Nakamura Wins Titled Tuesday On Tiebreak
GM Hikaru Nakamura added yet another Titled Tuesday title to his long resume. The American grandmaster edged out four other players on tiebreak.
The December 1 Titled Tuesday tournament had a total of 727 participants. It was an 11-round Swiss with a 3+1 time control.
Nakamura had a nice warm-up game in the first round, where he scored a crushing win with the black pieces in a Modern/King's Indian opening.
One of the most interesting games in the tournament was the clash in round seven between GM Baadur Jobava (@exoticprincess) and GM Dmitry Andreikin (@FairChess_On_YouTube). The latter focused fully on attacking the kingside after Jobava had weakened his structure there. The tactics, all the way into the endgame, are very rich.
GM Arjun Erigaisi (@ArjunErigaisi2003) was the only player to start with 7/7. It was GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, using a new handle (@FrostNova), who stopped him, using GM Bobby Fischer's Qd1-g4-d1 maneuver to win a model game against the Winawer:
Nepomniachtchi went down himself in the penultimate round as he self-trapped his knight vs. the young Indian GM Raunak Sadhwani (@champ2005).
The last round saw a very quick draw among the two leaders on 9/10. Sadhwani played 1.e4 and offered a draw against GM Daniil Dubov (@Duhless), and the latter accepted. They were caught by Andreikin, Nakamura, and Nepomniachtchi, who won their final-round games.
It was Nakamura who finished on the best tiebreak. Chess.com uses Sonneborn-Berger, which is the sum of the total score in the tournament of each opponent that you beat, and half of the score of each opponent you draw against.
Naka used another Modern Defense to defeat GM Giga Quparadze (@GigaQuparadze) of Georgia:
December 1 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)
# | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Score | SB |
1 | GM | @Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 9.5 | 65.75 | |
2 | GM | @FairChess_on_YouTube | Dmitry Andreikin | 9.5 | 62.5 | |
3 | GM | @Duhless | Daniil Dubov | 9.5 | 62.25 | |
3 | GM | @champ2005 | Raunak Sadhwani | 9.5 | 62.25 | |
5 | GM | @FrostNova | Ian Nepomniachtchi | 9.5 | 60 | |
6 | GM | @ArjunErigaisi2003 | Arjun Erigaisi | 9 | 60.25 | |
7 | GM | @SantoBlue | Vahap Sanal | 9 | 58.5 | |
8 | GM | @Sebastian | Leinier Dominguez Perez | 9 | 53 | |
9 | GM | @TigrVShlyape | Gata Kamsky | 9 | 50.25 | |
10 | GM | @Zhigalko_Sergei | Sergei Zhigalko | 9 | 50 | |
11 | GM | @rasmussvane | Rasmus Svane | 8.5 | 61.75 | |
12 | FM | @DenLaz | Denis Lazavik | 8.5 | 58 | |
13 | GM | @AryanTari | Aryan Tari | 8.5 | 54.75 | |
14 | GM | @kirillshevchenko | Kirill Shevchenko | 8.5 | 54.25 | |
15 | GM | @GukeshDommaraju | Gukesh D | 8.5 | 53.75 | |
16 | FM | @MarcoRiehle | Marco Riehle | 8.5 | 52.25 | |
17 | NM | @Sviridov_Valery | Валерий Свиридов | 8.5 | 51.75 | |
18 | IM | @ChristopherYoo | Christopher Woojin Yoo | 8.5 | 50.25 | |
19 | FM | @bascheyaro | Roman Yanchenko | 8.5 | 49 | |
20 | GM | @Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 8.5 | 48.75 |
(Full final standings here.)
Nakamura won the $750 first prize and Andreikin won $400. Dubov and Sadhwani shared the third and fourth prizes and got $125 each. The $100 prize for the best female player again went to GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (@ChessQueen).
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.