12-Player Pileup Rocks Crowded Early Tuesday
What do GM Dmitry Andreikin, GM Denis Lazavik, GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Magnus Carlsen, GM Maksim Chigaev, GM Vladimir Fedoseev, GM Jose Martinez, FM Ivan Yeletsky, GM Levon Aronian, GM Alexey Sarana, GM David Paravyan, and IM Mahdi Gholami Orimi have in common? They all scored nine points in the first Titled Tuesday tournament of August 8. But, as in the Highlander movies, there can only be one, and Andreikin took home the tournament victory on tiebreaks.
The late tournament was a little less crowded at the top, with Paravyan scoring 9.5 to win outright. There was still a seven-player tie for second, though.
Early Tournament
614 players, the new high of 2023, tried their luck, and almost two percent of them wound up in a tie for first. Caruana and Carlsen were taking advantage of an off day in the FIDE World Cup and managed to make the top five, while GM Hikaru Nakamura decided to forego Titled Tuesday in advance of the start of the fourth round on Wednesday (he wouldn't play the late tournament either).
GM Arjun Erigaisi was also on a rest day in his World Cup, and he was the only perfect player left after just six rounds, but by the end of the eighth round it was time for Martinez to be in the sole lead, which he retained in the ninth round with a win over Caruana.
The tenth round is when chaos began to reign as Carlsen was able to knock Martinez off of his perch, resulting in a six-way tie for first place.
One of the players to join that tie was the eventual victor Andreikin, with his checkmate over GM Mitrabha Guha.
The chaos of a six-player tie only bloated further when all six of them made draws in the last round. Carlsen and Andreikin did it in 89 moves, while Fedoseev and Yeletsky used 44 moves. Lazavik and Martinez, however, only played 15 moves. It paid off for Lazavik, who ended up in second place, and not so much in Martinez, who took an unpaid seventh.
Meanwhile, no fewer than six players who had been a half-point back also won. The highest finisher from that list was Caruana, who climbed into third place by beating GM Aleksandar Indjic.
After the Andreikin-Lazavik-Caruana podium, the tiebreak system had to dig deep to find the rightful fourth-place finisher. Carlsen's five wins with Black—the sixth tiebreaker—beat out Matlakov's four. It was that kind of a tournament.
August 8 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Number | Rk | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | Tiebreak 1 |
| 1 | 20 | GM | @FairChess_on_YouTube | Dmitry Andreikin | 3017 | 9 | 79 | |
| 2 | 11 | GM | @DenLaz | Denis Lazavik | 3058 | 9 | 78 | |
| 3 | 6 | GM | @FabianoCaruana | Fabiano Caruana | 3105 | 9 | 77.5 | |
| 4 | 1 | GM | @MagnusCarlsen | Magnus Carlsen | 3243 | 9 | 74.5 | |
| 5 | 23 | GM | @BillieKimbah | Maxim Matlakov | 3010 | 9 | 74.5 | |
| 6 | 7 | GM | @Bigfish1995 | Vladimir Fedoseev | 3095 | 9 | 74.5 | |
| 7 | 15 | GM | @Jospem | Jose Martinez | 3051 | 9 | 73.5 | |
| 8 | 55 | FM | @snowlord | Ivan Yeletsky | 2903 | 9 | 72 | |
| 9 | 16 | GM | @LevonAronian | Levon Aronian | 3047 | 9 | 70.5 | |
| 10 | 4 | GM | @mishanick | Aleksei Sarana | 3085 | 9 | 68.5 | |
| 11 | 13 | GM | @dropstoneDP | David Paravyan | 3033 | 9 | 68 | |
| 12 | 1 | IM | @MetiForce | Mahdi Gholami Orimi | 2923 | 9 | 55.5 | |
| 13 | 50 | IM | @MatthewG-p4p | Matvey Galchenko | 2894 | 8.5 | 74.5 | |
| 14 | 12 | GM | @Grischuk | Alexander Grischuk | 3038 | 8.5 | 72.5 | |
| 15 | 43 | GM | @ContrVersia | Valery Kazakouski | 2914 | 8.5 | 71 | |
| 16 | 35 | GM | @Sanan_Sjugirov | Sanan Sjugirov | 2945 | 8.5 | 69.5 | |
| 17 | 46 | GM | @evgchess5 | Evgeny Alekseev | 2964 | 8.5 | 62 | |
| 18 | 5 | GM | @Firouzja2003 | Alireza Firouzja | 3086 | 8 | 76.5 | |
| 19 | 82 | IM | @Eduard_Limonov | Yaroslav Remizov | 2843 | 8 | 71.5 | |
| 20 | 94 | FM | @PeshkaCh | Tykhon Cherniaiev | 2786 | 8 | 68.5 | |
| 71 | 149 | WGM | @meoluoi91 | Hoang Thi Bao Tram | 2692 | 7 | 60.5 |
(Full final standings here.)
Fewer players won cash—Andreikin $1,000, Lazavik $750, Caruana $350, Carlsen $200, and Matlakov $100—on nine points than did not. The $100 women's prize went to WGM Hoang Thi Bao Tram.
Late Tournament
The late tournament, which saw 462 players, was a bit calmer at the end: Someone actually emerged from the five-way tie entering the final round with a victory.
That someone was Paravyan, who won with Black against GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son.
He had gotten into that position despite losing in the seventh round to GM Daniel Naroditsky, who ended up in third place after draws in the last two rounds of the tournament.
But Paravyan finished with three straight wins, including in the 10th round against eventual second-place finisher GM Eduardo Iturrizaga.
Iturrizaga himself was a perfect 8/8 through eight rounds, the highlight being a win over GM Alireza Firouzja in round eight. It's already impressive to beat Firouzja at all, but even more so to do it in just 32 moves.
August 8 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Number | Rk | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | Tiebreak 1 |
| 1 | 7 | GM | @dropstoneDP | David Paravyan | 3059 | 9.5 | 69 | |
| 2 | 15 | GM | @iturrizaga | Eduardo Iturrizaga | 2986 | 9 | 72.5 | |
| 3 | 1 | GM | @DanielNaroditsky | Daniel Naroditsky | 3176 | 9 | 70 | |
| 4 | 5 | GM | @Jospem | Jose Martinez | 3047 | 9 | 69 | |
| 5 | 9 | GM | @Baku_Boulevard | Rauf Mamedov | 3033 | 9 | 68.5 | |
| 6 | 4 | GM | @Firouzja2003 | Alireza Firouzja | 3089 | 9 | 67.5 | |
| 7 | 27 | GM | @Zhigalko_Sergei | Sergei Zhigalko | 2912 | 9 | 64.5 | |
| 8 | 34 | GM | @Genghis_K | Federico Perez Ponsa | 2919 | 9 | 63 | |
| 9 | 18 | GM | @TigrVShlyape | Gata Kamsky | 2967 | 8.5 | 78 | |
| 10 | 86 | FM | @ChessicallyInclined | Jason Morefield | 2754 | 8.5 | 54.5 | |
| 11 | 3 | GM | @Bigfish1995 | Vladimir Fedoseev | 3083 | 8 | 76.5 | |
| 12 | 8 | GM | @FairChess_on_YouTube | Dmitry Andreikin | 3007 | 8 | 73 | |
| 13 | 40 | GM | @vugarrasulov | Vugar Rasulov | 2876 | 8 | 71 | |
| 14 | 52 | GM | @Igor_Lysyj | Igor Lysyj | 2878 | 8 | 70 | |
| 15 | 12 | GM | @jefferyx | Jeffery Xiong | 2973 | 8 | 67 | |
| 16 | 43 | GM | @alexrustemov | Alexander Rustemov | 2832 | 8 | 66.5 | |
| 17 | 16 | GM | @crescentmoon2411 | Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | 2956 | 8 | 66 | |
| 18 | 62 | GM | @A-Fier | Alex Fier | 2802 | 8 | 64.5 | |
| 19 | 38 | GM | @jcibarra | José Ibarra | 2861 | 8 | 60.5 | |
| 20 | 70 | IM | @AradNazari | Arad Nazari | 2779 | 8 | 60 | |
| 35 | 232 | IM | @zajka-molotok | Yuliia Osmak | 2533 | 7.5 | 44.5 |
(Full final standings here.)
Paravyan earned $1,000 for the win. Iturrizaga took home $750 in second place and Naroditsky $350 in third. Martinez won $200 in fourth place, recouping some of what he missed out in the earlier tie. The $100 prizes went to GM Rauf Mamedov in fifth place and IM Yuliia Osmak for the highest score out of the women in the field.
Titled Tuesday is Chess.com's long-running weekly event for titled players. There are two 11-round Swiss tournaments, the first tournament starting 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 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.
