The 8th day of the US Chess Championships 2026 in Saint Louis has concluded. After 8 rounds, Wesley So leads with 6 points, while Fabiano Caruana is in second place with 5 points.

Hans Moke Niemann lost to Sam Shankland in the round. Sam won by making 2 Great moves. Shankland played the game with 98.2 accuracy, while Niemann’s was 91.3.

Hans Niemann lost 14.7 points during the tournament and dropped to 32nd place in the live rating. Niemann is the last remaining 2700 player with 2702.3 points.

The current standings are:

Place Player Score
1. 🇺🇸 GM Wesley So 6
2. 🇺🇸 GM Fabiano Caruana 5
3. 🇺🇸 GM Grigoriy Oparin 4.5
4. 🇺🇸 GM Andy Woodward 4.5
5. 🇺🇸 GM Jeffery Xiong 4.5
6. 🇺🇸 GM Awonder Liang 4.5
7. 🇺🇸 GM Abhimanyu Mishra 4
8. 🇺🇸 GM Levon Aronian 3.5
9. 🇺🇸 GM Sam Shankland 3.5
10. 🇺🇸 GM Hans Moke Niemann 3
11. 🇺🇸 GM Ray Robson 3
12. 🇺🇸 GM Sam Sevian 2

Individual round results:

Sam Shankland 1-0 Hans Moke Niemann

Wesley So 1-0 Andy Woodward

Levon Aronian 0.5-0.5 Grigoriy Oparin

Jeffery Xiong 0.5-0.5 Ray Robson

Sam Sevian 0.5-0.5 Fabiano Caruana

Awonder Liang 0.5-0.5 Abhimanyu Mishra

The US Chess Championships 2026 takes place from October 9 to 21, at the Saint Louis Chess Club in Missouri, USA. The event features a 90+30 time control for the first 40 moves and 30+30 for the rest of the game over one Round-Robin between 12 players.

Credit: Rafal Oleksiewicz / FIDE