It's Tuesdays With Magzy As Carlsen Returns To Win Column

NathanielGreen

Nov 27, 2024, 7:50 AM | 6 | Chess Event Coverage

GMs Magnus Carlsen and Christopher Yoo were the Titled Tuesday victors on November 26. Carlsen, who won outright on 10 points, got his first Titled Tuesday win of November in the last week of November—and now has at least one win every month for the past five months. For Yoo, it was his third win of the year, which he achieved with 9.5 points and the tiebreak advantage over GM Jose Ibarra.

Early Tournament (Carlsen, 10/11)
Late Tournament (Yoo, 9.5/11)
Titled Cup Standings

Early Tournament

After a quick dip below 700 participants the past few weeks, attendance rebounded to 731 for this week's early tournament. Carlsen cruised to a 7/7 start before two draws threatened his standing, but he responded with wins over GMs Alireza Firouzja and Denis Lazavik to lock up the tournament.

Carlsen was one of six players tied for first place after nine rounds but the only one of them to win both of his final games. It began with the win over Firouzja, who never quite recovered from conceding a pawn in the early game.

Carlsen would, in fact, end up the only player of the six-way tie to score even 1.5 points out of the final two. Second place ended up going to GM Dmitry Andreikin, who also won his last two games, the latter against GM Alexey Sarana.

Meanwhile, Carlsen was leaving more than a minute on his clock against Lazavik, turning an early pawn into a victory as he had against Firouzja the round before. This time, the game reached a knight ending first.

November 26 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

Rank	Seed	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	2		GM	@MagnusCarlsen	Magnus Carlsen	3327	10	78.5
2	10		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3105	9.5	71.5
3	60		GM	@Vaathi_Coming	Aravindh Chithambaram	2955	9.5	68.5
4	4		GM	@DenLaz	Denis Lazavik	3186	9	78
5	13		GM	@mishanick	Aleksei Sarana	3090	9	73.5
6	33		GM	@Sargsyan_Shant	Shant Sargsyan	3013	9	69.5
7	12		GM	@wonderfultime	Tuan Minh Le	3035	9	69
8	19		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3066	9	68.5
9	28		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3010	9	65.5
10	24		IM	@Kacparov	Kacper Drozdowski	3034	9	59.5
11	7		GM	@Grischuk	Alexander Grischuk	3124	8.5	81
12	5		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3154	8.5	76
13	30		FM	@rezamahdavi2008	Reza Mahdavi	2988	8.5	71.5
14	9		GM	@lachesisQ	Ian Nepomniachtchi	3096	8.5	71
15	49		FM	@snowlord	Ivan Yeletsky	2961	8.5	69.5
16	101		FM	@Ergali_Suleimen	Ergali Suleimen	2856	8.5	64.5
17	20		GM	@ChristopherYoo	Christopher Woojin Yoo	3062	8.5	64.5
18	71		GM	@Igor_Lysyj	Igor Lysyj	2900	8.5	62.5
19	27		GM	@LiemLe	Liem Le	3014	8.5	60.5
20	3		GM	@Firouzja2003	Alireza Firouzja	3226	8	82
48	115		GM	@ChessQueen	Alexandra Kosteniuk	2797	7.5	64.5

(Full final standings here.)

Carlsen ended up with the $1,000 first-place prize. Andreikin earned $750 in second place, while GM Aravindh Chithambaram finished third for $350, just behind Andreikin on tiebreaks. Lazavik earned $200 in fourth place and Sarana $100 in fifth place, while GM Alexandra Kosteniuk won $100 with the women's highest score.

Late Tournament

With 491 players in the latter tournament, a 7/7 start now belonged to the other star of Titled Tuesday, GM Hikaru Nakamura, but Nakamura uncharacteristically dropped his next three games.

The second of those three defeats came against the recently embattled Yoo. Their game took almost 100 moves despite a shocking early moment—Yoo's queen sacrifice on move seven. The sacrifice with 7.Ne5 was played only once before in the Chess.com Explorer database, all the way back in 2003. White won that game as well, although Black refused the queen that Nakamura accepted. It wasn't exactly a good sacrifice, but both players got entwined in complications starting around move 45, from which Yoo emerged ahead.

The result put Yoo on 8/9, tied with one other player, GM Jose Martinez. Their ensuing game was more conventional, which is saying something when Martinez's king went from e1 to h2 on moves 8-15 without even castling, and then ended up on f1 by move 23. Oh, and the game ended in an always-attractive (even when the losing side is also down a rook) pawn checkmate.

Martinez would win his final game to sneak back into the top five, but Yoo now had a half-point edge on four players with 8.5 points. Yoo's draw with GM Awonder Liang gave the other three on 8.5 a chance to catch up, but only Ibarra did, winning his seventh straight game by defeating GM Sanan Sjugirov.

November 26 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

Rk	Seed	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	14		GM	@ChristopherYoo	Christopher Woojin Yoo	3062	9.5	71.5
2	19		GM	@jcibarra	José Carlos Ibarra Jerez	3028	9.5	70
3	20		GM	@rednova1729	Awonder Liang	3030	9	73
4	9		GM	@mishanick	Aleksei Sarana	3090	9	73
5	2		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3154	9	71
6	11		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3066	9	68
7	5		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3105	9	65
8	23		GM	@Sanan_Sjugirov	Sanan Sjugirov	3010	8.5	69.5
9	27		GM	@lilleper1	Jonas Bjerre	3007	8.5	68
10	8		GM	@vi_pranav	Pranav V	3065	8.5	66.5
11	10		GM	@dropstoneDP	David Paravyan	3065	8.5	62
12	30		GM	@rasmussvane	Rasmus Svane	2973	8.5	62
13	15		GM	@Shankland	Sam Shankland	3034	8.5	59
14	99		FM	@Gangster-accountant01	Barad Yeganegi	2747	8	74
15	35		GM	@Lukianoo	Luka Paichadze	2936	8	71.5
16	1		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3290	8	71
17	34		GM	@alexrustemov	Alexander Rustemov	2936	8	65.5
18	18		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	3010	8	65
19	81		FM	@Bryanl106	Bryan Enming Lin	2787	8	65
20	24		GM	@DanielNaroditsky	Daniel Naroditsky	3071	8	64.5
37	108		IM	@Meri-Arabidze	Meri Arabidze	2701	7.5	54.5

(Full final standings here.)

Yoo earned $1,000 for first place, with Ibarra taking $750 in second. Liang finished third for $350, Sarana fourth for $200, and Martinez fifth for $100. For Sarana, it gave him $300 on the day after his earlier fifth-place finish. IM Meri Arabidze took home the $100 women's prize with a 7.5 score.

Titled Cup Standings

There was another half-point gain for Carlsen over Nakamura this week, leaving 4.5 points for Carlsen to cover in the last 10 events of the year. Kosteniuk gained half a point, but so did GM Aleksandra Goryachkina, who stayed ahead in the women's standings. Arabidze jumped into fourth place, and this might be the first time all year that there isn't a tie somewhere in the women's top five.

Open

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Hikaru	200.5	GM Hikaru Nakamura
2	@MagnusCarlsen	196.0	GM Magnus Carlsen
3-t	@Polish_fighter3000	188.0	GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda
3-t	@jefferyx	188.0	GM Jeffery Xiong
5	@mishanick	187.5	GM Alexey Sarana

Women

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Goryachkina	144.0	GM Aleksandra Goryachkina
2	@ChessQueen	143.5	GM Alexandra Kosteniuk
3	@Flawless_Fighter	143.0	IM Polina Shuvalova
4	@Meri-Arabidze	140.0	IM Meri Arabidze
5	@karinachess1	139.5	IM Karina Ambartsumova

Other Category Leaders

Juniors: GM Denis Lazavik (185.0 points)

Seniors: GM Gata Kamsky (171.0 points)

Girls: WCM Veronika Shubenkova (124.5 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.