Titled Tuesday Breaks 400; Grischuk Wins With Near Perfect Score
In yet another record-breaking Titled Tuesday held last Tuesday on Chess.com it was Russian top grandmaster Alexander Grischuk who swept the field with a superb 9.5/10 score. GM Federico Perez Ponsa of Argentina and IM Vugar Asadli of Azerbaijan came second and third.
Titled Tuesday keeps on growing. After we broke the record for number of participants last month when we reached 388, this time around we went over 400. Again helped by our new feature of "late joining" we got to 434, to be exact.
Some of these were absolute stars! Besides winner Grischuk there were for example 2700 GMs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (8/10) and Vladimir Fedoseev (8/10), world junior champion Parham Maghsoodloo (7.5/10), Polish number one Jan-Krzysztof Duda (7.5/10), Cuban top GM Leinier Dominuez who recently switched federations to the USA, and former world championship contender Gata Kamsky (7.5/10).
Grischuk, however, was in a class of his own on this particular Tuesday evening, on February the 5th. The three-time world blitz champion started with a devastating 9/9 and by then he had a full point lead over two players whose performance was excellent as well, Asadli and Perez. Only in the final round Grischuk was held to a draw by Perez.
In round three, the world number 17 in blitz tried a slightly speculative sacrifice that worked out perfectly:
After five rounds Grischuk still had three people next to him in the standings with a perfect score: NM Isaac Chiu, last month's winner SL Narayanan and GM Simon Williams. The latter stayed true to his h-word (Harry) but was nonetheless slowly outplayed by his famous opponent.
Narayan put up a good fight in round seven and seemed close to a draw in the endgame. Black was slightly better and this became hard to deal with when the seconds were ticking away.
Grischuk's win over Maghsoodloo was a good one as well:
Besides two draws, Vachier-Lagrave was out of contention due to the following loss. He threw everything but the kitchen sink towards German GM Rasmus Svane, who was not impressed:
Two more players deserve a mention here: GMs Zaven Andriasian (Armenia) and Benjamin Bok, (Netherlands), who finished on 8.5 alongside Asadly and Perez.
Andriasian's win in round six can go straight into Puzzle Rush:
Bok won a theoretical duel with Azerbaijan's Olympic team member Rauf Mamedov:
February Titled Tuesday | Final Standings
| # | Fed | Player | Name | Pts | SB |
| 1 | GM Grischuk (3062) | Alexander Grischuk | 9.5 | 61.75 | |
| 2 | GM Genghis_K (2852) | Federico Perez Ponsa | 8.5 | 54.25 | |
| 3 | IM leoo2001 (2784) | Vugar Asadli | 8.5 | 53 | |
| 4 | GM Zaven_ChessMood (2877) | Zaven Andriasian | 8.5 | 51.75 | |
| 5 | GM JackSnipe (2884) | Benjamin Bok | 8.5 | 42.5 | |
| 6 | GM LyonBeast (2939) | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | 8 | 42 | |
| 7 | GM Bigfish1995 (2953) | Vladimir Fedoseev | 8 | 40.5 | |
| 8 | GM iturrizaga (2853) | Eduardo Iturrizaga | 8 | 37.5 | |
| 9 | IM GadimbayliA (2803) | Abdulla Gadimbayli | 7.5 | 47.25 | |
| 10 | GM Parhamov (2968) | Parham Maghsoodloo | 7.5 | 46.75 | |
| 11 | GM Polish_fighter3000 (2999) | Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 7.5 | 42.75 | |
| 12 | GM HomayoonTofighi (2787) | 7.5 | 39.5 | ||
| 13 | IM wonderfultime (2902) | Tuan Minh Le | 7.5 | 37.75 | |
| 14 | GM ficorrales (2754) | Fidel Corrales | 7.5 | 37.5 | |
| 15 | GM Sebastian (2906) | Leinier Dominguez | 7.5 | 36.5 | |
| 16 | GM GataKamsky1974 (2758) | Gata Kamsky | 7.5 | 36.25 | |
| 17 | IM Alekseyviktorovich (2297) | Alexey Alexeev | 7.5 | 34.25 | |
| 18 | FM MehdiHosseinipour (2582) | Mehdi Hosseinipour | 7.5 | 34.25 | |
| 19 | IM CaptainCasanova (2772) | Sebastian Mihajlov | 7.5 | 31.75 | |
| 20 | GM evgenysharapov (2348) | Evgeny Sharapov | 7.5 | 29.5 |
Complete crosstable and games are available here.
Commentary was provided on Twitch.tv/Chess by NM Sam Copeland.
Alexander Grischuk (@Grischuk) took the first prize of $500. Places 2-5 were shared by Federico Perez Ponsa (@Genghis_K), Vugar Asadli (@leoo2001), Zaven Andriasian (@Zaven_ChessMood) and Benjamin Bok (@JackSnipe) who all won $225.
Despite suffering from a cold, GM Simon Williams (@Ginger_GM) won this month's streamers' prize, 20 subs that were given to his audience.
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