Runaway Winners And Near Perfection In Titled Tuesday

NathanielGreen

Dec 11, 2024, 8:04 AM | 12 | Chess Event Coverage

A week after both Titled Tuesday tournaments were decided by tiebreaks, this week both tournaments were full-point triumphs for the victors. Those winners were GM Volodymyr Onyshchuk in the first event of the day and GM Jeffery Xiong in the second. The wins were Xiong's fourth of the year and Onyshchuk's first ever; additionally, Onyshchuk became the first player to score 10.5 points in one tournament since July of this year.

Early Tournament (Onyshchuk, 10.5/11)
Late Tournament (Xiong, 10/11)
Titled Cup Standings

Early Tournament

The early tournament saw 784 players join, the most since October 1. In a shock result, 61-seed Onyshchuk ran away with it, racing to a perfect 10/10 start before GM Marc-Andria Maurizzi finally held him to draw in the very last round.

Rounds four through six were particularly productive for Onyshchuk, as he not only won but did it against GMs Magnus Carlsen, Jose Martinez, and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. The game against Carlsen turned into an endgame with a rook and three pawns for Onyshchuk versus two bishops and two pawns for Carlsen, during which the computer briefly gave Carlsen a decisive advantage (moves 48-50), which he wasn't able to hold.

Onyshchuk's win over Martinez featured a similarly shocking turnaround, with just the last five moves seeing Onyshchuk go from way behind in the evaluation to checkmating Martinez.

With Onyshchuk running away with things, the event turned into a battle for second place, with GMs Matthias Bluebaum, Oleksandr Bortnyk, and Maurizzi tying on 9.5 points. In the last round, Bluebaum and Bortnyk both won in about 30 moves, with Bluebaum being especially accurate while also coming ahead on the tiebreak.

December 10 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

Rk	Seed	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	61		GM	@onyshchuk_v	Volodymyr Onyshchuk	2990	10.5	79.5
2	11		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3088	9.5	75
3	41		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	2967	9.5	74.5
4	23		GM	@Marcan2b	Marc-Andria Maurizzi	3034	9.5	69
5	14		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3044	9	73.5
6	13		GM	@wonderfultime	Tuan Minh Le	3066	9	73.5
7	29		GM	@Cayse	Martyn Kravtsiv	2990	9	70.5
8	8		IM	@Rud_Makarian	Rudik Makarian	3115	9	69
9	2		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3262	9	68
10	12		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3074	8.5	75.5
11	6		GM	@AnishGiri	Anish Giri	3135	8.5	75.5
12	1		GM	@MagnusCarlsen	Magnus Carlsen	3275	8.5	74
13	95		GM	@vladislavkovalev	Vladislav Kovalev	2852	8.5	71.5
14	59		IM	@ShiroglanTalibov	Talibov Shiroghlan	2940	8.5	71
15	44		GM	@BlueWizzard	Denes Boros	2948	8.5	69.5
16	24		GM	@Genghis_K	Federico Perez Ponsa	3014	8.5	69.5
17	27		GM	@VladimirKramnik	Vladimir Kramnik	2994	8.5	69.5
18	4		GM	@Konavets	Sam Sevian	3114	8.5	68
19	15		GM	@Sanan_Sjugirov	Sanan Sjugirov	3053	8.5	67.5
20	10		GM	@GMBenjaminBok	Benjamin Bok	3091	8.5	67
40	332		IM	@TatjanaVasilevich	Tatjana Vasilevich	2719	8	58.5

(Full final standings here.)

Onyshchuk claimed $1,000 in his runaway victory. Bluebaum earned $750, Bortnyk $350, and Maurizzi $200 for their efforts, while the $100 prizes went to Martinez and IM Tatjana Vasilevich. Martinez needed the second tiebreak to come out ahead of GM Tuan Minh Le for the critical fifth-place finish.

Late Tournament

Another 529 participants joined late, in what turned out to be an American-dominated event, with the top four spots and six of the top seven going to players based in the United States. Xiong outdid everybody, with his 10 points easily clearing the nine-way tie for second place below him.

Xiong never lost, only making draws in rounds three and 11. After the early draw, however, he didn't rejoin first place until defeating the previously perfect Maurizzi in round eight. Although Xiong didn't exactly rejoin first place at that point—he took it for himself and never looked back.

There were still challenges, as his next two games came against his fellow American GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, but Xiong handled both of them as well. Xiong had Black in the Nakamura game but put together a consistent performance and was never really in trouble.

In the end, Nakamura and Caruana would still finish in second and third place, respectively, with GM Daniel Naroditsky just behind them. In the last round, Nakamura wiped out Maurizzi in just 21 moves and 34 seconds of clock time on his way to the top tiebreaks of the tournament.

December 10 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

Rk	Seed	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	14		GM	@jefferyx	Jeffery Xiong	3076	10	71
2	1		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3262	9	74.5
3	7		GM	@FabianoCaruana	Fabiano Caruana	3098	9	73.5
4	4		GM	@DanielNaroditsky	Daniel Naroditsky	3174	9	71
5	59		GM	@Byniolus	Zbigniew Pakleza	2878	9	70.5
6	20		GM	@OparinGrigoriy	Grigoriy Oparin	3019	9	69.5
7	12		GM	@rednova1729	Awonder Liang	3067	9	67.5
8	13		GM	@Sanan_Sjugirov	Sanan Sjugirov	3053	9	66.5
9	9		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3088	9	65.5
10	8		GM	@GMBenjaminBok	Benjamin Bok	3091	9	60
11	11		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3074	8.5	69.5
12	23		GM	@onyshchuk_v	Volodymyr Onyshchuk	2990	8.5	64
13	80		FM	@MarcoRiehle	Marco Riehle	2821	8	73
14	26		GM	@Vaathi_Coming	Aravindh Chithambaram	2989	8	72
15	15		GM	@Marcan2b	Marc-Andria Maurizzi	3034	8	71.5
16	17		GM	@Shankland	Sam Shankland	3023	8	71
17	27		GM	@ChristopherYoo	Christopher Woojin Yoo	2987	8	71
18	16		GM	@Genghis_K	Federico Perez Ponsa	3014	8	70
19	10		GM	@mishanick	Aleksei Sarana	3074	8	70
20	39		GM	@Som2310	Jacek Tomczak	2915	8	67
70	101		IM	@Meri-Arabidze	Meri Arabidze	2698	7	51

(Full final standings here.)

Xiong won $1,000 for his clear first place, while Nakamura took home $750, Caruana $350, and Naroditsky $200. The $100 prizes belonged to Polish GM Zbigniew Pakleza and Georgian IM Meri Arabidze, so it wasn't an all-American outcome.

Titled Cup Standings

Xiong's victory now has him in a clear third place in the overall, by one point, with no other changes in the top five. The women's standings changed even less, with Arabidze gaining half a point but remaining in sole fourth place.

Open

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Hikaru	201.0	GM Hikaru Nakamura
2	@MagnusCarlsen	196.0	GM Magnus Carlsen
3	@jefferyx	188.0	GM Jeffery Xiong
4-t	@Polish_fighter3000	188.0	GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda
4-t	@Firouzja2003	188.0	GM Alireza Firouzja

Women

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Goryachkina	145.0	GM Aleksandra Goryachkina
2	@ChessQueen	144.0	GM Alexandra Kosteniuk
3	@Flawless_Fighter	143.0	IM Polina Shuvalova
4	@Meri-Arabidze	141.5	IM Meri Arabidze
5-t	@karinachess1	140.0	IM Karina Ambartsumova
5-t	@Sanyura	140.0	WGM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya

Other Category Leaders

Juniors: GM Denis Lazavik (185.5 points)

Seniors: GM Gata Kamsky (171.0 points)

Girls: WCM Veronika Shubenkova (124.5 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.