Outright Winners Cruise To Control Titled Tuesday

NathanielGreen

Updated: May 1, 2024, 7:40 AM | 3 | Chess Event Coverage

GM Christopher Yoo, after finishing in second place late last week, earned his first ever Titled Tuesday victory in this week's early tournament. GM Alexey Sarana took home the late event, his first of 2024 and eighth total. They both scored 10 points to win outright, while both second-place finishers, GMs Dmitry Andreikin and Jeffery Xiong, scored 9.5 points and also avoided tiebreaks.

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

Early Tournament

In the field of 681, Yoo held a share of first place after each of the first eight rounds, and then led outright after each of the final three rounds. His breakaway began in round nine with a win with Black over GM Sergey Drygalov.

After he was held to only his second draw of the tournament in round 10 by Sarana, Yoo completed his strong performance by checkmating GM Jose Martinez, also as Black.

Andreikin, meanwhile, lost to GM Tuan Minh Le in round seven and needed four straight victories at the end of the tournament to work his way back into second place. The final player on his path there was Sarana who, unlike with Yoo, wasn't able to hold Andreikin to a draw. It took Andreikin just 32 moves to win.

It turned out to be the only victory for any of the six players who entered the final round on 8.5 points, and so Andreikin took second place despite not being able to catch the leader. Andreikin has won more Titled Tuesdays than anyone not named GM Hikaru Nakamura, but still hasn't found his first win since October 10, 2023, while Yoo celebrated his first ever.

April 30 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	32		GM	@ChristopherYoo	Christopher Woojin Yoo	3041	10	65
2	12		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3076	9.5	70.5
3	44		GM	@vugarrasulov	Vugar Rasulov	2962	9	74
4	9		GM	@Grischuk	Alexander Grischuk	3098	9	69
5	83		GM	@Vaathi_Coming	Aravindh Chithambaram	2897	9	65.5
6	50		GM	@KuzubovYuriy	Yuriy Kuzubov	2960	9	64
7	46		GM	@Durarbayli	Vasif Durarbayli	2938	9	61
8	10		GM	@Njal28	Aram Hakobyan	3098	9	59
9	6		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3109	8.5	75.5
10	30		GM	@GMBenjaminBok	Benjamin Bok	3019	8.5	73.5
11	16		GM	@BogdanDeac	Bogdan-Daniel Deac	3090	8.5	68.5
12	8		GM	@mishanick	Aleksei Sarana	3137	8.5	67.5
13	7		GM	@jefferyx	Jeffery Xiong	3121	8.5	67
14	2		GM	@HansOnTwitch	Hans Niemann	3150	8.5	64.5
15	75		GM	@TenisMaster	Yuniesky Quesada	2886	8.5	60.5
16	31		GM	@abhidabhi	Abhimanyu Puranik	2977	8.5	59
17	111		IM	@Legendinunknown	Harshavardhan GB	2816	8.5	58.5
18	72		GM	@Gareth-Bale11	Mamikon Gharibyan	2896	8.5	54
19	24		GM	@wonderfultime	Tuan Minh Le	3041	8	79.5
20	3		GM	@Firouzja2003	Alireza Firouzja	3137	8	76
40	120		GM	@ChessQueen	Alexandra Kosteniuk	2812	7.5	72.5

(Full final standings here.)

Yoo won $1,000 for first place and Andreikin $750 for second. In a six-way tie for third place, tiebreaks shook out with GM Vugar Rasulov earning $350 in third place, GM Alexander Grischuk $200 in fourth, and GM Aravindh Chithambaram $100 in fifth. GM Alexandra Kosteniuk won the $100 women's prize, scoring 7.5 points.

Late Tournament

While Sarana found himself in the middle of other players' triumphs in the early tournament, he took control of the late tournament and triumphed himself. He had about as much trouble as Yoo did earlier, which is to say not much.

However, after seven rounds, Xiong was the leader in the field of 549, on a perfect 7/7. After he was finally held to a draw by GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac in round eight, Xiong played Sarana to a draw in the ninth round, keeping them both in the lead, where they were joined by Deac and IM Renato Terry.

Sarana finally achieved separation at this point, as Xiong could only make his third straight draw against Terry, while Sarana did what Xiong could not and dispatched Deac in 47 moves.

One more win and the tournament would be Sarana's. An endgame against GM Hrant Melkumyan took some time, and produced a a rare situation where one advanced passed pawn was better than three. Melkumyan apparently needed to find 69...Kf1 exactly in order to keep an equal position and, in the end, Sarana won a nice game.

Xiong, meanwhile, finally broke his spell of three straight draws against GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, finding winning ways again just in time to secure second place.

Deac also recovered to win in round 11, and took third place with the best tiebreaks out of five players on nine points.

April 30 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	7		GM	@mishanick	Alexey Sarana	3137	10	77
2	10		GM	@jefferyx	Jeffery Xiong	3121	9.5	71
3	13		GM	@BogdanDeac	Bogdan-Daniel Deac	3090	9	78
4	58		GM	@penguingm1	Andrew Tang	2904	9	72
5	11		GM	@Njal28	Aram Hakobyan	3098	9	68.5
6	17		GM	@ChristopherYoo	Christopher Woojin Yoo	3041	9	65.5
7	39		GM	@Durarbayli	Vasif Durarbayli	2938	9	65
8	19		GM	@shimastream	Aleksandr Shimanov	3039	8.5	75
9	21		IM	@MITerryble	Renato Terry	3037	8.5	73.5
10	29		GM	@GM_dmitrij	Dmitrij Kollars	2965	8.5	73
11	31		GM	@DrVelja	Velimir Ivic	2970	8.5	72.5
12	14		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3030	8.5	64.5
13	67		FM	@Alex_Sahakyan2006	Alex Sahakyan	2853	8.5	62
14	9		GM	@FabianoCaruana	Fabiano Caruana	3082	8.5	62
15	65		FM	@bubeliang	Havard Haug	2848	8.5	61
16	37		GM	@Hrant_ChessMood	Hrant Melkumyan	2968	8.5	60.5
17	5		GM	@LyonBeast	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	3114	8	75
18	12		GM	@Polish_fighter3000	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	3095	8	72.5
19	38		GM	@DominguezOnYoutube	Leinier Dominguez Perez	2970	8	72.5
20	26		GM	@jcibarra	José Carlos Ibarra Jerez	3000	8	71.5
71	130		WGM	@Sanyura	Aleksandra Maltsevskaya	2669	7	56

(Full final standings here.)

Sarana won the $1,000 top prize while Xiong won $750 in second and Deac $350 in third. GM Andrew Tang finished fourth for $200, GM Aram Hakobyan fifth for $100, and WGM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya won the $100 women's prize, just as she did in last week's late tournament.

Titled Cup Standings

Sarana crept closer to second place (behind GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda) and Xiong jumped into fifth with their strong performances this week, but Nakamura continues to hold an iron grip on the top spot in the Titled Cup. The women's race between GM Aleksandra Goryachkina and IM Karina Ambartsumova is the closest, currently with 3.5 points of separation. GM Denis Lazavik, GM Gata Kamsky, and WCM Veronika Shubenkova have much safer leads in the juniors, seniors, and girls sections.

Open

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Hikaru	192.0	GM Hikaru Nakamura
2	@Polish_fighter3000	181.0	GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda
3	@mishanick	180.0	GM Alexey Sarana
4	@Jospem	177.0	GM Jose Martinez
5	@jefferyx	174.0	GM Jeffery Xiong

Women

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Goryachkina	133.5	GM Aleksandra Goryachkina
2	@karinachess1	130.0	IM Karina Ambartsumova
3	@Meri-Arabidze	123.5	IM Meri Arabidze
4	@ChessQueen	122.0	GM Alexandra Kosteniuk
5	@Sanyura	115.0	IM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya

Other Category Leaders

Juniors: GM Denis Lazavik (171.5 points)

Seniors: GM Gata Kamsky (164.0 points)

Girls: WCM Veronika Shubenkova (91.5 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.