USA off the podium at the 2026 Chess Olympiad: the open's top seed in fourth and a women's bronze lost on tiebreak

Short answer

The USA finished fourth in both the open and the women's event at the Samarkand Olympiad, with 17 match points in each. In the open, the team of Caruana, So, Niemann, Aronian and Awonder Liang was the top seed. It lost two matches, to Germany and Uzbekistan, both 1.5–2.5, and finished a point behind India and Germany. None of the five players performed above their own rating. In the women's event, the team tied on match points with India and lost bronze on Sonneborn-Berger, 418 to 424, despite scoring 32.5 game points, more than India (31) and silver medallists Kazakhstan (29). This page takes both sums apart and shows where each point went.

Event: 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad

How this was compiled: Checked on 29 September 2026, with the Olympiad over on 27 September. Standings, seeding and tiebreaks come from chess-results. We recalculated Sonneborn-Berger from the official crosstable, and the totals match the published figures (418 and 424 in the women's event, 391.5 and 386.5 in the open). Individual results were counted from the official PGN broadcast on Lichess. Official performances come from the board-prize list; those marked as calculated were worked out by us with FIDE's rating-difference table.

The essentials in a few lines

• In the open, the USA were top seeds and finished fourth on 17 match points: 8 wins, 1 draw (Armenia) and 2 losses by 1.5–2.5, to Germany and Uzbekistan.
• The Americans' open tiebreak (391.5) was better than bronze medallists Germany's (386.5). There was no tie to break; they were one match point short.
• None of the five open players finished above rating. The three defeats in the lost matches came against individual medallists: Abdusattorov, Frederik Svane and Yakubboev.
• In the women's event, the USA and India both finished on 17. India took bronze on Sonneborn-Berger, 424 to 418, although the USA scored 32.5 game points to India's 31.
• The difference came from the schedule: India faced five teams that finished on 17 match points or more; the USA faced two, and lost to both.

Two fourth places with different causes

The two results look the same in the table and are not. In the open, the USA arrived in Samarkand as the team with the highest average rating, first in the seeding, and finished behind three teams: one match point short of tying for the podium. In the women's event, the team was seeded fifth and finished above that, level on match points with the bronze medallists.

So there are two questions worth asking. Where did the open team lose the two match points that separate 17 from 19? And why, in the women's event, did a team that scored more game points than the silver and bronze medallists finish without a medal? The first answer lies in three matches. The second lies in a calculation the regulations publish and almost nobody does.

Open: the three matches that cost a medal

The lazy explanation is that the top boards played badly. The table below shows a more specific pattern: in both lost matches, the defeat that decided the score came against a player who finished with an individual medal. In round 5, Hans Niemann lost to Frederik Svane, who would take board-three gold, and the other three games were drawn. In round 9, against the eventual champions, Wesley So beat Sindarov, but Caruana lost to Abdusattorov, board-one gold, and Niemann lost to Yakubboev, board-three bronze.

The tiebreak supports that reading. The USA's open Sonneborn-Berger ended at 391.5, above Germany's 386.5. In a tie on match points, the criterion would have favoured the USA. But there was no tie to break: Germany won the head-to-head and finished a point ahead.

No regular above their own rating

In a team rated this high, performance drops through draws, not defeats. Caruana lost one game in nine, and so did So. What pulled the numbers down were the draws: Caruana drew five games and So four, and seven of those nine draws came against opponents rated below 2670. For a 2780 player, a draw with a 2620 is worth less than the expected score. Niemann lost two and drew four, and board four had the clearest case: Awonder Liang scored 4.5 out of 7, with a calculated performance of 2570, after losing in rounds 2 and 3 to Mongolia's Itgelt and Denmark's Ochsner.

The counterpoint belongs here too: Olympiad performances come from nine or ten games, and half a point moves them by dozens of points. The firm fact is not the size of each drop but the shared direction. Five players below rating at the same time can easily cost a match point, and one match point is exactly what was missing.

Women: more game points than silver and bronze

The common reading is that Sonneborn-Berger punishes teams that win big. That is not it. It weights each result by the opponent's final strength, and the two teams' schedules were very different. India faced five teams that finished on 17 match points or more: China, Kazakhstan, Poland, Mongolia and the USA themselves. Those five matches produced 203.5 of their 424. The USA faced two, India and Armenia, and lost to both, 1–3 and 1.5–2.5. Those two matches produced 42.5 of their 418.

The head-to-head counted both ways. India's 3 points against a team that finished on 17 became 51 in India's tiebreak; the Americans' single point became 17. With a 2–2 in round 6, neither sum would be the same, because match points would change too. The rest of the American Sonneborn-Berger came from big wins against mid-table teams: 375.5 points from eight matches against opponents who finished on 14 or 15. Beating Belgium or Israel 4–0 is worth 56; drawing with China is worth 40. The criterion exists precisely so that the second result is not worth much less than the first.

Alice Lee and Carissa Yip held the top two boards

The two lost women's matches were not decided at the top. Against India, Yip drew with Humpy Koneru and Lee with Divya Deshmukh; the defeats came on boards three and four, Irina Krush losing to Vantika Agrawal and Rose Atwell to Savitha Shri, who would finish the event with reserve-board gold. Against Armenia, again two draws at the top, with Lilit Mkrtchian and Mariam Mkrtchyan, and Krush's loss to Elina Danielian decided the score.

Yip lost one game in the event, to Uzbekistan's Afruza Khamdamova in round 5; Lee lost none. Tatev Abrahamyan scored an unbeaten 7 out of 9 on board four, with a 2383 performance, and finished fourth on that board's list. The team had two medallists and an unbeaten board four, and still lost both matches against the top of the table on the lower boards. It is the picture of a team strong at the ends and short in the middle, and one that only an eleven-round Olympiad makes visible.

Frequently asked questions

Update log

• 2026-09-29 — First published: both fourth places, with the women's Sonneborn-Berger recalculated from the official crosstable.

Sources

• 46th Chess Olympiad 2026 Open — final standings and tiebreaks — chess-results
• 46th Chess Olympiad 2026 Women — final standings and tiebreaks — chess-results
• 46th Chess Olympiad 2026 Women — board prizes — chess-results
• Uzbekistan, China Win 2026 Samarkand Chess Olympiad — Chess.com

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• Chess tiebreaks explained: Buchholz, Sonneborn-Berger and direct encounter
• How to use Chess-Results: pairings, standings and tiebreaks
• Corporate chess leagues: what changes when the point belongs to the team