Haik Martirosyan Wins Record-Breaking Titled Tuesday

19-year-old GM Haik Martirosyan of Armenia won this month's Titled Tuesday tournament. With 888 titled players, including top GMs Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Hikaru Nakamura, it was by far the biggest edition ever held.

With many countries under a (partial) coronavirus lockdown, a high turnout for our Titled Tuesday events in April was expected. The participation of almost nine hundred players was a surprise nonetheless.

Admittedly, the whopping 888 participants in the late edition last Tuesday was partly related to a mishap with the early edition. That 585-player event, unfortunately, had to be canceled after four rounds due to server issues that were resolved in time for the second tournament.

If that second tournament proved one thing, it was that the problems were not related to the number of players! With three hundred extra participants and a few sighs of relief, this tournament ran smoothly.

Here's a nice win by GM Anish Giri from the early edition:

Because of the removal of the earlier tournament, the prize fund for the late edition was doubled to $2,200. This attracted a total of 170 GMs, 191 IMs, 273 FMs, 12 WGMs, 23 WIMs, 17 WFMs, 67 CMs, 14 WCMs and 121 NMs.

Besides Caruana, Nepomniachtchi, Vachier-Lagrave, Giri, and Nakamura, the list of famous names also included e.g. GMs Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Vladislav Artemiev, Leinier Dominguez, Parham Maghsoodloo, Jorden van Foreest, Le Quang Liem, Nihal Sarin, and Alexandra Kosteniuk. Regular commentators such as GM Robert Hess and IM Daniel Rensch couldn't resist playing either.

Among quite a few participants who were streaming while playing was Nakamura. The American speed demon reached 5/5 thanks to this quick win over his compatriot GM Jeffery Xiong:

Nakamura's stream of the tournament.

A crucial game in the tournament was Nakamura's clash with Martirosyan in the penultimate round. It was a Fianchetto King's Indian where it was White who got a winning attack when his light-squared bishop started dominating the position.

Martirosyan managed to stay half a point ahead of the pack as he held world championship candidate Nepomniachtchi to a draw in the final round. In fact, it was Nepo who held the draw after not getting enough compensation for a sacrificed pawn:

Among the players trailing the winner by half a point was Caruana. The world number-two was in pretty good shape and won eight games, but he stumbled in round four against the Lithuanian IM Tomas Laurusas who confused him in the opening:

Martyrosian won the $1,000 first prize for finishing clear first with 8.5/9. Caruana shared second place with GMs Aryan Tari, Zaven Andriasian, Grigoriy Oparin, Daniil Lintchevski, IM Serg Zavgorodniy, and FM Irakli Akhvlediani. All won $142.86.

Nepomniachtchi won the Chess.com streamers' prize of $200 which was given as 40 gifted subs to his channel.

April 2020 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

Find more information about our Titled Tuesday tournaments here.