Oparin Wins 5th Speed Chess Grand Prix
Russian GM Grigoriy Oparin won the fifth Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix after beating Azerbaijan's GM Eltaj Safarli in the knockout final. GM Vladislav Kovalev of Belarus is the new leader of the overall Grand Prix leaderboard.
The next Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix will be played on July 7 at 10 a.m. Pacific / 19:00 Central Europe.
The fifth Speed Chess Grand Prix tournament was held on Tuesday, June 30, with 826 participants. It was GM Hikaru Nakamura who won the Swiss part with a tremendous 9.5/10 score.
The live broadcast of the tournament.
Nakamura (@Hikaru) was in excellent shape in that Swiss part, but in one spectacular game, he miraculously survived a devastating attack. This particular moment looked very much like a Puzzle Rush puzzle. Black to play and win.
June 30 Speed Chess Grand Prix | Swiss Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Score | SB |
| 1 | GM | @Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 9.5 | 62.75 | |
| 2 | GM | @youngKID | Karthikeyan Murali | 9 | 42 | |
| 3 | IM | @Sankalp_Gupta2003 | Sankalp Gupta | 8.5 | 56 | |
| 4 | GM | @Micki-taryan | Haik Martirosyan | 8.5 | 53.25 | |
| 5 | GM | @Parhamov | Parham Maghsoodloo | 8.5 | 51.5 | |
| 6 | GM | @Eltaj_Safarli | Eltaj Safarli | 8.5 | 51.25 | |
| 7 | GM | @Izoria123 | Zviad Izoria | 8.5 | 49 | |
| 8 | GM | @OparinGrigoriy | Grigoriy Oparin | 8.5 | 46.75 | |
| 9 | GM | @Sibelephant | Vladislav Artemiev | 8 | 54 | |
| 10 | GM | @vladislavkovalev | Vladislav Kovalev | 8 | 47.75 | |
| 10 | GM | @Sam_ChessMood | Samvel Ter-Sahakyan | 8 | 47.75 | |
| 12 | GM | @BilodeauA | Kirill Alekseenko | 8 | 47.5 | |
| 13 | IM | @wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 8 | 46.5 | |
| 14 | GM | @crescentmoon2411 | Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | 8 | 46 | |
| 15 | GM | @GigaQuparadze | Giga Kuparadze | 8 | 45 | |
| 16 | GM | @Igor_Lysyj | Igor Lysyj | 8 | 44.75 | |
| 17 | GM | @Beca95 | Aleksandar Indjic | 8 | 44.5 | |
| 18 | GM | @AlexVanGog | Aleksey Goganov | 8 | 44 | |
| 19 | GM | @FabianoCaruana | Fabiano Caruana | 8 | 43.5 | |
| 20 | IM | @GadimbayliA | Abdulla Gadimbayli | 8 | 43 |
In the eight-player knockout, however, Nakamura got eliminated right away by the eventual winner—in the most unfortunate manner. In what was a one-game minimatch in the round of 16, he suffered from internet issues, got disconnected, and lost on time on move 22.
Oparin (@OparinGrigoriy) followed up his lucky start by beating GM Haik Martirosyan (@Micki-taryan) 2-1, winning the bullet game after two draws in the blitz and then repeating the same feat against Safarli (@Eltaj_Safarli). His very last move of the tournament was a nasty bullet trick, sacrificing a rook but putting the opponent in check to increase the chance he flags—and Safarli did flag.
"Is that even fair?" commentator IM Danny Rensch wondered in the live broadcast, adding, still in doubt: "All is fair in chess and more and love..."
"I was so lucky today," Oparin said in the post-tournament interview. "I should not even have made it to the knockout stage. I was completely lost in round nine. And I didn't win a single game in the knockout, it was all decided in bullet."
Oparin won the $1,000 first prize and 12 GP points while Safarli took second ($500 and eight GP points). Martirosyan and GM Zviad Izoria (@Izoria123) both won $200 and four GP points while the losing quarterfinalists earned $100 and two GP points.
WFM Oksana Gritsayeva of Russia (@chessmaugli) won the $100 prize for being the top-scoring female player.
Below are the current Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix standings. At the end of the season, the players with the four best scores will advance to the Speed Chess Championship to be hosted later this year.
Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix | Standings After June 30 (Top 20)
| # | Fed | Title | Name | Username | Swiss Points | Bonus Points | Overall Points |
| 1 | GM | Vladislav Kovalev | @vladislavkovalev | 41 | 6 | 47 | |
| 2 | GM | Vladislav Artemiev | @Sibelephant | 25 | 16 | 41 | |
| 3 | GM | Vladimir Fedoseev | @Bigfish1995 | 25.5 | 14 | 39.5 | |
| 4 | GM | Parham Maghsoodloo | @Parhamov | 34 | 4 | 38 | |
| 5 | GM | Haik Martirosyan | @Micki-taryan | 25.5 | 10 | 35.5 | |
| 6 | GM | Grigoriy Oparin | @OparinGrigoriy | 17.5 | 16 | 33.5 | |
| 7 | IM | Tuan Minh Le | @wonderfultime | 25 | 4 | 29 | |
| 8 | GM | Dmitry Andreikin | @2Vladimirovich90 | 17 | 12 | 29 | |
| 9 | GM | Alireza Firouzja | @Firouzja2003 | 17.5 | 10 | 27.5 | |
| 10 | IM | Hans Niemann | @IMHansNiemann | 24.5 | 2 | 26.5 | |
| 11 | GM | Sergey Karjakin | @SergeyKarjakin | 17 | 8 | 25 | |
| 12 | GM | Anish Giri | @AnishGiri | 17 | 4 | 21 | |
| 13 | GM | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | @LyonBeast | 9 | 12 | 21 | |
| 14 | GM | Maxim Matlakov | @Borsch7 | 16.5 | 4 | 20.5 | |
| 15 | GM | Hikaru Nakamura | @Hikaru | 17.5 | 2 | 19.5 | |
| 16 | GM | Vincent Keymer | @VincentKeymer | 16.5 | 2 | 18.5 | |
| 17 | GM | Andrey Esipenko | @Andreikka | 16.5 | 2 | 18.5 | |
| 18 | GM | Alexander Zubov | @Alexander_Zubov | 8.5 | 8 | 16.5 | |
| 19 | GM | Salem AR Saleh | @Arabicfalcon | 8.5 | 8 | 16.5 | |
| 20 | GM | Eltaj Safarli | @Eltaj_Safarli | 8.5 | 8 | 16.5 |
Games final eight
The Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix is presented by Gambit, where you can play classic games like Reversi, Backgammon, and Oh Ship by playing with players from around the world.
More information about the Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix can be found here.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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