Naroditsky Wins 13th Titled Tuesday; Double Tournaments From Now On

With two quick draws in the final rounds GM Daniel Naroditsky won an otherwise impressive Titled Tuesday tournament. The 13th edition included big names such as GM Dmitry Andreikin and GM Laurent Fressinet.

A total of 114 players participated in the 13th edition of Titled Tuesday, played on September 1 during the final round of the Sinquefield Cup. That number included 25 grandmasters, but not GM Georg Meier.

The four-time winner disappeared from the participants list literally one second before the tournament started. (At the moment it's unclear whether he withdrew himself or if this was the result of a bug; the Chess.com technicians are looking into the matter.)

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Without Meier, and without the winner of the previous three editions (who was busy beating Alexander Grischuk in St. Louis), the list of favorites this time included GM Dmitry Andreikin of Russia, French GM Laurent Fressinet and title holder GM Tal Baron of Israel.

Last month's winner Baron didn't have a great start; right in the first round he was held to a draw by CM Stepanosinovsky, the same player who defeated Magnus Carlsen in his December 2014 simul here on Chess.com. 

Andreikin did better. His opponent placed his rooks on the same diagonal, thinking that he had defended the entry square for the bishop. White just kicked away the defender to access that skewer square:

The third round saw a remarkable game between FM LADIESGET2KNOWME (what's in a name?) and CM Thomaslegend. The two reached a position with kings and one rook each, and continued playing, on and on, until the server declared the game drawn by the 50-move rule.

It got commentator GM Simon Williams (regular emcee IM Danny Rensch was busy playing giant chess in St. Louis! ) quite agitated. “What are they doing? This is what gives chess a bad name!”

After four rounds it was the talented Dutch IM Jorden van Foreest who topped the standings with four out of four. One strong player who wasn't so successful was GM Aleksandr Lenderman. The American suffered a huge upset versus FM MMSANCHEZ of Canada after a mouse slip:

American GMs Daniel Naroditsky and Conrad Holt drew their game to both reach 3.5/4. It was an amazing save by Naroditsky (41.Bxc6! Bc3 42.b5! wins) in an opposite-colored bishop endgame that “looked like draughts,” as Williams put it: at some point a lot of pawns were chopped off on diagonals!

Andreikin had dropped in the standings as a result of two consecutive draws, but was back in contention with a win over Twitch streamer and Streamer Challenge participant FM MattyDPerrine. 

In the fifth round Naroditsky made a first step to what would be a very successful day for him. He faced French GM and, at times, Magnus Carlsen-second Laurent Fressinet.

The game saw a classic knight-vs-bishop ending where at some point Fressinet gave up his bishop, and Naroditsky ground out the win with knight vs two pawns.

GM Fressinet vs GM Naroditsky — GAME OF THE TOURNAMENT NOMINEE. Vote on the Chess.com survey.

Joining Naroditsky in first place on 4.5/5 were GMs Ante Saric and José Ibarra. FM Minh Le blazed with four straight wins after a first-round loss to Van Foreest.

Naroditsky defeated Saric in round six — a 24-move miniature after winning a piece by exploiting an overloaded queen, rook, and weak back rank: 

Naroditsky was obviously in the lead with 5.5/6, but so was Van Foreest. The young Dutchman had played an excellent game against José Ibarra, who didn't stand a chance with the white pieces. Great calculation in the knight endgame:

GM Ibarra vs IM Van Foreest — GAME OF THE TOURNAMENT NOMINEE. Vote on the Chess.com survey.

Naturally Naroditsky and Van Foreest were paired against each other and also in this game the American GM decided matters in a bishop-vs-knight endgame (after a brilliant tactic earlier on!). This time he had the bishop, got his pawns rolling and showed his endgame mastery to jump into sole lead with 6.5/7:

GM Naroditsky vs IM Van Foreest — GAME OF THE TOURNAMENT NOMINEE. Vote on the Chess.com survey.

Naroditsky then turned highly pragmatic. He drew his penultimate game with IM Borya Ider in 12 moves, and then took only five moves to split the point with IM Saveliy Golubov. To be fair, the draw offers came from his opponents.

“Are you serious? Why offer a draw??” — commentator Williams was puzzled, to put it mildly. 

In round nine, Golubov offered Naroditsky an early draw in the chat. Our weekly columnist responded with “let's make few moves,” but then decided against taking any risks — whereas a win would have secured first.

“What happened to death or glory?” lamented Williams. “If you're gonna die, die like a man, not like a mouse!”

Young talent NM Hans Niemann had done well up to that point, but Andreikin was too strong in the last round. (The Russian grandmaster finished with two straight wins to end up undefeated at 7.0/9.)

Ider, an IM from France, can look back at a good tournament in which he defeated e.g. GMs Conrad Holt and GM Evgeny Shaposhnikov. Here's his win against the latter:

As nobody caught Naroditsky, the winner clinched the full $750. He also won clear first in the third edition — find all previous results in the archive here. Five players shared second place on 7.0/9 and all got $150.

The top IM prize of $100 was shared by IM Jorden van Foreest and IM Yaacov Norowitz. NM Hans Niemann, who finished in between these two, got the Top FM/NM prize of $100. The top female prize of $75 went to WFM Badouuu.

Chess.com also awards a prize for the best player aged under 18, but the top two players in this category, FM Mark Tran and IM Saveliy Golubov, already won higher prizes. Therefore, the $100 goes to NM Aaron Grabinsky.

The best game prize of $125 will be voted on by you — check the Chess.com homepage for the poll.

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13th Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)