Nakamura, Lee Advance to American Cup Grand Finals: Who Will Join Them?

Heading into the final weekend of the 2025 American Cup, GM Hikaru Nakamura and IM Alice Lee have each advanced to the Grand Final by winning their respective Champions Final matches over GM Fabiano Caruana and WGM Tatev Abrahamyan. Catch up on the earlier rounds with our previous articles here and here.

Open Champion's Bracket — Graphics courtesy of SLCC

Women's Champions Bracket — Graphics courtesy of SLCC

The Elimination Bracket takes center stage today, with Caruana facing a rematch against GM Levon Aronian and Abrahamyan squaring off against GM Irina Krush. The winners will play a two-game classical match in the Grand Final beginning on Saturday, with playoffs, if necessary, following Sunday’s classical game.

Open Elimination Bracket — Graphics courtesy of SLCC

Women's Elimination Bracket — Graphics courtesy of SLCC

If Nakamura or Lee win the Grand Final, they win the tournament. Otherwise, the Grand Final Reset will conclude the main event on Monday before the American Cup Blitz.

Nakamura and Lee can each enjoy a rest day along with their Champions Bracket bonuses of $15,000 and $9,000, respectively. The overall prizes are $75,000 for first and $55,000 for second in the Open, and $40,000 for first and $30,000 for second in the Women’s (with all eight places paid out), so there is plenty more to fight for this weekend.

Caruana watches the game between Abrahamyan and Lee

Caruana follows along with Abrahamyan – Lee on Thursday (Photo courtesy of Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

The reigning American Cup champion has a chance to defend her title after Lee defeated Abrahamyan 1½–½ in their Champions Final match. On Wednesday, Lee played what our guest annotator GM Luka Budisavljevic described as, “So far, the best game of the tournament.” See why below in our Game of the Day:

On Thursday, Abrahamyan looked on track to “win on demand” to level the match for most of the day. But, with each player low on time, Lee managed to claw back to hold the draw and clinch the match without a need for tiebreaks.

In a star-studded Elimination Bracket, IM Nazi Paikidze first knocked out top-seeded IM Carissa Yip while Krush eliminated IM Anna Zatonskih. By my count, this quartet accounts for 17 U.S. Women’s Championships, including 16 of the last 19.

Two former US Women's Chess Champions face off today in the American Cup elimination bracket. @irinakrush was the inaugural American Cup winner in 2022 and @NaziPaiki is looking for her first title. @STLChessClub pic.twitter.com/1LudSS2Dz3
— John Brezina (@BrezinaJohn) March 20, 2025

The most decorated champion among them emerged victorious, with Krush then defeating Paikidze to advance to the Elimination Final. After Paikidze’s upset victory against Yip, it was a heartbreaking exit from a promising position.

Yip, left, plays Paikidze while, on the other side of a divider, Abrahamyan plays Lee

Yip (L) lost her match against Paikidze on Wednesday while Abrahamyan (R) was unable to overcome Lee's brilliant performance (Photo courtesy of Lennart Ootes/SLCC)

With both classical games ending in draws, Nakamura and Caruana went to the blitz playoff Thursday evening in the event’s most anticipated match-up so far. Nakamura won the match 2½–1½ thanks to squeezing Caruana both on the board and the clock in their first blitz game.

Having to win on demand with the black pieces was never going to be easy, but for most of the second blitz game it looked like Caruana was going to do it. But those following along at home with the evaluation bar might not have realized just how difficult it was to find the winning moves at the end.

Caruana will now face Aronian in a rematch of their Champions Bracket semi-final, with more inventive chess likely to follow.

Nakamura and Caruana during their first Champions Final game on Wednesday

Nakamura was unable to break through in the classical portion before winning the first blitz playoff game against Caruana (Photo courtesy of Lennart Ootes/SLCC)

Aronian advanced to the Elimination Finals in virtue of eliminating GM Wesley So 2½–1½ and GM Sam Sevian 2–0 over the last two days.

Aronian, wearing tinted glasses, calmly faces off against Sevian

Cool shades, cool nerves: Aronian defeated Sevian 2–0 to advance to the Elimination Final (Photo courtesy of Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

Sevian put up significant resistance while playing enterprising chess against Aronian, but this time a tactical blunder was too much for Sevian to overcome.

Oh no, blunder alert. White to play and win 😳#AmericanCup @chess24com pic.twitter.com/TKcCBKBF3L
— Saint Louis Chess Club (@STLChessClub) March 20, 2025

The tournament continues through Sunday, March 23 (or into Monday, if a Grand Final Reset is needed) with the American Cup Blitz to take place on the 24th. The full schedule can be found here, and all games can be found on Chess.com. Live commentary courtesy of SLCC can be found on Twitch and YouTube, featuring commentary from GMs Yasser Seirawan and Christian Chirila along with IM Eric Rosen and WGM Katerina Nemcova.