Artemiev Wins 12th Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix
GM Vladislav Artemiev won the 12th Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix. The Russian grandmaster beat his compatriot GM Boris Grachev 2-0 in the knockout final. GM Haik Martirosyan of Armenia continues to lead the overall Grand Prix standings.
The next Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix will be played on August 25 at 10 a.m. Pacific / 19:00 Central Europe.
The 12th Speed Chess Grand Prix tournament was held on Tuesday, August 18, with 773 participants. Artemiev got the "double" as he also finished clear first in the Swiss part, scoring 9/10.
The live broadcast of the tournament.
The biggest names for over-the-board chess didn't make it to the final eight this time: GMs Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, and Peter Svidler all failed to make the cut. Grischuk lost in the penultimate round to the biggest name who did make it (Artemiev) but missed a mate in two:
Artemiev won alone, ahead of Grachev. The other six players on 8.5 points who qualified were GMs Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran), Boris Savchenko (Russia), Grigoriy Oparin (Russia), Baadur Jobava (Georgia), Maksim Chigaev (Russia), and S.L. Narayanan (India).
August 18 Speed Chess Grand Prix | Swiss Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Score | SB |
| 1 | GM | @Sibelephant | Vladislav Artemiev | 9 | 58 | |
| 2 | GM | @Guenplen | Boris Grachev | 8.5 | 55.25 | |
| 3 | GM | @Parhamov | Parham Maghsoodloo | 8.5 | 55 | |
| 4 | GM | @tigra | Boris Savchenko | 8.5 | 53.75 | |
| 5 | GM | @OparinGrigoriy | Grigoriy Oparin | 8.5 | 52.75 | |
| 6 | GM | @exoticprincess | Baadur Jobava | 8.5 | 51.25 | |
| 7 | GM | @Fandorine | Maksim Chigaev | 8.5 | 50 | |
| 8 | GM | @Indianlad | S.L. Narayanan | 8.5 | 48.5 | |
| 9 | GM | @SantoBlue | Vahap Sanal | 8.5 | 46 | |
| 10 | GM | @PSvidler | Peter Svidler | 8.5 | 41 | |
| 11 | GM | @KuzubovYuriy | Yuriy Kuzubov | 8 | 52.5 | |
| 12 | GM | @Polish_fighter3000 | Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 8 | 49 | |
| 13 | FM | @MatthewG-p4p | Matvey Galchenko | 8 | 48.75 | |
| 13 | GM | @Micki-taryan | Haik Martirosyan | 8 | 48.75 | |
| 15 | GM | @amintabatabaei | Amin Tabatabaei | 8 | 47.25 | |
| 16 | GM | @SergeyKarjakin | Sergey Karjakin | 8 | 47 | |
| 17 | GM | @tptagain | David Anton Guijarro | 8 | 46 | |
| 18 | GM | @LyonBeast | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | 8 | 45.5 | |
| 19 | GM | @LiemLe | Liem Le | 8 | 45.25 | |
| 19 | GM | @TranJMinh | Minh Trần Tuấn | 8 | 45.25 |
Artemiev defeated Narayanan (@Indianlad) and Oparin (@OparinGrigoriy) to reach the final of the knockout, while Grachev (@Guenplen) eliminated Chigaev (@Fandorine) and Jobava (@exoticprincess). The latter two won one each, after which the Georgian GM suffered from a premove blunder in the first bullet game:
Artemiev, who also won the very first Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix, convincingly won both games in the final. Here's the first, in which he outplayed his opponent and got a nice center, then a space advantage and finally a winning counter-attack.
Artemiev won the $1,000 first prize and 12 GP points while Grachev took second ($500 and eight GP points). Jobava and Oparin both won $200 and four GP points, while the losing quarterfinalists each earned $100 and two GP points.
GM Aleksandra Goryachkina (@Goryachkina) won the $100 prize for being the top-scoring female player.
Below are the current Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix standings. At the end of the season, the players with the four best scores will advance to the Speed Chess Championship to be hosted later this year.
Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix | Standings After August 18 (Top 20)
| # | Fed | Title | Name | Username | Swiss Points |
Bonus Points |
Overall Points |
| 1 | GM | Haik Martirosyan | @Micki-taryan | 59.5 | 28 | 87.5 | |
| 2 | GM | Parham Maghsoodloo | @Parhamov | 59.5 | 22 | 81.5 | |
| 3 | GM | Hikaru Nakamura | @Hikaru | 51 | 28 | 79 | |
| 4 | GM | Vladislav Artemiev | @Sibelephant | 42.5 | 36 | 78.5 | |
| 5 | GM | Vladislav Kovalev | @vladislavkovalev | 66 | 8 | 74 | |
| 6 | GM | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | @LyonBeast | 41.5 | 28 | 69.5 | |
| 7 | GM | Dmitry Andreikin | @2Vladimirovich90 | 49.5 | 14 | 63.5 | |
| 8 | GM | Grigoriy Oparin | @OparinGrigoriy | 42.5 | 20 | 62.5 | |
| 9 | GM | Sergey Karjakin | @SergeyKarjakin | 49.5 | 10 | 59.5 | |
| 10 | GM | Alexander Grischuk | @Grischuk | 49.5 | 6 | 55.5 | |
| 11 | GM | Maksim Chigaev | @Fandorine | 41 | 12 | 53 | |
| 12 | GM | Nordibek Abdusattorov | @ChessWarrior7197 | 42 | 10 | 52 | |
| 13 | GM | Alireza Firouzja | @Firouzja2003 | 40.5 | 10 | 50.5 | |
| 14 | GM | Vladimir Fedoseev | @Bigfish1995 | 33 | 14 | 47 | |
| 15 | GM | Boris Grachev | @Guenplen | 39 | 8 | 47 | |
| 16 | GM | Peter Svidler | @PSvidler | 33.5 | 12 | 45.5 | |
| 17 | GM | Raunak Sadhwani | @RaunakSadhwani2005 | 40 | 4 | 44 | |
| 18 | IM | Hans Niemann | @IMHansNiemann | 40 | 2 | 42 | |
| 19 | GM | Giga Kuparadze | @GigaQuparadze | 40.5 | 0 | 40.5 | |
| 20 | GM | Fabiano Caruana | @FabianoCaruana | 34 | 6 | 40 |
Games final eight
The Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix is presented by Gambit, where you can play classic games like Reversi, Backgammon, and Oh Ship with players from around the world.
More information about the Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix can be found here.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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