Grigoriants Among 3 Winners Of Largest Titled Tuesday Ever

GMs Sergey Grigoriants, Aram Hakobyan and IM Zhamsaran Tsydypov won the April 17 Titled Tuesday, the biggest ever, with 373 entrants and $5,000 in prizes. FM Santiago Zapata equaled their score of 8.5/10 but was disqualified for fair-play violations.

The early leader in the event was super-GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave who racked up seven (!) wins in a row before being sniped by GM Akshat Chandra and Grigoriants for draws and losing in the final round to the victorious Hakobyan (mukhin1) as he got caught in an opening trap. He still made it dangerous, but Hakobyan found enough good moves to put this dramatic final-rounder away.

Hakobyan has of late been a top performer on Chess.com, fighting his way into the top five blitz rankings. The 17-year-old Armenian just got his grandmaster title along with a batch of rating points, surging well past 2500.

Chess.com's current blitz chess leaderboard featuring mukhin1 on third.

Another giant in the field was GM Ian Nepomniachtchi. He won a gorgeous practical game in round three, but then he lost games to GM Alex Shimanov and IM David Gorodetzky, falling behind the field.

GM Ian Nepomniachtchi played a creative sacrifice in ...Rxe3!?

Don't miss IM Daniel Rensch giving his live take on the sacrifice.

Tsydypov had quite a few interesting tactical moments in his games. In round five, he managed to escape some trouble after his opponent sacrificed his queen and got some scary play.

Then in this sharp round-nine game, he found a stylish finish against the French GM, Jules Moussard.

Finally, we cannot resist showing this amazing win by Grigoriants which featured multiple queen promotions and an eventual mating net against a white king on f8! Blitz chess doesn't get much better than this.

Chess.com would like to extend a hearty thank you to all who played in this event. It was a thrilling event to watch, and we look forward to returning to a regular slate of Titled Tuesdays on the first Tuesday of each month. Our next Titled Tuesday will be May 1!

Final Standings | BIGGEST Titled Tuesday Ever, April 17, 2018

Find the complete crosstable, standings, and games here.

IM Daniel Rensch streamed the complete Titled Tuesday on Chess.com, successfully including the Twitch chat into the show! Welcome to the party, Danny.  Rewatch the whole event on Twitch.tv/chess.

Watch Chessbrah Show from Chess on www.twitch.tv

Many streamers contested the various streaming prizes. Among titled players, the winners for most-viewed stream:

1. Chessbrah (GM Aman Hambleton): $250
2. GingerGM (GM Simon Williams): $150
3. John Bartholomew: $100

We also offered prizes for the most viewed streams by non-titled players who spectated the event with their audience:

1. Dawid Czerw: $100
2. Chessguy1012: $50

One prize is still up for grabs! You can vote for your favorite of these streamers to help them win the $100 fan vote. Cast your votes now before the pole closes!