Forty-Nine Minutes to Safety: So Draws Niemann, and One More Draw Makes Him Champion

Photo: TheBoburshokh / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Wesley So came to the board on Tuesday needing nothing fancy. He led the 2026 U.S. Championship in Saint Louis by a full point with two rounds to go. Forty-nine minutes after the first move, his game against Hans Niemann was drawn, and his lead was still a full point.

Then the players chasing him had their turn. Fabiano Caruana could not beat Jeffery Xiong. Grigoriy Oparin drew with Abhimanyu Mishra. Nobody gained on him.

So now has 7 points. Caruana and Oparin have 6. One round is left, on Wednesday. If So draws, he is the U.S. Champion.

What was his plan on Tuesday? "Well, to remove games from the tournament," So said in his interview with the Saint Louis Chess Club after the game. Here is how he did it, and what else happened on a big day in Saint Louis.

The opening: a quiet Nimzo-Indian

So had the white pieces. The game began 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4. This is the Nimzo-Indian Defense, a popular defense for Black. Black's bishop pins the knight on c3, which means the knight cannot move without letting the bishop hit the king behind it.

So answered with 4.Qc2, the Classical Variation. The queen guards the c3 knight, so that if Black takes it, White can take back with the queen and keep his pawns healthy. After 4...d5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.Qxc3, that is just what happened.

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After 6.Qxc3. White has both bishops. Black has given up a bishop for a knight. Black to move.

Analyze this position

Look at what each side has. White has the bishop pair, two bishops that can sweep across the board. Black has traded a bishop for a knight. In return, Black can castle on the next move and fight for the center with pawns.

Both players knew this line well. Niemann played fast. By the end of the game he had used only about 15 minutes. So used about 34.

"Hans is very unpredictable," So said. "He surprised me today."

The queens come off

The game went 6...O-O 7.Nf3 Nbd7 8.Bg5 h6 9.Bh4 c5 10.e3 dxc4 11.Bxc4 cxd4 12.Qxd4 Nb6 13.Be2 Qxd4 14.Nxd4.

With the queens gone, the game was much calmer. When you lead a tournament, swapping queens is often a good idea. The queen is the strongest piece, so with the queens off the board there are fewer sudden attacks and less that can go wrong.

A jumpy knight on d2

After 14...Bd7 15.O-O Ne4 16.f3, Niemann's knight jumped deep into White's camp with 16...Nd2.

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After 16...Nd2. The black knight attacks the rook on f1 and the pawn on f3. White to move.

Analyze this position

The knight attacks the rook on f1. So simply moved the rook with 17.Rfc1.

Here is a fun fact. One day earlier, against Caruana, So himself had played a knight to d2 as Black, on move 15. Now a knight landed on the very same square against him. A knight that deep in the enemy position is a nuisance, because it is close to many targets.

A small trick: 18...e5

After 17...Rfc8 18.b3, Niemann found a neat idea: 18...e5.

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After 18...e5. The pawn attacks the knight on d4. White to move.

Analyze this position

The pawn on e5 attacks White's knight on d4. But look at the black knight on d2 as well. It has no black piece guarding it. So had his own trick: 19.Be1. The bishop now attacks the knight on d2.

So both knights were attacked. Black took first with 19...exd4, and White took back with 20.Bxd2. One knight each was gone. After 20...Be6 21.Bd1 dxe3 22.Bxe3, the pawns were even too. Our Stockfish 17.1 engine called the position equal.

The draw

The game went 22...Rd8 23.Bc2 Nd5, and then the pieces began to go back and forth.

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The final position, after 27...Nd5. It had appeared three times, so the game was drawn.

Analyze this position

White's bishop went 24.Bd2, and Black's knight went 24...Ne7. Then 25.Be3 Nd5 26.Bd2 Ne7 27.Be3 Nd5. The same position had now come up three times with the same player to move. That is called threefold repetition, and it makes the game a draw.

The game started at 12:11 p.m. Saint Louis time and ended at 1:00 p.m. Other games that day went on for more than four hours.

So explained why a short game suited him. He said he had played some very long games in this event and needed rest before the last round. "Of course I'm worried," he said about the players chasing him, "but it's not something that I can control."

Caruana's long chase

Caruana had Black against Xiong, and he had to try to win. He chose the Scandinavian Defense, 1.e4 d5, an opening where Black's queen comes out early: 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5.

The game lasted 63 moves and more than four hours. Our engine never saw either player with a real winning chance. Near the end, it came down to one rook each and one pawn each. Then something you do not see every day happened.

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After 59.d6. Black's pawn on f2 is one step from promoting. But the square f1 is watched by White's rook on f8. Black to move.

Analyze this position

Caruana pushed his pawn to the last row and made it a rook, not a queen: 59...f1=R. Making a piece other than a queen is called underpromotion.

Why a rook? Here it did not matter at all. White's rook on f8 was watching f1, so any new piece would be taken at once. Our engine rates a new queen and a new rook exactly the same here: a draw. The game ended 60.Rxf1 Rxf1 61.Ke5 Rd1 62.Ke6 Rxd6+ 63.Kxd6. Only the two kings were left, and two kings alone can never checkmate, so the game was drawn.

Racing the clock: Shankland beats Sevian

Two games in the open section had a winner. The first came from Sam Shankland. Sam Sevian chose the Najdorf Sicilian and grabbed a pawn on b2 with his queen, a famous line called the Poisoned Pawn Variation. The name is a warning: the pawn can be "poisoned", because the queen may get trapped or chased far from home.

The game swung back and forth. From move 30 to move 35, our engine liked Black by a pawn or more. But Sevian was very short of time. With less than a minute on his clock, he played 35...Qg1.

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After 35...Qg1. White to move. The bishop on e6 is attacked by the rook on e2. Can Black take back if White captures it?

Analyze this position

Shankland took the bishop with 36.Rxe6. Black's f7 pawn seems to guard e6, but taking back with 36...fxe6 would open the f-file. Our engine shows White then mates in three moves: 37.Rf8+ Kh7 38.Qc2+ g6 39.Qc7#. So Sevian could not take back, and he resigned at move 41.

When the clock is low, check every capture and every open line before you move.

The other games

• Levon Aronian beat Ray Robson, the other win of the day. Robson ran very low on time, and Aronian's c-pawn marched to the seventh row.
• Awonder Liang and Andy Woodward drew.
• Grigoriy Oparin and Abhimanyu Mishra drew.

The table after Round 10

• Wesley So 7
• Fabiano Caruana 6, Grigoriy Oparin 6
• Awonder Liang 5.5, Andy Woodward 5.5, Jeffery Xiong 5.5
• Levon Aronian 5, Abhimanyu Mishra 5
• Sam Shankland 4.5
• Hans Niemann 4
• Ray Robson 3.5
• Sam Sevian 2.5

So is still the only player who has not lost a game: four wins and six draws.

What So needs on Wednesday

In Round 11, So has Black against Sevian. Caruana has White against Liang. Oparin has Black against Robson.

• If So wins or draws, he finishes on 7.5 or 8. Nobody else can get past 7. So is the champion.
• If So loses, he stays on 7. Caruana or Oparin could then tie him by winning. A tie for first goes to a playoff on Thursday, 22 October, starting with rapid games.
• If So loses and neither Caruana nor Oparin wins, So is still the champion alone.

So said he would still like to win. "It'd be nice to push for a win," he said. "Not to make too many mistakes and see what the position holds."

He also admitted something surprising. "I didn't even want to play this tournament," he said. "Now I'm glad I did."

The women's race: Li is one draw away too

The U.S. Women's Championship has the same story. Rachael Li beat Rose Atwell in 60 moves, in a long ending where Li had a rook, a knight and a pawn against Atwell's rook and pawn. It was the last game of the day to finish.

Alice Lee kept up the chase by beating Thalia Cervantes Landeiro. Carissa Yip beat Nazi Paikidze, Tatev Abrahamyan beat Anna Zatonskih, Anna Sargsyan beat Jennifer Yu, and Megan Paragua drew with Irina Krush.

Here is the top of the table:

• Rachael Li 8
• Alice Lee 7
• Irina Krush 6.5
• Thalia Cervantes Landeiro 5.5, Megan Paragua 5.5

In Round 11, Li has Black against Zatonskih, and Lee has Black against Sargsyan. If Li draws, she wins the title. Lee can only catch her by winning while Li loses. Then they would meet in a playoff.

Meanwhile in Montenegro: Abdusattorov falls

Far from Saint Louis, at the European Chess Club Cup in Budva, Montenegro, one of the best players in the world lost on Tuesday. Nodirbek Abdusattorov, rated 2780, lost with Black to Aydin Suleymanli of Azerbaijan, rated 2679, in Round 4.

The game had a beautiful finish that is worth learning.

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Suleymanli against Abdusattorov after 35...Qf3. White to move. Look at the pawn on h7 and the black queen on f3.

Analyze this position

Suleymanli played 36.Qxh7+, giving up his queen. After 36...Kxh7, the knight jumped 37.Ng5+. That knight move gave check to the king on h7 and also attacked the black queen on f3. A move that attacks two things at once is called a fork. The king had to move, 37...Kh6, and 38.Nxf3 took the queen back.

When it was over, White had two more pawns than Black. Suleymanli won at move 55.

Ratings matter here too. So said after his game that he would like to "get back in the top five" of the rating list. Abdusattorov's loss could help him do that, but that depends on Wednesday.

What to take away

• When you are ahead, make the game simple. So traded queens early and took a safe draw. It kept his lead and saved his energy.
• An unguarded piece is a target. Niemann's 18...e5 attacked a knight, and So answered by attacking the unguarded knight on d2.
• You can promote to any piece. Usually you pick a queen. Caruana picked a rook, and here it made no difference.
• When short of time, check the lines you open. Taking back on e6 would have opened the f-file to a mate in three.
• Look for checks that also attack something else. Suleymanli's queen sacrifice worked because his knight check also hit the black queen.

Yesterday, So drew Caruana after the Dubov Gambit to keep his one-point lead.

In the women's section the same day, Rachael Li beat Rose Atwell and is also one draw from the title.

The full story of that game, with a recap of Rounds 3 and 4: how Suleymanli beat Abdusattorov.