Two Near-Perfections In Titled Tuesday

NathanielGreen

Updated: Feb 29, 2024, 7:22 AM | 13 | Chess Event Coverage

For the first time ever, both Titled Tuesday winners came one draw away from a perfect score, as both GM Minh Le in the early tournament and GM Hikaru Nakamura in the late tournament "settled" for scores of 10.5/11 and full-point outright victories.

Le started a perfect 10/10 before a draw in the final round, while Nakamura made a draw in round seven. It was the second straight week with no need for tiebreaks to decide first place.

Early Tournament (Le, 10.5/11)
Late Tournament (Nakamura, 10.5/11)
Titled Cup Standings

Early Tournament

This week's early tournament featured 748 players, but they were no match for Le. As he kept winning every round, his opponents only got more difficult: GM Arjun Erigaisi fell in round eight, then Le took down GM Oleksandr Bortnyk in round nine. Round 10 was Le's toughest challenge yet in Nakamura. Surely the buck stopped there? But no, Le won again, moving to within one round of perfection.

However, Le also needed just a draw to clinch outright first place and, after 34 moves against third-place finisher GM Jeffery Xiong, a draw was the result.

In between them in the final standings was GM Jose Martinez. Martinez finished second in last week's early tournament, and did it again this week—this time with a Chess.com film crew in tow.

BIG #TitledTuesday showing for @GMJoseMartinez who finished 2nd while playing live with our film crew! 👏

content coming soon 😉 pic.twitter.com/klWnziiHhr
— Chess.com (@chesscom) February 27, 2024

Martinez has been subject to certain insinuations from GM Vladimir Kramnik for some time, and while Kramnik changed his tune somewhat after this result, he remained highly critical. Martinez responded:

Despite only starting the tournament on 2.5/4, Martinez then won seven in a row to reach second place by half a tiebreak point over Xiong. In the final round, Martinez checkmated GM Maciej Klekowski in just 26 moves with a sudden but overpowering kingside attack.

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

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	10		GM	@wonderfultime	Tuan Minh Le	3129	10.5	74.5
2	11		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3053	9.5	68.5
3	15		GM	@jefferyx	Jeffery Xiong	3082	9.5	68
4	1		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3273	9	77.5
5	7		GM	@vi_pranav	Pranav V	3030	9	76.5
6	19		GM	@DenLaz	Denis Lazavik	3037	9	71
7	13		GM	@Polish_fighter3000	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	3121	9	70
8	16		GM	@Grischuk	Alexander Grischuk	3037	9	69
9	3		GM	@HansOnTwitch	Hans Niemann	3053	9	66
10	63		IM	@MatthewG-p4p	Matvey Galchenko	2894	9	65.5
11	27		GM	@Njal28	Aram Hakobyan	3045	9	64
12	8		GM	@mishanick	Alexey Sarana	3074	9	62
13	23		GM	@GHANDEEVAM2003	Arjun Erigaisi	3072	8.5	81.5
14	70		IM	@scarabee43	Marco Materia	2902	8.5	70.5
15	14		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3026	8.5	69.5
16	72		FM	@Zohid6	Mukhammadzokhid Suyarov	2883	8.5	67
17	127		GM	@Evgeny81	Evgeny Postny	2761	8.5	64.5
18	82		GM	@maciek_92	Maciej Klekowski	2867	8.5	61
19	69		GM	@TigrVShlyape	Gata Kamsky	2914	8.5	59.5
20	676		GM	@Sam_ChessMood	Samvel Ter-Sahakyan	2955	8.5	46
56	142		GM	@ChessQueen	Alexandra Kosteniuk	2773	7.5	61.5

(Full final standings here.)

Le won $1,000 for his efforts, while Martinez took home $750 and Xiong $350. Nakamura finished fourth, just ahead of GM Pranav Venkatesh on tiebreaks; they won $200 and $100, respectively, while GM Alexandra Kosteniuk won the $100 women's prize on a 7.5 score.

Late Tournament

Nakamura's performance in the late event, which had 509 players total, was all the more impressive for the gauntlet he faced. His last eight opponents all finished the tournament in the top 20, and his last seven all in the top 12, including every other top-five finisher. Nakamura defeated all of them except GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda in round seven, which created a four-way tie for first place on 6.5/7.

Three rounds later, the tournament was all but over. Wins over GMs Liem Le, Nihal Sarin (below), and Andrew Hong put Nakamura a full point above the field.

Like Minh Le earlier, Nakamura now needed only a draw to clinch the tournament. His opponent was the always-tough fellow 2024 candidate GM Alireza Firouzja, but Nakamura kept on rolling for his fourth career Titled Tuesday score of 10.5 or better.

Left to fight for second place were Arjun and Duda, who both scored 9.5 points, with Arjun taking the tiebreak edge for second place. Arjun beat GM Aram Hakobyan in the final round to lock up his position.

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

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	1		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3273	10.5	82.5
2	19		GM	@GHANDEEVAM2003	Arjun Erigaisi	3072	9.5	76
3	8		GM	@Polish_fighter3000	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	3121	9.5	73
4	2		GM	@nihalsarin	Nihal Sarin	3195	9	74
5	13		GM	@SpeedofLight0	Andrew Hong	3080	9	67.5
6	10		GM	@mishanick	Alexey Sarana	3074	9	61.5
7	20		GM	@Njal28	Aram Hakobyan	3045	8.5	75
8	32		GM	@KuzubovYuriy	Yuriy Kuzubov	2980	8.5	74.5
9	21		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3035	8.5	73
10	12		GM	@jefferyx	Jeffery Xiong	3082	8.5	69.5
11	14		GM	@Firouzja2003	Alireza Firouzja	3072	8.5	69
12	17		GM	@LiemLe	Liem Le	3060	8.5	68.5
13	52		GM	@Fandorine	Maksim Chigaev	2936	8.5	67
14	23		GM	@Hrant_ChessMood	Hrant Melkumyan	3014	8.5	66
15	25		GM	@dropstoneDP	David Paravyan	2993	8.5	62
16	16		GM	@FabianoCaruana	Fabiano Caruana	3055	8	75
17	36		GM	@Genghis_K	Federico Perez Ponsa	2946	8	73.5
18	22		IM	@MITerryble	Renato Terry	3023	8	73
19	42		GM	@Sargsyan_Shant	Shant Sargsyan	2923	8	72.5
20	63		GM	@js20000	Jan Subelj	2845	8	69.5
65	114		GM	@Goryachkina	Aleksandra Goryachkina	2700	7	60.5

(Full final standings here.)

Nakamura's $1,000 first-place prize gave him $1,200 on the day in total. Arjun won $750 and Duda $350. Nihal finished fourth for $200 and Hong fifth for $100, and GM Aleksandra Goryachkina won the $100 women's prize with seven points.

Titled Cup Standings

The top four remained unchanged while Duda displaced GM Sergei Zhigalko in fifth. Kosteniuk moved from fifth to fourth in the women's standings while Le Thao Nguyen Pham moved into the top five.

There were no changes at the top in the juniors, seniors, or girls divisions, although a race is heating up between GMs Alex Rustemov (117.5 points) and Gata Kamsky (112.0 points with two fewer tournaments) among the seniors.

Open

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Hikaru	154.0	GM Hikaru Nakamura
2	@dropstoneDP	139.5	GM David Paravyan
3	@Jospem	137.0	GM Jose Martinez
4	@mishanick	136.0	GM Alexey Sarana
5	@Polish_fighter3000	134.0	GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda

Women

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@karinachess1	104.0	IM Karina Ambartsumova
2	@Goryachkina	99.0	GM Aleksandra Goryachkina
3	@Sanyura	68.0	IM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya
4	@ChessQueen	60.0	GM Alexandra Kosteniuk
5	@Fh2411	57.5	IM Le Thao Nguyen Pham

Other Category Leaders

Juniors: CM Artem Bardyk (105.5 points)

Seniors: GM Alex Rustemov (117.5 points)

Girls: WCM Veronika Shubenkova (52.5 points)

The new Titled Cup fantasy game Chess Prophet continues as well. Current standings can be found here. (Login required.)

Titled Tuesday is Chess.com's weekly tournament for titled players, with two tournaments held each Tuesday. The first tournament begins at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Standard Time, and the second at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time/23:00 Central European/2:30 Indian Standard Time (next day).

Nathaniel Green

Nathaniel Green is a staff writer for Chess.com who writes articles, player biographies, Titled Tuesday reports, video scripts, and more. He has been playing chess for about 30 years and resides near Washington, DC, USA.