Caruana Chases a Fifth Straight US Title, and Reshevsky's Record

Fabiano Caruana has won the US Championship four years running, from 2022 to 2025. As he defends the title in Saint Louis, a fifth straight win would equal a run nobody has managed in more than eight decades: Samuel Reshevsky’s five successive titles between 1936 and 1942.

The 12-player, 11-round event runs until October 23, alongside the US Women’s Championship.

Where Caruana stands

The 34-year-old already has five US titles in total. The first came in 2016, the current streak began in 2022. Five puts him level with Jackson Showalter, Larry Evans, Gata Kamsky and Hikaru Nakamura. Only Walter Browne, with six, and Bobby Fischer and Reshevsky, with eight each, have won it more often.

The other two active five-time champions have stepped away from the event. Kamsky moved to the French federation and last played the US Championship in 2017. Nakamura has cut back sharply on classical chess and has not played the event since the online rapid edition of 2020.

The streak he is chasing

Reshevsky’s five came in 1936, 1938 and 1940, then a match in 1941 that kept him the title, then another win in 1942. Fischer twice won four in a row, from 1957/58 to 1960/61 and from 1962/63 to 1966/67. When Caruana won in 2025, he became the first player since Fischer to take four in succession.

A champion by way of Italy

Caruana was born in Miami, grew up partly in New York, and played for the United States as a junior. In 2005 he switched to Italy and won the Italian Championship every time he entered between 2007 and 2011. FIDE approved his move back to the US federation in June 2015, and he won the US title at his first attempt less than a year later.

Five titles, five shapes

No two of his titles have looked alike.

• 2016: unbeaten on 8½/11, with six wins. He won his last-round game with Black against Akshat Chandra to finish a full point ahead of Wesley So and Nakamura.
• 2022: 8½/13 in a 14-player field, again unbeaten, built on four wins and nine draws. He beat Hans Niemann in round four and held off Ray Robson, who could not beat Jeffery Xiong in the last round.
• 2023: 8/11, clinched with a round to spare after a penultimate-round win over 14-year-old Abhimanyu Mishra. So, Leinier Dominguez and Mishra shared second, 1½ points back.
• 2024: 7/10 after Christopher Yoo was expelled following round five and his results, including a loss to Caruana, were annulled. Six players tied for second on 5½.
• 2025: the tightest. Caruana and So were level on 5½/8 with three rounds left. Caruana went into the last round half a point ahead, drew with Levon Aronian, and watched So fail to convert an extra pawn against Grigoriy Oparin. He finished on 8/11, ahead of So on 7½ and Aronian on 6½.

What a fifth would mean

The record is not quite in reach this year: even five in a row leaves Caruana short of Fischer’s and Reshevsky’s eight titles in total. But the streak itself is the rarer thing. Nobody since Reshevsky has strung together five in a row, and Caruana’s recent margins suggest his rivals have found it hard to keep pace over eleven rounds. The closest call, 2025, came down to a single half-point.