GM Jeffery Xiong came out of a nine-point tie for first place, easily the busiest tie in recent memory, and claimed the title Tuesday’s win on January 18. Tiebreaks also placed GM Illia Nyzhnyk in second, GM Alexey Sarana in third and IM Le Tuan Minh in fourth.
GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac, NM Valery Sviridov, GM SL Narayanan, GM Dmitry Andreikin and IM Christopher Yoo also scored 9/11. Another eight players were only half a point under the lead with 8.5/11.
This week, 585 players took part in Titled Tuesday, which was the usual 11-round Swiss with a 3+1 time control.
Live broadcast of this Tuesday’s tournament, organized by FM Anna-Maja Kazarian.
For the second week in a row, Sarana was the last perfect player, this time on 7/7. Unfortunately, his most daring and interesting game was sacrificing a piece as Black in the opening (previously attempted only by GM Romain Edouard in 2013) against GM Hikaru Nakamura, the one that ended his streak.
Given the final standings, let’s jump to the final round where things were as messy as you might have guessed. Five players had 8.5/10 and another 10 had 8/10. All five frontrunners played a draw, allowing four winners to catch up in the final round. Kazarian’s commentary was on top of it.
With 8.5 points, Sarana and Sviridov tied quickly, while Minh vs. Xiong continued. The next change in the standings came when Nyzhnyk jumped to the top after beating CM Om Kadam.
Xiong was soon to offer a draw, which was rejected. Andreikin was next to join the group on nine points, and soon after, Xiong and Minh repeated moves anyway. Xiong’s tiebreak was 2.25 points better than Nyzhnyk’s. When the tournament ended, that narrowed to just half a point, but it was still enough.
Everyone who finished in the top four now had their spot, but Naryanan still had a shot at 9.5/11 in his game against GM David Howell. However, at this point Howell was an h-pawn in a rook end. Naryanan held the position to sign, but it was not enough to place.
Deac and Yoo were the last players to compete, both with wins, but didn’t finish either. In the end, it was Xiong’s win over Deac in round 10 that had made the biggest difference in the tournament.
January 18 with the title Tuesday | Final standings (Top 20)
| Number | Rk | fed | Title | user name | Name | Rating | To score | SB |
| 1 | 3 | GM | @jefferyx | Jeffery Xion | 3042 | 9 | 66.5 | |
| 2 | 13 | GM | @Nyzhnyk_Illia | Illia Nyzhnyk | 2961 | 9 | 66 | |
| 3 | 2 | GM | @mishanick | Alexey Saranan | 3124 | 9 | 60 | |
| 4 | 20 | I AM | @great time | Tuan Minh Lec | 2956 | 9 | 59 | |
| 5 | 11 | GM | @BogdanDeac | Bogdan Daniel Deac | 2984 | 9 | 58 | |
| 6 | 10 | NM | @Sviridov_Valery | Valery Sviridovi | 2974 | 9 | 56 | |
| 7 | 42 | GM | @Indianlad | SL Narayanan | 2888 | 9 | 55.75 | |
| 8 | 8 | GM | @FairChess_on_YouTube | Dmitry Andreikin | 2967 | 9 | 53 | |
| 9 | 18 | I AM | @ChristopherYoo | Christopher Woojin Yoo | 2939 | 9 | 52.75 | |
| 10 | 1 | GM | @Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 3207 | 8.5 | 64 | |
| 11 | 41 | GM | @Zhigalko_Sergei | Sergei Zhigalko | 2865 | 8.5 | 54 | |
| 12 | 5 | GM | @Fandorine | Maxim Chigaev | 3012 | 8.5 | 53 | |
| 13 | 4 | GM | @howitzer14 | David Howell | 3016 | 8.5 | 51.25 | |
| 14 | 7 | GM | @champ2005 | Raunak Sadhwanic | 3007 | 8.5 | 50 | |
| 15 | 61 | GM | @Brookie83 | Etienne Bacrot | 2840 | 8.5 | 47.5 | |
| 16 | 88 | I AM | @Legendinunknown | Harshvardhan GB | 2736 | 8.5 | 45.75 | |
| 17 | 136 | GM | @Buffy7 | Burak Firat | 2709 | 8.5 | 44.25 | |
| 18 | 14 | GM | @amintabatabaei | Amin Tabatabaeic | 2942 | 8 | 58.5 | |
| 19 | 379 | GM | @alexander-evdokimov | Alexander Evdokimov | 2768 | 8 | 50.5 | |
| 20 | 6 | GM | @ Njal28 | Aram Hakobyan | 3008 | 8 | 50 | |
| 87 | 115 | GM | @Goryachkina | Aleksandra Goryachkina | 2677 | 6.5 | 39.2 |
(The full final standings here.)
Xiong won the first prize of $750 and Nyzhnyk won $400 for the second place. Sarana won $150 for third place, while Minh Le took $100 for fourth place. GM Aleksandra Goryachkina also won $100, as the best female player.
Titled Tuesday is a weekly tournament run by Chess.com for titled players. It is a Swiss event that starts at 10:00 AM Pacific Time / 7:00 PM Central European.