Jeffery Xiong Wins January 18 Titled Tuesday Out Of 9-Way Tie

GM Jeffery Xiong emerged from a nine-way tie for first place, easily the most crowded standings in recent memory, to claim Titled Tuesday victory on January 18. Tiebreaks also placed GM Illia Nyzhnyk second, GM Alexey Sarana third, and IM Le Tuan Minh fourth.

Also scoring 9/11 were GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac, NM Valery Sviridov, GM S.L. Narayanan, GM Dmitry Andreikin, and IM Christopher Yoo. Another eight players were a mere half-point off the lead with 8.5/11.

This week saw 585 players enter Titled Tuesday, which was the usual 11-round Swiss with a 3+1 time control. 

Live broadcast of this Tuesday's tournament, hosted by FM Anna-Maja Kazarian.

For the second straight week, Sarana was the last perfect player, this time on 7/7. Unfortunately, his most daring and interesting game, sacrificing a piece as Black in the opening (previously attempted only by GM Romain Edouard in 2013) against GM Hikaru Nakamura, was 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 of the leaders drew their games, allowing four winners in the final round to catch up. Kazarian on commentary was on top of all of it.

With 8.5 points, Sarana and Sviridov quickly drew their game, while Minh vs. Xiong continued. The next change in the standings came when Nyzhnyk jumped to the top, having defeated CM Om Kadam.

Xiong would soon offer a draw, which was declined. Andreikin was next to join the group on nine points, and soon after Xiong and Minh repeated moves anyway. Xiong's tiebreaker was 2.25 points better than Nyzhnyk's. When the tournament concluded, that narrowed to just half a point, but it was still enough.

Everyone who ended up in the top four now had their spot, but Naryanan still had a chance to hit 9.5/11 in his game against GM David Howell. However, by this point, Howell was up an h-pawn in a rook ending. Naryanan held the position to draw, but it was not enough to place.

Deac and Yoo were the last players to join the tie, both with victories, but also did not place. Ultimately, it was Xiong's win over Deac in round 10 that had made the biggest difference in the tournament.

January 18 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

Xiong won the $750 first-place prize with Nyzhnyk winning $400 for second. Sarana won $150 for his third-place finish while Minh Le claimed $100 for fourth. GM Aleksandra Goryachkina also won $100, as the top female player.

Titled Tuesday is a weekly tournament held by Chess.com for titled players. It is a Swiss-system event which begins at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time/19:00 Central European.