Twitter King Now Titled Tuesday King

NathanielGreen

Feb 21, 2024, 8:48 AM | 10 | Chess Event Coverage

GM Anish Giri earned his first win in Titled Tuesday on February 20, taking the early edition with a score of 10/11. In the late event, GM Velimir Ivic also scored 10/11, making for a rare day with no tiebreaks for first place.

Early Tournament (Giri, 10/11)
Late Tournament (Ivic, 10/11)
Titled Cup Standings

Early Tournament

Giri cleared the early field of 693 players despite posting only a draw in the second round. After that, however, he ripped off eight straight wins in rounds 3-10, including one over eventual second-place finisher GM Jose Martinez in the ninth round. Do not miss the final position!

It was only after this game that Giri took sole first place in the tournament for the first time. After yet another win in the 10th round, over GM Oleksandr Bortnyk, Giri only needed a draw against GM Vladimir Fedoseev in the last round to finish in outright first.

Meanwhile, Martinez recovered with two straight wins to end the tournament, bringing him back into second place. In round 11, he only needed 21 moves to checkmate GM Sergey Drygalov.

Joining Martinez and Fedoseev on 9.5 points was GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, who finished third after winning his last six games. But none of them could touch Giri.

Anish takes Titled Tuesday!

"I am dangerous." - @anishgiri pic.twitter.com/6iAM49Q0fh
— Chess.com (@chesscom) February 20, 2024

People saying that I have now completed chess and are calling for my retirement.

Technically, though, I am still not the World Champion, so motivation plenty to keep on going.🔥♟️
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) February 20, 2024

February 20 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	23		GM	@AnishOnYoutube	Anish Giri	3052	10	73.5
2	7		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3098	9.5	75.5
3	15		GM	@lachesisQ	Ian Nepomniachtchi	3059	9.5	75
4	3		GM	@Bigfish1995	Vladimir Fedoseev	3180	9.5	74.5
5	31		GM	@Njal28	Aram Hakobyan	3002	9	77.5
6	104		GM	@A-Fier	Alex Fier	2857	9	71
7	11		GM	@Polish_fighter3000	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	3065	9	69
8	9		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3076	9	68.5
9	34		GM	@KuzubovYuriy	Yuriy Kuzubov	2980	9	64
10	22		GM	@BilodeauA	Kirill Alekseenko	3029	8.5	76.5
11	17		GM	@BogdanDeac	Bogdan-Daniel Deac	3046	8.5	75.5
12	84		GM	@xamax2000	Max Warmerdam	2904	8.5	75
13	60		FM	@Bauman_Guy	Konstantin Popov	2930	8.5	72
14	48		GM	@Genghis_K	Federico Perez Ponsa	2945	8.5	71.5
15	40		GM	@VladimirKramnik	Vladimir Kramnik	2982	8.5	71
16	156		IM	@Mops_2004	Dmitriy Kushko	2767	8.5	70
17	96		GM	@maciek_92	Maciej Klekowski	2848	8.5	67.5
18	27		GM	@sergoy	Sergey Drygalov	2998	8.5	67
19	70		IM	@klimkoj	Jan Klimkowski	2894	8.5	64.5
20	73		GM	@ckgchess	Cem Kaan Gokerkan	2892	8.5	63.5
100	266		FM	@ketster	Ekaterina Goltseva	2606	7	49

(Full final standings here.)

Giri won the $1,000 prize for first place. Martinez won $750 for second, Nepomniachtchi $350 for third, and Fedoseev $200 for fourth place after tiebreaks. GM Aram Hakobyan had the best tiebreaks on nine points to win the $100 for fifth, while the $100 for the top woman went to FM Ekaterina Goltseva.

Late Tournament

Another 501 players joined the late tournament, which has always had at least 495 participants so far this year. Like Giri, Ivic had an early hiccup, although his was a loss, which came in the fourth round.

But he then won his last seven games, the last three coming against top-five finishers. Like Giri, Ivic defeated the eventual second-place finisher in the ninth round. This time, that player was IM Rudik Makarian.

Ivic had an even more successful tournament in that he won by a full point instead of half a point like Giri. Behind Ivic was a seven-way tie on nine points. Like Martinez in the early tournament, Makarian recovered from his ninth-round setback with wins in his final two games. In the last round, Makarian did not find the quickest mate against GM Pranav Venkatesh, but it was good enough.

Ivic played a weak enough schedule that every player on nine points had better tiebreaks, but that does not matter when you take care of business, win your games, and stay far ahead in the standings.

February 20 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	31		GM	@DrVelja	Velimir Ivic	3017	10	65
2	11		IM	@Rud_Makarian	Rudik Makarian	3083	9	76
3	15		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3074	9	74
4	12		GM	@Polish_fighter3000	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	3074	9	74
5	18		GM	@LiemLe	Liem Le	3053	9	72.5
6	24		GM	@mishanick	Alexey Sarana	3015	9	67.5
7	19		GM	@jefferyx	Jeffery Xiong	3053	9	67.5
8	2		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3256	9	66
9	8		GM	@Duhless	Daniil Dubov	3092	8.5	75
10	42		GM	@TenisMaster	Yuniesky Quesada	2993	8.5	71
11	20		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3030	8.5	69.5
12	17		GM	@BilodeauA	Kirill Alekseenko	3053	8.5	66.5
13	26		GM	@Njal28	Aram Hakobyan	2998	8.5	65
14	47		GM	@Zkid	Steven Zierk	2935	8	76
15	25		GM	@Hrant_ChessMood	Hrant Melkumyan	3008	8	74.5
16	1		GM	@MagnusCarlsen	Magnus Carlsen	3317	8	70.5
17	22		GM	@vi_pranav	Pranav V	3016	8	68
18	16		GM	@BogdanDeac	Bogdan-Daniel Deac	3040	8	67.5
19	43		GM	@jcibarra	José Carlos Ibarra Jerez	2938	8	67
20	10		GM	@Grischuk	Alexander Grischuk	3050	8	65.5
82	154		IM	@Fh2411	Le Thao Nguyen Pham	2628	6.5	59.5

(Full final standings here.)

Ivic won $1,000 for his efforts. Makarian earned $750, GM Dmitry Andreikin $350, GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda $200, and GM Liem Le $100, all on nine points. IM Le Thao Nguyen Pham won the women's prize and $100.

Titled Cup Standings

Martinez leapfrogged GM Alexey Sarana into third place this week, but the top five remains otherwise unchanged, while the women's standings retain the same order. The juniors, seniors, and girls leaders also remain the same, but we are only three weeks away from players who have been consistently active swapping scores instead of adding them (since only the top 20 results count). That could start shaking things up.

Open

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Hikaru	134.5	GM Hikaru Nakamura
2	@dropstoneDP	124.0	GM David Paravyan
3	@Jospem	119.5	GM Jose Martinez
4	@mishanick	118.0	GM Alexey Sarana
5	@Zhigalko_Sergei	117.0	GM Sergei Zhigalko

Women

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@karinachess1	93.5	IM Karina Ambartsumova
2	@Goryachkina	85.0	GM Aleksandra Goryachkina
3	@Sanyura	68.0	IM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya
4	@Atousa	58.0	WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan
5	@ChessQueen	52.5	GM Alexandra Kosteniuk

Other Category Leaders

Juniors: CM Artem Bardyk (93.5 points)

Seniors: GM Alex Rustemov (105.0 points)

Girls: WCM Veronika Shubenkova (50.0 points)

The new 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.