Titled Tuesday Ties Go To Andreikin, Bortnyk

To win Titled Tuesday, 9.5 points continue to be enough as GMs Dmitry Andreikin and Oleksandr Bortnyk won the June 27 renditions of the event, each on that score. Both needed the tiebreak score advantage over one other player in order to secure first place, Andreikin edging out GM Aram Hakobyan and Bortnyk besting GM Jose Martinez.

June ends with only one person scoring 10 points in a Titled Tuesday all month out of eight tournaments.

• Early Tournament (Andreikin)
• Late Tournament (Bortnyk)

Early Tournament

The early tournament had 552 players, the highest total of June. Andreikin, Hakobyan, and GM Vasif Durarbayli were all perfect through six rounds, but all made a draw in the seventh round—Hakobyan and Durarbayli against each other. Andreikin separated himself from the field in the eighth round, however, by defeating GM Aleksandar Indjic on time in an equal position when Andreikin's own clock only showed two seconds.

Andreikin's 10th-round performance, meanwhile, was a very strong and steady win with Black over GM Denis Makhnev.

Hakobyan, who had made only draws in rounds seven through nine, finally broke through again in the 10th round with a win against Indjic that featured a classic exchange sacrifice in the Najdorf Sicilian.

With a half-point lead and strong tiebreaks entering the final round, Andreikin agreed to a draw with Martinez on move two. Martinez's decision to take the draw, however, did not pay off—he ended up in sixth, just outside the money. Hakobyan was able to join Andreikin on 9.5 points and earn second place by beating IM Matvey Galchenko.

June 27 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

Andreikin earned $1,000 with his performance, while Hakobyan took the second-place prize of $750. Makhnev easily had the best tiebreak score among the players on nine points and won $350 in third place, while IM Kazybek Nogerbek finished fourth for $200 and GM Alexey Sarana fifth for $100. The $100 women's prize went to GM Olga Girya, who scored 7.5 points.

Late Tournament

Once again, this time in a field of 439, three players started on a perfect 6/6: Bortnyk and two other grandmasters you might have heard of, GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen. Unfortunately, the matchmaking algorithm did not give us a Nakamura-Carlsen showdown. Instead, Bortnyk held a draw with Nakamura, while Carlsen and Martinez also made a draw.

Surprisingly, Carlsen was effectively knocked out of contention in the next two rounds, losing first to GM Shant Sargsyan in round eight. Then GM Vugar Rasulov won their game in round nine from the black side of a Berlin Spanish.

Nakamura remained in contention for longer but did not survive a 10th-round encounter with the on-form Bortnyk. Like Rasulov against Carlsen, Bortnyk won with Black against Nakamura.

At the same time, Martinez kept pace with Bortnyk with a win over GM Christopher Yoo.

Unfortunately, as with the early tournament, the last round was rather anticlimactic. With only two players within half a point of them, Bortnyk and Martinez agreed to a draw in just 16 moves. Rasulov would likely have won the tournament with a win in the last round, but he faced Nakamura and could only draw in 49 moves.

June 27 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

Bortnyk won $1,000 with the tournament victory, while Martinez settled for $750 in second place. Rasulov earned $350 in third place, and GM Alexander Grischuk ended up the most established player in the top five (with Nakamura and Carlsen just outside) and claimed $200. The $100 prizes went to GM Pranesh M in fifth place and GM Aleksandra Goryachkina as the highest-scoring woman.

Titled Tuesday is Chess.com's weekly Swiss tournament for titled players. Two 11-round Swiss tournaments are held each Tuesday, an early event at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Standard Time, and a later one at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time/23:00 Central European/2:30 Indian Standard Time (next day).