Titled '10s Day' As Sarana, Bortnyk Win Outright

NathanielGreen

Jun 5, 2024, 7:54 AM | 6 | Chess Event Coverage

GMs Alexey Sarana and Oleksandr Bortnyk scored 10 points each in the early and late Titled Tuesdays of June 4, respectively, earning Sarana his second victory of the year and Bortnyk his first. Neither required tiebreaks, both winning outright.

Early Tournament (Sarana, 10/11)
Late Tournament (Bortnyk, 10/11)
Titled Cup Standings

Early Tournament

For the second straight week, Titled Tuesday lost some of its strongest regulars to the Norway Chess tournament, but it still brought in a healthy player count of 727.

Sarana sprinted to a 7/7 start, finishing that initial run against 15-year-old Turkish phenom GM Ediz Gurel, outplaying him in an endgame to win with Black.

Veteran GM Levon Aronian (who was the world's seventh-ranked player when Gurel was born) finally held Sarana to a draw, but Sarana came right back with two straight wins. Sarana thus entered the final round with a half-point tournament lead over GM Daniel Naroditsky, who reached that position with six straight wins from rounds five through 10, completing that streak against GM Ramil Hasangatin.

And so the final round was the not-so-unusual situation of one player in the lead needing a draw to hold the tournament, while a win for the opponent would swap the standings. The game was somewhat anticlimactic, however, as Sarana played White and easily traded down into a dead bishop ending.

More interesting was the game that earned GM Jakhongir Vakhidov third place, as a series of blows starting on move 37 against GM Jose Martinez produced an overwhelming material advantage.

Rounding out the top five were two familiar names, GMs Ian Nepomniachtchi and Dmitry Andreikin, with the best tiebreaks for the players on nine points.

June 4 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	8		GM	@mishanick	Aleksei Sarana	3095	10	69
2	5		GM	@DanielNaroditsky	Daniel Naroditsky	3084	9.5	75.5
3	48		GM	@Jakhongir-Vakhidov	Jakhongir Vakhidov	2966	9.5	73.5
4	13		GM	@lachesisQ	Ian Nepomniachtchi	3048	9	70
5	4		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3083	9	69
6	31		IM	@Szparu	Miłosz Szpar	2987	9	66
7	16		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3031	9	65
8	18		GM	@vi_pranav	Pranav V	3012	9	63
9	35		GM	@Durarbayli	Vasif Durarbayli	2945	9	56
10	15		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3040	8.5	74.5
11	14		GM	@BogdanDeac	Bogdan Daniel Deac	3040	8.5	70
12	76		IM	@scarabee43	Marco Materia	2863	8.5	68.5
13	55		GM	@Zhigalko_Sergei	Sergei Zhigalko	2918	8.5	68
14	32		GM	@dropstoneDP	David Paravyan	2966	8.5	65.5
15	28		GM	@Sanan_Sjugirov	Sanan Sjugirov	2960	8.5	63.5
16	6		GM	@wonderfultime	Tuan Minh Le	3055	8.5	61
17	87		IM	@Legendinunknown	Harshavardhan GB	2842	8.5	61
18	7		GM	@viditchess	Vidit Gujrathi	3055	8.5	60
19	70		FM	@Aradhya2000	Aradhya Garg	2876	8	75
20	175		GM	@Hasangatin_Ramil	Ramil Hasangatin	2740	8	73
56	339		IM	@annasargsyan_m	Anna M. Sargsyan	2581	7.5	59

(Full final standings here.)

Sarana won $1,000 for his efforts, while Naroditsky took home $750 and Vakhidov $350, with $200 going to Nepomniachtchi and $100 to Andreikin. The $100 women's prize went to IM Anna M. Sargsyan.

Late Tournament

In the field of 525, Bortnyk made his first draw in just the fifth game, while the longest duration of perfection was the first eight games from GM Pavel Eljanov. Who stopped this streak but Bortnyk, of course, who won on time with a position the engine deemed slightly better but was looking drawish... if Bortnyk did not still have 42 seconds when Eljanov's clock hit zeroes.

Unfortunately for Eljanov, he spiraled from there, but to be fair, he had to deal with Nepomniachtchi and Andreikin in those last two games.

With a round left, Bortnyk held a full-point lead on four players tied for second. Like Sarana, a draw was enough for Bortnyk to clinch, and like Sarana, Bortnyk did. The final position, against GM Daniil Dubov, was a rather amusing stalemate.

I won TT!
— Oleksandr Bortnyk (@BortnykChess) June 4, 2024

The real battle of the ultimate round was the wild slugfest between Andreikin and Martinez, with the winner likely to take second place. Andreikin emerged in an outright second place, as the last player who entered on 8.5 points, GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, lost to GM Hans Niemann. Ultimately, neither of those two finished in the top five.

The late tournament also saw one of the strongest women's prize winners in some time, with GM Zhu Jiner finishing in 19th place on eight points after winning rather easily with Black in the final round against GM Vladimir Onischuk.

June 4 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	13		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3062	10	77.5
2	6		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3094	9.5	62.5
3	27		FM	@rezamahdavi2008	Reza Mahdavi	2970	9	81
4	4		GM	@Duhless	Daniil Dubov	3114	9	77.5
5	14		IM	@MITerryble	Renato Terry	3038	9	71.5
6	5		GM	@jefferyx	Jeffery Xiong	3091	9	68
7	10		GM	@lachesisQ	Ian Nepomniachtchi	3047	9	66.5
8	3		GM	@HansOnTwitch	Hans Niemann	3144	9	64
9	39		GM	@Kiborg95	Denis Kadric	2928	8.5	77
10	7		GM	@Polish_fighter3000	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	3076	8.5	73
11	11		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3036	8.5	69
12	1		GM	@nihalsarin	Nihal Sarin	3218	8.5	67
13	32		GM	@jcibarra	José Carlos Ibarra Jerez	2927	8.5	60.5
14	33		GM	@Zhigalko_Sergei	Sergei Zhigalko	2928	8.5	60
15	34		GM	@eljanov	Pavel Eljanov	2938	8	79
16	45		GM	@TigrVShlyape	Gata Kamsky	2919	8	74.5
17	59		GM	@JSPrepz	Johan-Sebastian Christiansen	2850	8	72
18	12		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3030	8	70.5
19	131		GM	@jinbojinbo	Jiner Zhu	2719	8	70
20	48		GM	@frederiksvane	Frederik Svane	2905	8	69.5

(Full final standings here.)

Bortnyk won the $1,000 first-place prize while Andreikin earned the $750 for second. Half of the six players on nine points had the tiebreaks to enter the top five, with FM Reza Mahdavi claiming $350 in third, Andreikin $200 in fourth, and IM Renato Terry $100 in fifth. Zhu also won $100 for her top-20 performance.

Titled Cup Standings

Sarana inched closer to Duda for second place in the Titled Cup standings as GM Hikaru Nakamura's lead remains totally safe. In the women's standings, 7.5 points are now the difference between first (still GM Alexandra Kosteniuk) and fourth (IM Karina Ambartsumova) place. And we'll let you know if GM Denis Lazavik, GM Gata Kamsky, and WCM Veronika Shubenkova ever lose their grip on first place for juniors, seniors, and girls.

Open

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Hikaru	194.5	GM Hikaru Nakamura
2	@Polish_fighter3000	184.5	GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda
3	@mishanick	182.0	GM Alexey Sarana
4	@Jospem	180.5	GM Jose Martinez
5-t	@jefferyx	177.0	GM Jeffery Xiong
5-t	@wonderfultime	177.0	GM Minh Le

Women

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@ChessQueen	139.5	GM Alexandra Kosteniuk
2	@Goryachkina	136.0	GM Aleksandra Goryachkina
3	@Meri-Arabidze	134.0	IM Meri Arabidze
4	@karinachess1	132.0	IM Karina Ambartsumova
5	@Fh2411	123.5	IM Le Thao Nguyen Pham

Other Category Leaders

Juniors: GM Denis Lazavik (174.5 points)

Seniors: GM Gata Kamsky (164.5 points)

Girls: WCM Veronika Shubenkova (108.5 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.