Carissa Yip Wins Rapid Title in Punta Cana Without Dropping a Game

IM Carissa Yip (USA) claimed the Rapid title at the WR Women's Chess Tour 2026 Americas Leg, going through the entire eight-player knockout without losing a single game and securing her place at the Grand Final in Stuttgart this November.

Commentary ran all day with José Martínez Alcántara and Harshit Raja in the booth, guiding viewers through a field that included several players fresh off the World Record Chess Marathon in Lima days earlier.

The participants with Tournament Director Martha Fierro (5th from right).

Quarterfinals

Yip opened with a 2-0 sweep of Carolina Luján in the quarterfinals, the second game tipping into a tense time scramble that Yip came out of on top. Elsewhere on the bracket, Deysi Cori beat Megan Paragua 1.5-0.5, Alice Lee edged out Ashley Castillo 1.5-0.5, and Leya Garifullina swept home favourite Patricia Castillo Peña 2-0.

Semifinals

The semifinals delivered the drama of the day. Deysi Cori and Alice Lee split their first two games 1-1, sending the match to an Armageddon decider. Lee's timed bid of 7:43 undercut Cori's 8:00. Under Armageddon rules the lower bidder takes the black pieces with less time and draw odds — leaving Cori needing only a draw. She got her win instead, grinding out the decider to reach the final. In the other half, Yip dealt with Garifullina 2-0, never troubled.

Alice Lee lost her semifinal in Armageddon against Deysi Cori.

Final: a perfect run for Yip

Yip closed out the final with a third consecutive 2-0 scoreline against Cori — a faultless run through three rounds of 15+10 rapid without dropping a single game. Speaking afterwards, Yip was candid about the pressure: "I was honestly nervous in general because I think rapid is like my biggest time control. I just played in Hong Kong, where, yeah, I played awful in the rapid. So I was just hoping to show some reaches [improvement] here — and yeah, I'm pretty happy with the result."

What's next

Yip's Rapid title secures one of the two Grand Final qualification spots on offer in Punta Cana. The second is still up for grabs: the Blitz knockout, run on 2 July with the same eight players, carries its own $20,000 prize fund and its own ticket to Stuttgart.

The Americas Leg is the second of four regional stops on the WR Women's Chess Tour 2026, following Tokyo and preceding Maputo (20–23 August) and Saint-Tropez (24–26 August), ahead of the Grand Final at Rosenstein Palace, Stuttgart, on 22–23 November.