Dubov, Nakamura Continue To Crush Titled Tuesday

For the second consecutive week, the winners of the March 15 Titled Tuesday were GM Daniil Dubov and GM Hikaru Nakamura. Nakamura, GM Dmitry Andreikin, and GM Amin Tabatabaei all finished in the top five in both events, while GM Alexandra Kosteniuk became the first player to sweep both women’s prizes since Titled Tuesday added a second tournament on February 1.

Early Tournament

248 players joined the early tournament as, also for the second week in a row, a player began Titled Tuesday with nine wins in the first nine rounds. Last week, that was GM Praggnanandhaa R; this week, it was Dubov, who drew his last two rounds to secure a full-point victory in the field. It made for Dubov’s second straight win, as last week he took the late tournament.

Broadcast of the early tournament hosted by WFM Alessia Santeramo.

It was not an easy ride to 9/9 for Dubov, who had to beat Nakamura in round seven and then, in round nine, was worse against GM Andrey Esipenko before coming back in mutual time trouble, putting him two games away from perfection.

Last week, Praggnanandhaa faded and finished third, so perhaps with that in mind, Dubov took a 16-move draw in round 10. That decision, as well as a draw between Nakamura and GM Alexey Sarana, gave Dubov an insurmountable 1.5-point lead on the field entering the last round.

That left players to vie for second, where there was a tie after Nakamura beat Esipenko and Tabatabaei defeated Sarana. The tiebreaks went to Nakamura.

March 15 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	SB
1	2		GM	@Duhless	Daniil Dubov	3084	10	66
2	1		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3158	9	65.25
3	21		GM	@amintabatabaei	Amin Tabatabaei	2949	9	49.75
4	4		GM	@BogdanDeac	Bogdan Daniel Deac	3043	8.5	53
5	105		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3013	8.5	47.5
6	64		NM	@KrolPawel92OnTwitch	Paweł Kowalczyk	2719	8.5	47
7	3		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3033	8	50.5
8	28		GM	@Vaathi_Coming	Aravindh Chithambaram	2881	8	50
9	14		GM	@GMBenjaminBok	Benjamin Bok	2931	8	48.5
10	29		GM	@TimurGareyev	Timur Gareyev	2868	8	47.75
11	2		GM	@Jumbo	Rinat Jumabayev	2883	8	46.5
12	6		GM	@mishanick	Alexey Sarana	3004	8	41.75
13	19		GM	@GMHess	Robert L. Hess	2918	8	41
13	25		GM	@Igrok3069	Alexey Dreev	2893	8	41
15	104		IM	@DenLaz	Denis Lazavik	2969	7.5	40.75
16	23		GM	@shimastream	Alex Shimanov	2881	7.5	40
17	53		GM	@Evgeny81	Evgeny Postny	2788	7.5	39.75
17	11		GM	@Andreikka	Andrey Esipenko	2961	7.5	39.75
19	36		GM	@TigrVShlyape	Gata Kamsky	2844	7.5	39.25
20	42		GM	@ActorXu	Yi Xu	2853	7.5	37.25
32	58		GM	@ChessQueen	Alexandra Kosteniuk	2763	7	28.75

(Full final standings here.)

Dubov claimed $1,000 for his victory, while Nakamura settled for $750 in second place. Tabatabaei’s third-place finish earned him $300, while GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac finished fourth and took home $150. Andreikin and Kosteniuk earned $100 each for, respectively, finishing fifth overall and first among the women in the field.

Late Tournament

The late tournament saw 294 entrants, the first time it outperformed the early tournament in a week. It was Nakamura’s turn to win on 10/11, also winning by a full point, and also drawing twice. His draws in rounds three and eight, however, put him into a tie with Andreikin on 9/10 entering the final round.

Broadcast of the early tournament hosted by IM Kostya Kavutskiy.

Nakamura had already defeated Andreikin in round seven, the latter player’s only blemish till that point. So Nakamura faced GM Vladimir Fedoseev in round 11 instead, while Andreikin met GM David Paravyan. Nakamura won (below) after Fedoseev allowed an unusual smothered checkmate, while Andreikin lost.

Nakamura had earlier shown his prowess with a nasty queen sacrifice against GM Parham Maghsoodloo.

Paravyan moved up to third place with his 11th-round win over Andreikin, but could not surpass his opponent, as Andreikin played a tougher slate. Also tying Andreikin in the final round was Tabatabaei, but he had the worst tiebreak of the three and finished fourth.

Andreikin had, in fact, beaten Tabatabaei in just 28 moves in round nine, ending the game with over a minute on his clock while Tabatabei had just six seconds.

Then there was Kosteniuk, who moved up from 32nd in the early tournament to 21st in this one, with both performances earning the prize for the highest-scoring woman. Her day ended with an amusing endgame victory against GM Maksim Chigaev.

March 15 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number Rk Fed Title Username Name Rating Score SB

1 1 GM @Hikaru Hikaru Nakamura 3174 10 67.5

2 9 GM @FairChess_on_YouTube Dmitry Andreikin 3046 9 66

3 16 GM @dropstoneDP David Paravyan 2975 9 56

4 17 GM @amintabatabaei Amin Tabatabaei 2988 9 50.75

5 14 IM @DenLaz Denis Lazavik 2977 8.5 53.75

6 24 GM @Jospem Jose Eduardo Martinez Alcantara 2932 8.5 47.25

7 4 GM @Duhless Daniil Dubov 3085 8.5 46.25

8 38 GM @Indianlad S.L. Narayanan 2917 8 49.5

9 6 GM @BogdanDeac Bogdan Daniel Deac 3044 8 48

10 31 GM @Parhamov Parham Maghsoodloo 2926 8 47.5

11 29 GM @Hrant_ChessMood Hrant Melkumyan 2928 8 46.5

12 11 GM @Bigfish1995 Vladimir Fedoseev 3015 8 46

13 25 IM @Kacparov Kacper Drozdowski 2951 8 39.25

14 28 GM @Msb2 Matthias Bluebaum 2923 7.5 47.75

15 94 IM @GothamChess Levy Rozman 2696 7.5 45.25

16 7 GM @Grischuk Alexander Grischuk 3024 7.5 44.5

16 46 GM @platy3 Alan Pichot 2883 7.5 44.5

18 22 GM @Beca95 Aleksandar Indjic 2941 7.5 42.25

19 47 GM @ActorXu Yi Xu 2846 7.5 41.5

20 63 GM @jcibarra José Carlos Ibarra Jerez 2818 7.5 39

21 73 GM @ChessQueen Alexandra Kosteniuk 2777 7.5 38.75

(Full final standings here.)

Nakamura won $1,000 for his late victory and $1,750 in total for the day. Andreikin pocketed $750 for second place, bumping his Tuesday total to $850. Paravyan won $300 for third place while IM Denis Lazavik won $100 for finishing fifth. Tabatabaei’s $150 prize for fourth place put him at $450 for the day, while the $100 won by Kosteniuk gave her a sum of $200.

Titled Tuesday is Chess.com’s weekly Swiss tournament held every Tuesday for titled players only. The two events every week start at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time / 17:00 Central European and 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time / 23:00 Central European.