Le Wins July 20 Titled Tuesday
On International Chess Day, Vietnam's IM Minh Le took first place in Titled Tuesday with a score of 10/11. GM Hikaru Nakamura grabbed second with 9.5/11. The top four was rounded out by GM Giga Quparadze and GM Oleksandr Bortnyk.
472 titled players played in this week's Titled Tuesday, which came on a day of tiebreaks in the FIDE World Cup. The tournament was the normal 11-round Swiss at a 3+1 time control.
Live broadcast of the tournament with this week's host NM James Canty III. This broadcast picks up in round seven following Chess.com's coverage of the World Cup. All of Titled Tuesday was streamed at Twitch.tv/ChesscomEvents.
The last perfect player was Bortnyk on 7/7, after defeating GM Vladimir Onischuk from a drawn position despite being a minute behind on the clock at one point.
Nakamura defeated Bortnyk the following round to take the tournament lead, while Le went from much worse to holding a draw against GM David Howell. Le won the rest of his games and scored +9 =2 overall.
In round 10, the eventual top four all played each other: Le defeated Bortnyk while Quparadze took down Nakamura's Berlin.
That set up the final-round showdown between Le and Quparadze with both on 9/10. Le stuck with the European capital theme and opened with the London, coming out on top after rejecting an early draw offer. Nakamura, who as early as round five had been playing eventual top-10 finishers, would have won the tournament on tiebreaks had Le and Quparadze drawn. He settled for second after toppling IM Jingyao Tin.
The tournament also featured a so-called "Botez Gambit" in round six when GM Alexander Zubov hung his queen against Onischuk. Zubov recovered to finish 14th.
July 20 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Number | Rk | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | SB |
| 1 | 11 | IM | wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 2954 | 10 | 63 | |
| 2 | 1 | GM | Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 3258 | 9.5 | 73.25 | |
| 3 | 7 | GM | GigaQuparadze | Giga Quparadze | 2986 | 9 | 61 | |
| 4 | 5 | GM | Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 3007 | 9 | 58.5 | |
| 5 | 10 | GM | Indianlad | S.L. Narayanan | 2924 | 9 | 56.5 | |
| 6 | 41 | GM | moro182 | Luca Moroni Jr | 2803 | 9 | 54.5 | |
| 7 | 12 | GM | Zhigalko_Sergei | Sergei Zhigalko | 2894 | 8.5 | 52.75 | |
| 8 | 73 | IM | tjychess | Jingyao Tin | 2744 | 8.5 | 52.5 | |
| 9 | 32 | IM | Ahmadzada04 | Ahmad Ahmadzada | 2778 | 8.5 | 52.25 | |
| 10 | 25 | GM | platy3 | Alan Pichot | 2855 | 8.5 | 51.75 | |
| 11 | 19 | IM | DenLaz | Denis Lazavik | 2868 | 8.5 | 51.25 | |
| 12 | 3 | GM | howitzer14 | David Howell | 2996 | 8.5 | 50 | |
| 13 | 27 | GM | TimofeevAr | Artem Timofeev | 2832 | 8.5 | 49.5 | |
| 14 | 38 | IM | Petriashvili02 | Nikoloz Petriashvili | 2776 | 8.5 | 49.25 | |
| 14 | 4 | GM | Alexander_Zubov | Alexander Zubov | 3023 | 8.5 | 49.25 | |
| 16 | 35 | GM | AsadliVugar | Vugar Asadli | 2802 | 8 | 53.75 | |
| 17 | 30 | GM | Kobalia | Mikhail Kobalia | 2821 | 8 | 52.5 | |
| 18 | 18 | GM | RD4ever | Rustam Khusnutdinov | 2852 | 8 | 49.5 | |
| 19 | 17 | GM | Beca95 | Aleksandar Indjic | 2859 | 8 | 48.25 | |
| 20 | 74 | FM | BogdanBelyakov89 | Bogdan Belyakov | 2705 | 8 | 47.25 |
(Full final standings here.)
With his victory, Le won $750. Nakamura received $400 for second place, Quparadze $150 for third, and Bortnyk $100 in fourth place. WGM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya claimed the $100 prize for the highest female player, placing 30th with 7.5/11. She held a final-round draw with a lone king against two knights and a bishop.
Titled Tuesday is a tournament held for titled players every week on Chess.com. It begins at 10 a.m. Pacific time/19:00 Central European every Tuesday.
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.
