Carlsen Wins Tuesday Nailbiter – Chess.com

GM Magnus Carlsen won his second Titled Tuesday in three weeks on December 2, needing only 9.5 points to take the tournament without even needing tiebreaks. He caught and passed GM Sina Movahed in the 11th round, and clinched the outright win when the game between IM Renato Terry and GM Haik Martirosyan ended in a draw. Movahed retained second place out of a six-way tie on nine points, with GM Hikaru Nakamura in third.

The tournament began the second split in the new Titled Tuesday season, which not only continues to count toward Esports World Cup qualification (as did the last split), but also for the 2026 Chess.com Global Championship (CGC). Carlsen, Movahed, Nakamura, and others are off to a good start.

Broadcast

If you missed the official Take Take Take broadcast with GM David Howell, GM Aryan Tari, and Sverre Krogh, you can catch it below!

CCT Standings

The updated Champions Chess Tour (CCT) standings are as follows:

There is also a reset for the next round of split prizes. The autumn split first-place prizes went to Carlsen in the overall ($5,000), IM Karina Ambartsumova in the women’s ($2,000), IM Dau Khuong Duy in the under-16 ($1,500), GM Alex Rustemov in the 50+ ($1,500), and FM Rose Atwell in the under-20 girls ($1,000). We shall see who takes the winter prizes!

December 2 Tournament Recap

By the end of round six, GM Pranav Venkatesh was the last perfect player in the field of 399. The round before, Carlsen had drawn against GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda while Nakamura drew against GM Sam Sevian—and both favored players were the ones fighting for the half-point. In the seventh, Pranav’s streak would end with a very short draw against Nakamura, who clearly struggled with the decision on camera, but ultimately saw nothing better.

Sevian vs. Carlsen also ended in a draw, but a much more interesting one, with Sevian sacrificing a rook to force perpetual check.

Duda, meanwhile, won in round seven against GM Denis Lazavik, tying Pranav on 6.5/7, with nine players behind them on six points. But both Pranav and Duda had taken White two straight games, so the eighth round pairings instead were Pranav vs. Carlsen and Nakamura vs. Duda. Unlike in round five, this time the two favorites won, and we now had a five-way tie on 7/8 entering the second and final break. Carlsen’s win was one of his typical endgame masterworks.

Coming out of the break, it was time for Nakamura-Carlsen. In a modest surprise, they played the extremely sharp Poisoned Pawn Variation. It was a psychological choice by Carlsen, who admitted after the tournament that the opening choice put him out of his comfort zone, but with the idea of putting Nakamura out of his.

As one might expect given all that, neither player quite got their footing in the opening. That was a bigger problem for Nakamura playing with White in the position—the side that gives up the pawn. One pawn became two became three in the endgame and, despite opposite-colored bishops, Nakamura could not hold.

Movahed was one player now sharing the tournament lead with two rounds to go. In the 10th, he took the outright lead after defeating GM Volodar Murzin, while the other previous co-leaders Carlsen and Martirosyan drew with each other. Movahed dubiously gave up a pawn, but Murzin could not punish the decision, and he would suddenly fall into a mating net despite rather few pieces remaining on the board.

Movahed would only need a draw to secure at least a tie for the lead, but he caught a bad break in the pairings, playing Black against Carlsen. Movahed opted for the King’s Indian Defense and got a typically sharp game, but never found any real avenue of attack. Once he dropped a piece and then, before he could recover it, allowed a queen trade, the game was over.

The tournament was not quite yet over, but Terry could not convert against Martirosyan in 107 moves, and Carlsen had the straight-up victory.

December 2 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings.)