Pantsulaia Wins May 18 Titled Tuesday
GM Levan Pantsulaia won the May 18 Titled Tuesday tournament with a score of 9.5/11. Five players finished on that score but Pantsulaia held the advantage on tiebreaks for his first-ever Titled Tuesday victory. GM Vladislav Artemiev (last week's winner), IM Tuan Minh Le, and GM Vladislav Kovalev took places two through four, respectively, while GM Aryan Tari took the fifth-place finish.
697 titled players participated in this week's Titled Tuesday tournament, the most since April 13. As usual, it was an 11-round Swiss with a 3+1 time control.
The live broadcast of the tournament, hosted this week by NM James Canty III.
Pantsulaia defeated GM Hikaru Nakamura in round nine to reach 8.5/9 before drawing his last two games, but the 10th-round draw against Tari was a stunner: Tari missed a mate-in-one on move 69, and the players reached lone kings six moves later.
Second-place Artemiev got there in part by defeating then-tournament leader GM Aleksey Sarana in the round nine game below, after both players spent the last dozens of moves with less than 10 seconds each on the clock. Artemiev and Pantsulaia quickly drew each other in round 11 to wrap up their top-two finishes.
Third place Le got there after winning his final six games. In the final round, he used his pet Nimzowitsch Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6) line to win as Black against world championship candidate GM Kirill Alekseenko.
May 18 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Number | Rk | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | SB |
| 1 | 37 | GM | @GM_Levan_Pantsulaia | Levan Pantsulaia | 2969 | 9.5 | 67.5 | |
| 2 | 3 | GM | @Sibelephant | Vladislav Artemiev | 3128 | 9.5 | 63.25 | |
| 3 | 26 | IM | @wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 2937 | 9.5 | 57.75 | |
| 4 | 56 | GM | @vladislavkovalev | Vladislav Kovalev | 2905 | 9.5 | 57.25 | |
| 5 | 27 | GM | @AryanTari | Aryan Tari | 2944 | 9.5 | 56.25 | |
| 6 | 17 | GM | @Arabicfalcon | Salem AR Saleh | 2983 | 9 | 60 | |
| 7 | 32 | GM | @rpragchess | Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu | 2936 | 9 | 56 | |
| 8 | 36 | GM | @Beca95 | Aleksandar Indjic | 2905 | 9 | 54 | |
| 9 | 40 | GM | @SantoBlue | Vahap Sanal | 2900 | 9 | 50 | |
| 10 | 5 | GM | @mishanick | Aleksey Sarana | 3043 | 8.5 | 58 | |
| 11 | 39 | GM | @dropstoneDP | David Paravyan | 2916 | 8.5 | 56 | |
| 12 | 24 | GM | @BilodeauA | Kirill Alekseenko | 2938 | 8.5 | 55.25 | |
| 13 | 29 | GM | @ChessWarrior7197 | Nodirbek Abdusattorov | 2939 | 8.5 | 54 | |
| 14 | 22 | GM | @joppie2 | Jorden van Foreest | 2968 | 8.5 | 52.75 | |
| 15 | 16 | GM | @Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 2964 | 8.5 | 52.5 | |
| 16 | 95 | GM | @ShimanovAlex | Aleksandr Shimanov | 2786 | 8.5 | 51.75 | |
| 17 | 10 | GM | @Micki-taryan | Haik Martirosyan | 3001 | 8.5 | 51.25 | |
| 18 | 38 | GM | @RD4ever | Rustam Khusnutdinov | 2880 | 8.5 | 49.75 | |
| 19 | 19 | GM | @Duhless | Daniil Dubov | 2950 | 8.5 | 48.5 | |
| 20 | 28 | GM | @g3god | Sasikiran Krishnan | 2921 | 8.5 | 43.25 |
(Full final standings here.)
Pantsulaia won $750 for first place, Artemiev $400 for second, Le $150 for third, and Kovalev $100 for fourth. The $100 prize for top female player went to GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, who finished with 7.5/11.
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).
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.
