Ties Rule Day As Firouzja, Yoo Win Titled Tuesday

NathanielGreen

Sep 18, 2024, 8:27 AM | 5 | Chess Event Coverage

GM Alireza Firouzja and GM Christopher Yoo won the Titled Tuesday events of September 17, both needing tiebreaks even though Firouzja scored 10 points while Yoo scored 9.5 points. GM Jeffery Xiong and GM Jose Martinez, respectively, were the runners-up.

For Firouzja, it was his fourth win of the year, and for Yoo, his second.

Early Tournament (Firouzja, 10/11)
Late Tournament (Yoo, 9.5/11)
Titled Cup Standings

Early Tournament

Despite the ongoing 45th Olympiad, 757 participants found their way into the early tournament, including a few who are playing in the Olympiad, such as GM Magnus Carlsen.

Firouzja made a draw in round four, so it was Xiong who was the favorite after reaching an 8/8 score. In round nine, however, Firouzja asserted that the tournament was instead his to lose when he trapped Xiong's rook on the sixth rank.

Firouzja would still need to earn it, as his next battle came with Black against GM Hikaru Nakamura. And while that's not a good situation for winning in 26 moves like he did in the previous round, Firouzja needed only 38 to outplay his esteemed opponent.

Meanwhile, the setback to Firouzja ended up being Xiong's only one of the tournament, as he wrapped up with wins against GMs David Paravyan and Oleksandr Bortnyk. Thanks to Firouzja's draw in the final round against GM Aram Hakobyan, Xiong's win over Bortnyk even brought him back into a tie for first, but it wasn't quite enough.

September 17 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	5		GM	@Firouzja2003	Alireza Firouzja	3188	10	79
2	12		GM	@jefferyx	Jeffery Xiong	3109	10	76
3	27		GM	@Njal28	Aram Hakobyan	3047	9.5	70.5
4	2		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3287	9	81.5
5	10		GM	@DanielNaroditsky	Daniel Naroditsky	3041	9	78
6	11		GM	@DenLaz	Denis Lazavik	3101	9	72.5
7	33		GM	@Volodar_Murzin	Volodar Murzin	3012	9	72.5
8	67		FM	@ELECTRODYNAMIC_DRACULA	Havard Haug	2910	9	70
9	3		GM	@lachesisQ	Ian Nepomniachtchi	3194	9	66.5
10	17		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3051	9	63
11	685		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3106	9	50.5
12	26		IM	@Rud_Makarian	Rudik Makarian	3020	8.5	73.5
13	9		GM	@Duhless	Daniil Dubov	3100	8.5	71.5
14	6		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3132	8.5	71
15	39		GM	@mitrabhaa	Mitrabha Guha	2991	8.5	69
16	21		GM	@shimastream	Aleksandr Shimanov	3050	8.5	68.5
17	42		IM	@mbojan	Bojan Maksimović	2963	8.5	67.5
18	65		FM	@Eagle_2019	Mamedov Edgar	2905	8.5	63.5
19	55		GM	@FXDon77	Xu Yi	2936	8	78
69	245		FM	@Leebit02	Liya Kurmangaliyeva	2670	7	71.5

(Full final standings here.)

Firouzja won the $1,000 first-place prize with Xiong settling for $750 for second. Hakobyan finished third place outright for $350. The remaining prizes were $200 to Nakamura in fourth, $100 to GM Daniel Naroditsky in fifth, and $100 to FM Liya Kurmangaliyeva for the women's prize.

Late Tournament

With 508 late participants, a streak of having 500+ players in every tournament continued, one that dates back to April 16, or 23 weeks and 46 tournaments.

Unlike the early tournament winner, Yoo wasn't able to beat Nakamura, losing their sixth-round matchup. Nakamura extended his perfect start to 7/7 against GM Andrey Esipenko, unable to resist an underpromotion at the very end (who can?) before finally making two consecutive draws.

At the same time, the setback to Nakamura was the only game out of the first 10 that Yoo wouldn't win. By the time he beat GM Daniil Dubov in the 10th round, Yoo was tied with Nakamura atop the standings.

In the final round, Yoo played a 32-move draw with GM Andrew Hong, giving Nakamura the chance to claim the tournament. What happened instead, though, was that Martinez won a dramatic endgame.

As a result, Yoo's final draw was actually enough to clinch the tournament. Martinez caught up with him in overall points, but didn't have enough tiebreak juice to make the ultimate difference.

September 17 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	18		GM	@ChristopherYoo	Christopher Woojin Yoo	3053	9.5	72.5
2	5		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3138	9.5	71
3	1		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3285	9	75.5
4	10		IM	@MITerryble	Renato Terry	3069	9	73
5	26		GM	@Vaathi_Coming	Aravindh Chithambaram	3003	9	70
6	2		GM	@MagnusCarlsen	Magnus Carlsen	3248	9	68.5
7	19		GM	@artooon	Pranesh M	3023	9	65
8	15		GM	@SpeedofLight0	Andrew Hong	3048	9	64.5
9	105		IM	@WorriedEgg	Aaron Jacobson	2774	9	61.5
10	3		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3123	8.5	75.5
11	41		GM	@VitaliyBernadskiy	Vitaliy Bernadskiy	2935	8.5	65
12	38		IM	@chenxiaoyuer	Ryo Chen	2889	8.5	59
13	7		GM	@Duhless	Daniil Dubov	3078	8	82.5
14	17		IM	@Rud_Makarian	Rudik Makarian	3026	8	75
15	6		GM	@DenLaz	Denis Lazavik	3104	8	72
16	22		GM	@Fandorine	Maksim Chigaev	2990	8	70
17	55		IM	@Alexander_Khlebovich	Alexander Khlebovich	2882	8	68.5
18	14		GM	@OparinGrigoriy	Grigoriy Oparin	3020	8	66.5
19	42		GM	@evgchess5	Evgeny Alekseev	2904	8	65.5
20	16		GM	@dropstoneDP	David Paravyan	3013	8	65.5
65	141		IM	@Fh2411	Le Thao Nguyen Pham	2629	7	56.5

(Full final standings here.)

Yoo won the $1,000 for first and Martinez took the $750 for second. Nakamura won another $350, reaching $550 on the day, for his third place finish. IM Renato Terry finished fourth for $200 and GM Aravindh Chithambaram fifth for $100. The $100 women's prize went to IM Le Thao Nguyen Pham.

Titled Cup Standings

With his second-place finish Xiong moved into a tie for fifth in the Titled Cup standings, and IM Karina Ambartsumova did the same in the women's standings.

Open

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Hikaru	198.5	GM Hikaru Nakamura
2	@MagnusCarlsen	191.0	GM Magnus Carlsen
3	@Jospem	187.0	GM Jose Martinez
4	@mishanick	186.0	GM Alexey Sarana
5-t	@Polish_fighter3000	185.5	GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda
5-t	@jefferyx	185.5	GM Jeffery Xiong

Women

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Goryachkina	142.0	GM Aleksandra Goryachkina
2	@Flawless_Fighter	141.5	IM Polina Shuvalova
3	@ChessQueen	141.0	GM Alexandra Kosteniuk
4	@Meri-Arabidze	138.0	IM Meri Arabidze
5-t	@Sanyura	136.0	IM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya
5-t	@karinachess1	136.0	IM Karina Ambartsumova

Other Category Leaders

Juniors: GM Denis Lazavik (183.0 points)

Seniors: GM Gata Kamsky (169.5 points)

Girls: WCM Veronika Shubenkova (119.0 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.