Carlsen Withstands Loss To Nakamura To Take Titled Tuesday

NathanielGreen

Sep 25, 2024, 9:30 AM | 36 | Chess Event Coverage

After GM Hans Niemann edged out GM Vladimir Kramnik on tiebreaks in the early Titled Tuesday of September 24, GM Magnus Carlsen won outright in the late event, his only blemish being a ninth-round loss to GM Hikaru Nakamura, who finished second.

Early Tournament (Niemann, 10/11)
Late Tournament (Carlsen, 10/11)
Titled Cup Standings

Early Tournament

With 765 players in the early field, the final standings certainly attracted a lot of interest.

Niemann-Kramnik
#1 and 2 in Titled Tuesday
Who would’ve thought pic.twitter.com/QiLKwUj6vu
— Hans Niemann (@HansMokeNiemann) September 24, 2024

How Niemann and Kramnik got there—in the tournament, although how they got here in their careers is its own story—was a bit different. While Kramnik only got one win and two draws in his first three games, Niemann was on his way to a perfect 9/9 start. Kramnik would go on to win his final eight games, but he was a little behind the ball on tiebreaks after his early draws.

Niemann's run at perfection would finally end in the 10th round against GM Oleksandr Bortnyk. Niemann again had a solid position, but his king ended up wandering too far into the center of the board and found itself in a mating net.

The result of that game was a mess atop the standings with one round to go, as four players were now tied on nine points: Niemann, Kramnik, Bortnyk, and GM Alexey Sarana. The good news for scheduling was that none had played each other yet, and so the stage was set with Niemann facing Sarana and Kramnik facing Bortnyk.

The Kramnik–Bortnyk game ended first. Kramnik's passed queenside pawns broke through, and for one brief moment (move 40) he had three queens on the board. Bortnyk resigned a couple moves thereafter.

The pressure was now on both Niemann and Sarana to win their contest. They had come out of a Nimzo-Indian Defense with Niemann, playing Black, a pawn up, and also having a similar advantage as Kramnik: passed a- and b-pawns. A correct exchange sacrifice followed, and Niemann converted without trouble, with Bortnyk playing all the way to checkmate.

In the end, Bortnyk's swindle in round nine got him third place, and didn't hurt Niemann, who won his third Titled Tuesday of the year, denying Kramnik his first.

September 24 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	4		GM	@HansOnTwitch	Hans Niemann	3172	10	74.5
2	40		GM	@VladimirKramnik	Vladimir Kramnik	2983	10	70.5
3	6		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3124	9	78.5
4	71		GM	@superchess02	Iniyan P	2942	9	74
5	10		GM	@Andreikka	Andrey Esipenko	3077	9	73.5
6	17		GM	@mishanick	Aleksei Sarana	3065	9	72.5
7	35		FM	@rezamahdavi2008	Reza Mahdavi	3004	9	70
8	1		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3260	9	67
9	31		GM	@frederiksvane	Frederik Svane	3015	9	65.5
10	8		GM	@jefferyx	Jeffery Xiong	3080	9	64.5
11	120		IM	@NeoTerNemo	Alexey Grachev	2838	9	64
12	97		FM	@wqws	Kaivalya Sandip Nagare	2864	9	63
13	2		GM	@Sam_ChessMood	Samvel Ter-Sahakyan	2926	9	58.5
14	11		GM	@wonderfultime	Tuan Minh Le	3080	8.5	76
15	39		GM	@DrVelja	Velimir Ivic	2970	8.5	72
16	23		GM	@OparinGrigoriy	Grigoriy Oparin	3017	8.5	70.5
17	18		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3052	8.5	70.5
18	42		GM	@Shankland	Sam Shankland	2968	8.5	70.5
19	82		GM	@sokidze	Ihor Samunenkov	2903	8.5	68.5
20	68		GM	@Nitzan_Steinberg	Nitzan Steinberg	2925	8.5	61.5
51	216		FM	@ketster	Ekaterina Goltseva	2706	7.5	67

(Full final standings here.)

Niemann claimed the $1,000 first place prize with Kramnik settling for a claim on the $750 for second place. Bortnyk won the $350 for third place, with GM Iniyan Paneerselvam earning $200 in fourth and GM Andrey Esipenko $100 in fifth. FM Ekaterina Goltseva had the highest women's score for that $100 prize.

Late Tournament

Whereas the top two finishers in the early tournament could be characterized one way, the top two finishers to emerge from the late tournament field of 531 have their own reputation. Carlsen couldn't quite match Niemann's 9/9 start, but 8/8 was pretty good. It just couldn't survive an encounter with Nakamura. After just 25 moves, Carlsen was already below five seconds on his clock, and he missed a tactic that Nakamura, still with about 20 seconds left, was able to exploit.

Fortunately for Carlsen, Nakamura had already lost a game, in the sixth round against eventual third-place finisher GM Vincent Keymer. With the three of them, as well as Niemann and GM Dmitry Andreikin, now tied on eight points with two rounds left, only Carlsen would end up winning both of those final games.

The 10th round was a rather messy affair. GM Daniel Naroditsky took out Keymer from a half-point back, Carlsen defeated Andreikin in an endgame slog, and Nakamura ended Niemann's threat to sweep the day... by winning on time in a losing position.

And so it was down to Carlsen and Nakamura in the final round, but they couldn't play each other. Naroditsky again played the role of spoiler, holding Nakamura to a draw, while Carlsen scored a quick knockout of GM Bogdan Daniel Deac.

And so, in the end, there was no tie this time, just Carlsen's ninth Titled Tuesday victory of the year, putting him one away from joining Nakamura in the double figures.

September 24 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	1		GM	@MagnusCarlsen	Magnus Carlsen	3308	10	81.5
2	2		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3283	9.5	69.5
3	11		GM	@VincentKeymer	Vincent Keymer	3127	9	80
4	4		GM	@DanielNaroditsky	Daniel Naroditsky	3158	9	73
5	32		GM	@Harsha_Bharathakoti	Harsha Bharathakoti	2993	9	69.5
6	15		GM	@Grischuk	Alexander Grischuk	3066	9	69
7	18		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3072	9	69
8	10		GM	@FabianoCaruana	Fabiano Caruana	3109	9	63
9	5		GM	@HansOnTwitch	Hans Niemann	3179	8.5	78.5
10	17		GM	@mishanick	Aleksei Sarana	3063	8.5	72.5
11	21		GM	@GMBenjaminBok	Benjamin Bok	3055	8.5	72.5
12	9		GM	@vi_pranav	Pranav V	3103	8.5	63
13	3		GM	@nihalsarin	Nihal Sarin	3168	8.5	63
14	8		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3110	8.5	54
15	6		GM	@BogdanDeac	Bogdan Daniel Deac	3178	8	74.5
16	45		CM	@stollenmonster	Egor Baskakov	2925	8	73.5
17	23		IM	@MITerryble	Renato Terry	3031	8	71
18	60		GM	@Binary010	David Brodsky	2886	8	70.5
19	19		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3046	8	69.5
20	16		IM	@Rud_Makarian	Rudik Makarian	3061	8	69
43	138		GM	@Goryachkina	Aleksandra Goryachkina	2700	7.5	56

(Full final standings here.)

Carlsen won the $1,000 first place prize. Nakamura took second place outright for $750. Keymer took third for $350, Naroditsky fourth for $200, GM Harsha Bharathakoti fifth for $100, and GM Aleksandra Goryachkina the $100 women's prize.

Titled Cup Standings

Carlsen continues to creep up on Nakamura, but time may be short, especially if Nakamura can score a few more 10-point tournaments in the last three months. In the women's standings, Goryachkina's late performance opened up a one-point lead.

Open

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Hikaru	198.5	GM Hikaru Nakamura
2	@MagnusCarlsen	192.0	GM Magnus Carlsen
3	@Jospem	187.0	GM Jose Martinez
4-t	@mishanick	186.0	GM Alexey Sarana
4-t	@jefferyx	186.0	GM Jeffery Xiong

Women

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Goryachkina	143.0	GM Aleksandra Goryachkina
2	@Flawless_Fighter	142.0	IM Polina Shuvalova
3	@ChessQueen	141.0	GM Alexandra Kosteniuk
4	@Meri-Arabidze	138.5	IM Meri Arabidze
5-t	@annasargsyan_m	136.5	IM Anna Sargsyan
5-t	@karinachess1	136.5	IM Karina Ambartsumova

Other Category Leaders

Juniors: GM Denis Lazavik (183.0 points)

Seniors: GM Gata Kamsky (169.5 points)

Girls: WCM Veronika Shubenkova (119.5 points)

The Titled Cup fantasy game Chess Prophet continues as well. Current standings can be found here. (Login required.)

Titled Tuesday is Chess.com's weekly tournament for titled players, with two tournaments held each Tuesday. The first tournament begins at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Standard Time, and the second at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time/23:00 Central European/2:30 Indian Standard Time (next day).

Nathaniel Green

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.