Nakamura Wins June 8 Titled Tuesday

GM Hikaru Nakamura returned to the top of Titled Tuesday on June 8, winning outright with a score of 10/11. Iranian GM Amin Tabatabaei took clear second with 9.5/11 ahead of nine players tied at 9/11. Of those, last week’s winner GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov finished third on tiebreaks with GM Oleksandr Bortnyk placing fourth.

623 titled players participated in this week’s Titled Tuesday. As usual, the tournament was an 11-round Swiss with a 3+1 time control.

The live broadcast of the tournament, hosted this week by NM James Canty III.

The eventual first and second place finishers met in round nine. After an aggressive pawn storm, Tabatabaei took a rook, knight, and two pawns in exchange for his queen. But Nakamura won with Black to set himself up for the tournament victory.

As was the case last week, Nakamura was on 9.5/10 entering the last round. This week, however, he was already up a full point on the field and obtained a draw against GM Baadur Jobava to win the tournament.

Meanwhile, Tabatabaei took sole second place on account of defeating GM Gata Kamsky in the final round. In a long maneuvering game typical of the Ruy Lopez, Kamsky simply hung his queen on move 47, after the capture of which his last several seconds expired.

Abdusattorov is having a profitable run in Titled Tuesday, finishing in the top four for the third straight week. He did not lose a game this Tuesday, scoring +7 =4, including a draw in the final round to hold third place.

However, Abdusattorov did have to survive allowing a mate-in-one that was missed in that game, which has also become somewhat of a running theme afflicting several players in Titled Tuesday lately. It is a blitz tournament, after all, and even grandmasters can’t make a move in less than a second while also finding every tactic in a position.

June 8 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	SB
1	1		GM	Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3184	10	71
2	10		GM	amintabatabaei	Amin Tabatabaei	2988	9.5	65.75
3	4		GM	ChessWarrior7197	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	3015	9	61.5
4	7		GM	Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	2990	9	58.75
5	13		GM	Indianlad	S.L. Narayanan	2960	9	57.75
6	5		GM	ViditYT	Vidit Gujrathi	3000	9	57
7	63		GM	Arseniy_Nesterov	Arseniy Nesterov	2849	9	56
8	50		IM	swimmerchess	Siva Mahadevan	2858	9	52.5
9	36		GM	exoticprincess	Baadur Jobava	2893	9	51.5
9	23		FM	GoltsevDmitry2000	Goltsev Dmitry	2969	9	51.5
11	48		GM	Harsha_Bharathakoti	Harsha Bharathakoti	2857	9	50
12	21		GM	GigaQuparadze	Giga Quparadze	2942	8.5	58.25
13	34		GM	TigrVShlyape	Gata Kamsky	2895	8.5	55
14	16		GM	mishanick	Aleksey Sarana	2901	8.5	53.75
15	38		GM	Chopper1905	Mustafa Yilmaz	2865	8.5	52
16	252		FM	bascheyaro	Roman Yanchenko	2772	8.5	51.25
17	35		GM	rasmussvane	Rasmus Svane	2885	8.5	48.25
18	12		GM	PSvidler	Peter Svidler	2947	8	52
18	66		GM	Alexander_Donchenko	Alexander Donchenko	2799	8	52
20	26		GM	Shield12	Shamsiddin Vokhidov	2871	8	51

(Full final standings here.)

Nakamura won $750 for first place, Tabatabaei $400 for second, Abdusattorov $150 for third, and Bortnyk $100 for fourth. The $100 prize for the top female player went to GM Alexandra Kosteniuk with 7/11.

Titled Tuesday is Chess.com’s weekly tournament for titled players. It starts each Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time/18:00 Central European.