Caruana Clinches Titled Tuesday On Rest Day
By Cameron W. · Wed, 14 Oct 2026
Fabiano Caruana used the first rest day of the U.S. Championships to win Chess.com's Titled Tuesday on October 13, finishing on 9.5 points, half a point clear of Hikaru Nakamura and Nihal Sarin. I
Caruana Wins Titled Tuesday on the U.S. Championship Rest Day, Beating Nihal Sarin on Time to Finish on 9.5/11
Fabiano Caruana used the first rest day of the U.S. Championships to win Chess.com's Titled Tuesday on October 13, finishing on 9.5 points, half a point clear of Hikaru Nakamura and Nihal Sarin. It was his first Titled Tuesday victory since February 17, according to Chess.com, and it came while he shares the lead of the U.S. Championship with Wesley So on 3/4.
How the event ended
Nakamura took second on 9 points, ahead of Nihal on tiebreaks, and So finished fourth on 9 in the same event, so both U.S. Championship co-leaders played on their day off. Vladislav Artemiev, Dmitry Andreikin, Sergei Zhigalko and Artin Ashraf also scored 9. Chess.com did not give the number of entrants, but its prize list reaches at least 105th place. Seventeen players started with 4/4.
Nihal led for much of the event and was chasing a perfect score. He was on 9 points ahead of Round 10, with Caruana on 8, so a win would have clinched first place for him. According to Chess.com, Caruana gained a clock advantage early and never held a clear edge on the board, while Nihal later generated winning chances but ran out of time with about 2.7 seconds left, against 58 for Caruana. That result put Caruana level on 9, and Nihal then lost to Nakamura in the final round. Caruana drew Sina Movahed in that round, a game in which, Chess.com noted, both players blundered without being punished.
A tournament full of close calls
Chess.com's report describes Caruana surviving several time scrambles on the way. He beat Kacper Piorun on time with less than a second left in a position the report called otherwise hopeless, and two rounds later he beat R Praggnanandhaa after the Indian star lost on time, this time from the better position. The report does not label the rounds for these games, so none are given here.
Prizes
The weekly fund is $10,000 under the structure Chess.com introduced on June 2. Caruana earned the $2,500 first prize, Nakamura $1,500 and Nihal $1,000, with So collecting $700 for fourth. Nobody scored a perfect 11/11, so the perfect-score bounty went unclaimed. It stood at $5,000 this week and grows by $250 each week it is not won.
Among the special prizes, IM Polina Shuvalova was the top woman in 86th place and WIM Elnaz Kaliakhmet the top girl under 16 in 105th, each earning $250. FM Behzad Salimiyan finished 35th and took the under-16 prize after beating Alireza Firouzja in an early round.
Back to the U.S. Championships
Caruana returns to the board today, October 14, in Round 5 of the U.S. Championships at noon Central, where he meets Andy Woodward, one of two players on 2.5. So has Black against Grigoriy Oparin. Caruana has won the last four U.S. titles and is chasing a fifth.
