Titled Tuesday Starts Quiet Early, Goes Crazy Late

NathanielGreen

Oct 9, 2024, 10:34 AM | 14 | Chess Event Coverage

GMs Kirill Shevchenko and Frederik Svane are your winners for the October 8 editions of Titled Tuesday. While Shevchenko led wire-to-wire and won outright with 10 points, victory did not come easily for Svane, who came out of a four-way, 9.5-point tie with GMs Denis Lazavik, Matthias Bluebaum, and Fabiano Caruana (all previous Titled Tuesday winners themselves) with the best tiebreak score.

Shevchenko previously won back in February 2022, while it was Svane's first ever Titled Tuesday title.

Early Tournament (Shevchenko, 10/11)
Late Tournament (Svane, 9.5/11)
Titled Cup Standings

Early Tournament

In the field of 753 players, Shevchenko didn't lose a game. Instead he started 8/8 and then made two draws before clinching the tournament in the final round. His perfect 8/8 start, which he achieved with a 41-move checkmate against GM Dmitry Andreikin, gave him a full-point lead on the field ahead of a 14-way tie (yes, 14) for second.

Of those 14 comeback hopefuls, only 16-year old FM Reza Mahdavi won in the next two rounds and caught up with Shevchenko entering the final round of play, but Shevchenko revved the motor back up and averted the last step of any comeback.

Another impressive win with Black for Shevchenko left everyone else to fight for second place. Both GM Pranesh M and Andreikin won in the final round, but only Pranesh did so without allowing a mate-in-two on move 37 that his opponent missed, so it seems fair that Pranesh also ended up with the better tiebreaks and final ranking after his win over one of last week's winners, GM Oleksandr Bortnyk:

October 8 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	50		GM	@kirillshevchenko	Kirill Shevchenko	2971	10	78
2	10		GM	@artooon	Pranesh M	3092	9.5	72
3	14		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3094	9.5	66
4	13		GM	@jefferyx	Jeffery Xiong	3082	9	81.5
5	19		FM	@rezamahdavi2008	Reza Mahdavi	3025	9	77.5
6	7		GM	@vi_pranav	Pranav V	3108	9	77.5
7	6		GM	@Salem-AR	Salem AR Saleh	3110	9	76
8	8		GM	@FabianoCaruana	Fabiano Caruana	3104	9	74
9	52		GM	@kleinebeer98	Thomas Beerdsen	2927	9	69.5
10	58		GM	@TigrVShlyape	Gata Kamsky	2879	9	65.5
11	2		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3117	8.5	71.5
12	1		GM	@DanielNaroditsky	Daniel Naroditsky	3152	8.5	70.5
13	36		GM	@Durarbayli	Vasif Durarbayli	2926	8.5	68.5
14	28		GM	@Sanan_Sjugirov	Sanan Sjugirov	2952	8.5	66.5
15	42		GM	@crescentmoon2411	Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son	2909	8.5	65.5
16	46		IM	@scarabee43	Marco Materia	2917	8.5	64
17	30		GM	@FGHSMN	Bharath Subramaniyam H	2931	8.5	60
18	3		GM	@dropstoneDP	David Paravyan	3083	8.5	60
19	5		GM	@DenLaz	Denis Lazavik	3099	8	80.5
20	22		GM	@adotand	Pranav Anand	2986	8	74
44	167		IM	@Vesper2018	Anastasia Bodnaruk	2743	7.5	66

(Full final standings here.)

Shevchenko won the $1,000 first-place prize, with Pranesh taking $750 and Andreikin $350 for second and third. GM Jeffery Xiong who, like Shevchenko, also did not lose a game, finished fourth with the best tiebreaks in the entire tournament and earned $200. The $100 prizes went to Mahdavi in fifth place and IM Anastasia Bodnaruk for the women's prize on 7.5 points.

Late Tournament

Whereas Shevchenko led from start to finish in the early event, the 566-player late tournament was a fracas. This time, Lazavik started on 8/8, but he lost in round nine to GM Pranav Venkatesh, who himself then fell to Svane and Caruana in the last two rounds. Svane lost in the sixth round, but scored all nine of his other possible points through the first 10 rounds before a final-round draw with Lazavik. Bluebaum lost in the fourth round, while Caruana made a draw in the same round—after also having lost in the very first round—before winning his last seven games.

Adding to the chaos, although it was his final win and knocked another player out of contention, Svane was lost in the final position against Pranav but won on time with only 1.3 seconds on his own clock. The round before, however, Svane simply wore down his opponent, GM Aravindh Chithambaram, in a solid victory.

Lazavik's recovery from his ninth-round setback came against GM David Paravyan, and set him up for the second-place finish.

Knowing they had the tiebreak advantage on Bluebaum and Caruana, Svane and Lazavik played the Berlin Draw in the final round, allowing the others to catch up on the scoreboard, but still keeping the top spots for themselves.

October 8 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	10		GM	@frederiksvane	Frederik Svane	3120	9.5	75
2	11		GM	@DenLaz	Denis Lazavik	3120	9.5	72.5
3	7		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3123	9.5	69
4	9		GM	@FabianoCaruana	Fabiano Caruana	3109	9.5	63
5	15		GM	@dropstoneDP	David Paravyan	3033	9	66
6	6		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3114	9	63.5
7	17		GM	@shimastream	Aleksandr Shimanov	3072	9	63.5
8	32		GM	@vugarrasulov	Vugar Rasulov	2949	9	63
9	34		FM	@ReadySkate	Hamidreza Ebrahimi Herab	2952	8.5	72
10	46		GM	@Zhigalko_Sergei	Sergei Zhigalko	2907	8.5	71.5
11	8		GM	@vi_pranav	Pranav V	3123	8.5	71
12	59		GM	@K_A_S_T_O_R	Rodrigo Vasquez	2886	8.5	66
13	41		GM	@Chesssplayer21	Platon Galperin	2918	8.5	63
14	88		FM	@hakanazeri2	Khagan Ahmad	2787	8.5	60.5
15	44		GM	@onyshchuk_v	Volodymyr Onyshchuk	2912	8	80
16	18		GM	@Grischuk	Alexander Grischuk	3059	8	75.5
17	40		GM	@Vaathi_Coming	Aravindh Chithambaram	2929	8	72
18	21		IM	@Rud_Makarian	Rudik Makarian	3024	8	71.5
19	94		IM	@Zurability	Zurab Javakhadze	2801	8	71
20	13		GM	@OparinGrigoriy	Grigoriy Oparin	3065	8	70
49	182		FM	@anasta10	Anastasia Avramidou	2640	7	67

(Full final standings here.)

In the end, Svane won $1,000, Lazavik $750, Bluebaum $350, and Caruana $200, with $100 going to Paravyan in fifth place and FM Anastasia Avramidou for the top women's score.

Titled Cup Standings

The fight for third place is pretty close in the overall standings, but otherwise not much changed from last week. Xiong did move into sole fourth.

Open

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Hikaru	198.5	GM Hikaru Nakamura
2	@MagnusCarlsen	192.5	GM Magnus Carlsen
3	@Jospem	187.0	GM Jose Martinez
4	@jefferyx	186.5	GM Jeffery Xiong
5	@mishanick	186.0	GM Alexey Sarana

Women

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Goryachkina	143.5	GM Aleksandra Goryachkina
2	@Flawless_Fighter	142.0	IM Polina Shuvalova
3	@ChessQueen	141.0	GM Alexandra Kosteniuk
4-t	@Meri-Arabidze	138.5	IM Meri Arabidze
4-t	@annasargsyan_m	138.5	IM Anna M. Sargsyan

Other Category Leaders

Juniors: GM Denis Lazavik (184.0 points)

Seniors: GM Gata Kamsky (170.5 points)

Girls: WCM Veronika Shubenkova (120.5 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.