, Colville and Das both faced danger in the final round. Colville eventually survived as Black against Zhu, but just when it looked like Das had weathered the worst of the storm, disaster struck:

Das’s second loss allowed Colville to once again claim a share of first. Texas’s Siddharth Singh (age 15) and New York’s Zhu tied for third with 4/7 scores.

Siddharth Singh tied for third thanks to a key last-round win over Das. (Photo by Bill Buklis)

Zhu was the event’s youngest participant. Jing (14) and Guo (13) were the only other players younger than age 15.

The field's youngest player, Linxi Zhu, also finished tied for third. (Photo by Bill Buklis)

The tournament was held alongside the 2026 Illinois State Championship, which will be covered next week in the Memorial Day Weekend Wrap-Up.

All games from the event are available on Chess.com.

Editor's note (10/1/2026): An earlier version of this article misattributed two of the photo credits. The photos of Singh and Zhu were taken by Bill Buklis, and the article has been edited to reflect this.