David Paravyan Wins Nov. 10 Titled Tuesday
GM David Paravyan won the November 10 Titled Tuesday tournament, his first-ever Titled Tuesday victory. Like GM Jeffery Xiong last week, the Russian grandmaster finished on a superb 10/11 score.
The 22-year-old Paravyan (@dropstoneDP) is not the most famous Russian grandmaster (he is the 22nd player on the national list), but definitely a strong one. After finishing in an excellent 10th place in the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss last year, he scored the best result of his career so far last January by winning the 2020 Gibraltar Masters.
He started his Titled Tuesday with an amazing streak of eight straight wins before losing to GM Raunak Sadhwani (@RaunakSadhwani2005). Thanks to an impressive finish—wins with the black pieces against Xiong and GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Paravyan finished in clear first place.
The live broadcast of the tournament.
The tournament, an 11-round Swiss with a 3+1 time control, had a total of 707 participants. The top seed was GM Hikaru Nakamura (@Hikaru), who left the tournament after seven rounds when he was out of contention for first prize.
Nakamura lost to GM Andrew Tang and a few rounds later to GM David Navara (@FormerProdigy), who played his first Titled Tuesday (and finished on a very decent 8/11 score). In an already unpleasant position, Nakamura blundered a pawn:
The 14-year-old Sadhwani reached 9/10 and caught up with Paravyan before the final round by beating GM Parham Maghsoodloo (@Parhamov). How on earth did White, being down a pawn, win that ending with opposite-colored bishops? Well, by continuously finding ways to make life hard for the opponent:
Sadhwani drew his last game with GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (@Lyonbeast) but had the Frenchman on the ropes. The young Indian fired so many little tactical shots!
That gave Paravyan the opportunity to grab first place, and he did so in style. The Russian GM outplayed Mamedyarov from the black side of a Ragozin:
November 10 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)
Number | Rk | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Score | SB |
1 | 1 | GM | @dropstoneDP | David Paravyan | 10 | 73 | |
2 | 2 | GM | @RaunakSadhwani2005 | Raunak Sadhwani | 9.5 | 64.5 | |
3 | 3 | GM | @Zkid | Steven Zierk | 9.5 | 57.25 | |
4 | 4 | GM | @BocharovD | Dmitriy Bocharov | 9.5 | 56.25 | |
5 | 5 | GM | @LyonBeast | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | 9 | 64 | |
6 | 6 | GM | @Bigfish1995 | Vladimir Fedoseev | 9 | 60.5 | |
7 | 6 | GM | @BogdanDeac | Bogdan Daniel Deac | 9 | 60.5 | |
8 | 8 | GM | @Parhamov | Parham Maghsoodloo | 9 | 59.5 | |
9 | 9 | GM | @GukeshDommaraju | Gukesh D | 9 | 57 | |
10 | 10 | GM | @erichansen | Eric Hansen | 9 | 49 | |
11 | 11 | GM | @Zhigalko_Sergei | Sergei Zhigalko | 9 | 47 | |
12 | 12 | GM | @GOGIEFF | Anton Korobov | 8.5 | 62.25 | |
13 | 13 | GM | @AnishOnYoutube | Anish Giri | 8.5 | 59.5 | |
14 | 14 | GM | @joppie2 | Jorden van Foreest | 8.5 | 56.5 | |
15 | 15 | GM | @Paralinch | Daniil Lintchevski | 8.5 | 55.25 | |
16 | 16 | GM | @VerdeNotte | Gawain Jones | 8.5 | 54.5 | |
17 | 17 | GM | @Chopper1905 | Mustafa Yilmaz | 8.5 | 53.25 | |
18 | 18 | GM | @Sibelephant | Vladislav Artemiev | 8.5 | 51.25 | |
19 | 19 | GM | @Azerichess | Shakhriyar Mammadyarov | 8.5 | 48.5 | |
20 | 20 | IM | @GregShahade | Greg Shahade | 8.5 | 47.5 |
Paravyan won the $750 first prize, Sadhwani won $400, GM Steven Zierk (@ZKid) $150, and Dmitriy Bocharov (@BocharovD) $100. Like last week, the $100 prize for the best female player went to GM Valentina Gunina (@Vanina1989) who scored 8/11.
There are two more moments from the tournament that we look at, both involving a basic theoretical endgame. One was winning but ended in a draw, while the other was drawn but ended in a loss!
First, MVL's stalemate escape as GM Alexander Rustemov (@alexrustemov) failed to checkmate with a bishop and knight:
And then there was the swindle by GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov (@ChessWarrior7197) in a RN vs. R endgame against GM Zhamsaran Tsydypov (@Zhuu96) of Belarus:
Titled Tuesday is Chess.com's weekly tournament for titled players. It starts each Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time (19:00 Central Europe) with a weekly prize fund of $1,600.