GM Nihal Sarin and GM Hikaru Nakamura are your winners for the July 8 editions of Titled Tuesday. Nakamura also finished third in the early tournament, and after he started out 8/8 in the late event, his 3416 Chess.com Blitz rating had set a new all-time high. The previous record-holder was… Nakamura at 3408.
Nihal’s 10/11 in the first tournament, winning outright, ended up as the best score of the day. Nakamura finished on 9.5 points and won on tiebreaks ahead of GMs Alireza Firouzja and Vugar Rasulov. Firouzja, like Nakamura, finished in the top five in both tournaments, taking third in the early event.
Early Tournament
Outside of a third-round setback, Nihal dominated the field of 587, scoring all 10 other possible points. But due to that early loss, it wasn’t clear until the very end that he would win the tournament. Through nine rounds, GM Javokhir Sindarov looked to be the likely winner with a perfect 9/9, but he wound up fading with losses to GM Magnus Carlsen and to Firouzja in the final two rounds, finishing seventh. Carlsen’s win put him on nine points, where Nihal and Sindarov were as well.
That set up a final clash between Carlsen and Nihal. Carlsen, playing White, built up a nice position and ended up winning a pawn, albeit in less than ideal fashion. But it wasn’t until Carlsen made the strategically sound, but tactically disastrous, decision to put a rook on the seventh rank with his 31st move that Nihal had his opportunity to win. And, as the late American football commentator John Madden might have said about what Nihal did with that opportunity: “Boom, he took it!”
The loss relegated Carlsen to fourth place as he was leapfrogged by Firouzja and Nakamura. When Firouzja won on time against Sindarov, while still having 40 seconds himself, he was up a pawn with the more comfortable position—although there would still have been some work to do had Sindarov’s flag not fallen.
Nakamura, meanwhile, took on GM Pranav Venkatesh, who was coming off two Titled Tuesday wins in the previous two weeks. Pranav built a better position early on, but never got a knockout blow, and after much maneuvering, Nakamura ended up with an easy two-pawns-up endgame. Late in the game, Pranav had one chance to take the queens off and give Nakamura a rather difficult (and perhaps drawn) rook ending, but the game was over soon after he missed it.
The final prizes went to GM Fredrik Svane (not his brother—this will be important to remember later) in fifth with WFM Katarzyna Dwilewicz taking the women’s prize.
July 8 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 10 | GM | @nihalsarin | Nihal Sarin | 3216 | 10 | 67.5 | |
| 2 | 2 | GM | @Firouzja2003 | Alireza Firouzja | 3319 | 9.5 | 75.5 | |
| 3 | 1 | GM | @Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 3401 | 9.5 | 72 | |
| 4 | 3 | GM | @MagnusCarlsen | Magnus Carlsen | 3298 | 9 | 78.5 | |
| 5 | 20 | GM | @frederiksvane | Frederik Svane | 3132 | 9 | 74 | |
| 6 | 7 | GM | @Parhamov | Parham Maghsoodloo | 3198 | 9 | 71.5 | |
| 7 | 14 | GM | @Javokhir_Sindarov05 | Javokhir Sindarov | 3170 | 9 | 70.5 | |
| 8 | 12 | GM | @jefferyx | Jeffery Xiong | 3170 | 9 | 70 | |
| 9 | 5 | GM | @HansOnTwitch | Hans Niemann | 3253 | 9 | 67.5 | |
| 10 | 4 | GM | @VincentKeymer | Vincent Keymer | 3242 | 8.5 | 73.5 | |
| 11 | 60 | GM | @Zhigalko_Sergei | Sergei Zhigalko | 2990 | 8.5 | 68.5 | |
| 12 | 9 | GM | @FairChess_on_YouTube | Dmitry Andreikin | 3187 | 8.5 | 66 | |
| 13 | 16 | GM | @Dr_Tyger | Haowen Xue | 3127 | 8.5 | 63.5 | |
| 14 | 69 | FM | @carokannlover213 | Patryk Cieslak | 2954 | 8.5 | 63 | |
| 15 | 38 | GM | @Alexander_Donchenko | Alexander Donchenko | 3025 | 8.5 | 62.5 | |
| 16 | 118 | GM | @ValentinDragnev | Valentin Dragnev | 2879 | 8.5 | 56 | |
| 17 | 8 | GM | @DenLaz | Denis Lazavik | 3204 | 8 | 80.5 | |
| 18 | 6 | GM | @vi_pranav | Pranav V | 3246 | 8 | 77.5 | |
| 19 | 19 | GM | @GHANDEEVAM2003 | Arjun Erigaisi | 3146 | 8 | 76 | |
| 20 | 35 | GM | @Shield12 | Shamsiddin Vokhidov | 3061 | 8 | 72.5 | |
| 64 | 326 | WFM | @Quattroporte300 | Katarzyna Dwilewicz | 2584 | 7 | 63 |
Prizes: Nihal $1,000, Firouzja $750, Nakamura $350, Carlsen $200, F. Svane $100, Tan $100.
Late Tournament
Although the late event technically ended in a tie, it seemed clear throughout most of it which of the 455 players was likely to win. Nakamura not only started 8/8, he did it against strong competition, even by Titled Tuesday standards. After a sixth-round win against GM Arjun Erigaisi got Nakamura within one point of his old rating record, a seventh-round win against GM Hans Niemann put him four points above it.
From there, Nakamura extended his record by another four points in the eighth round, this time toppling GM Jeffery Xiong‘s position in just 33 moves after Xiong allowed a pawn-dropping tactic on move 14.
Nakamura finally hit a snag in the ninth round courtesy of Firouzja, and suddenly the final outcome wasn’t so clear, with a five-way tie in first.
Nobody took control in the 10th round, with four of the co-leaders drawing and the fifth, Arjun, losing to Niemann. There was now a six-way tie for first on 8.5/10, and they would all face each other.
Nakamura, Firouzja, and Rasulov ended up defeating FM Ivan Yeletsky, GM Aleksandar Indjic, and Niemann, respectively. The latter three all finished between seventh and 11th, which was convenient for GMs Parham Maghsoodloo and Rasmus Svane, who ended up in the top five. IM Le Thao Nguyen Pham won the women’s prize.
July 8 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 1 | GM | @Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 3400 | 9.5 | 78.5 | |
| 2 | 2 | GM | @Firouzja2003 | Alireza Firouzja | 3326 | 9.5 | 71.5 | |
| 3 | 28 | GM | @vugarrasulov | Vugar Rasulov | 3053 | 9.5 | 68.5 | |
| 4 | 4 | GM | @Parhamov | Parham Maghsoodloo | 3207 | 9 | 67 | |
| 5 | 40 | GM | @rasmussvane | Rasmus Svane | 2991 | 9 | 62.5 | |
| 6 | 66 | IM | @super_emi_26 | Nikoloz Petriashvili | 2930 | 9 | 61 | |
| 7 | 3 | GM | @HansOnTwitch | Hans Niemann | 3251 | 8.5 | 82 | |
| 8 | 43 | FM | @snowlord | Ivan Yeletsky | 2985 | 8.5 | 74 | |
| 9 | 25 | GM | @BogdanDeac | Bogdan Daniel Deac | 3008 | 8.5 | 68 | |
| 10 | 17 | GM | @Sanan_Sjugirov | Sanan Sjugirov | 3068 | 8.5 | 66.5 | |
| 11 | 39 | GM | @Beca95 | Aleksandar Indjic | 3008 | 8.5 | 65.5 | |
| 12 | 186 | GM | @howitzer14 | David Howell | 2863 | 8.5 | 54 | |
| 13 | 5 | GM | @jefferyx | Jeffery Xiong | 3167 | 8 | 73.5 | |
| 14 | 14 | GM | @Msb2 | Matthias Bluebaum | 3065 | 8 | 71.5 | |
| 15 | 6 | GM | @GHANDEEVAM2003 | Arjun Erigaisi | 3149 | 8 | 70.5 | |
| 16 | 61 | GM | @pouya21 | Pouya Idani | 2938 | 8 | 70 | |
| 17 | 42 | GM | @eljanov | Pavel Eljanov | 2972 | 8 | 67 | |
| 18 | 33 | GM | @crescentmoon2411 | Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | 2997 | 8 | 63.5 | |
| 19 | 41 | FM | @BardArtem | Artem Bardyk | 2955 | 8 | 59 | |
| 20 | 140 | FM | @NightOfzero_on_fire | Henrik Cernov | 2701 | 8 | 59 | |
| 39 | 131 | IM | @Fh2411 | Le Thao Nguyen Pham | 2702 | 7 | 63 |
Prizes: Nakamura $1,000, Firouzja $750, Rasulov $350, Maghsoodloo $200, R. Svane $100, Le $100.
Grand Prix Qualifiers
The Titled Tuesday Grand Prix concluded on May 27. Congratulations to the Speed Chess Championship qualifiers!
SCC qualifiers:
| Rk | Username | Score | Title | Name |
| 1 | @MagnusCarlsen | 98.5 | GM | Magnus Carlsen |
| 2 | @Hikaru | 95.0 | GM | Hikaru Nakamura |
| 3 | @LiemLe | 93.0 | GM | Liem Le |
| 4 | @GHANDEEVAM2003 | 93.0 | GM | Arjun Erigaisi |
| 5 | @DenLaz | 92.5 | GM | Denis Lazavik |
| 6 | @Jospem | 92.0 | GM | Jose Martinez |
| 7 | @wonderfultime | 92.0 | GM | Tuan Minh Le |
| 8 | @HansOnTwitch | 92.0 | GM | Hans Niemann |
Women’s SCC qualifiers:
| Rk | Username | Score | Title | Name |
| 1 | @ChessQueen | 74.5 | GM | Alexandra Kosteniuk |
| 2 | @Flawless_Fighter | 72.5 | IM | Polina Shuvalova |
| 3 | @Goryachkina | 72.0 | GM | Aleksandra Goryachkina |
| 4 | @karinachess1 | 70.5 | IM | Karina Ambartsumova |
| 5 | @Meri-Arabidze | 69.0 | IM | Meri Arabidze |
| 6 | @Sanyura | 68.0 | WGM | Aleksandra Maltsevskaya |
| 7 | @anasta10 | 68.0 | FM | Anastasia Avramidou |
| 8 | @jinbojinbo | 67.0 | GM | Jiner Zhu |
Seniors (born 1975 or earlier), juniors (born 2009 or later), and girls (born 2005 or later) did not have SCC places on the line, but there were cash prizes in each of these categories. The winners were:
Seniors: GM Alexei Shirov (@AlexeiShirov), 83.5 points (won $2,500)
Youth: GM Andy Woodward (@Philippians46), 86.5 points (won $2,500)
Girls: WGM Anna Shukhman (@speshka), 66.5 points (won $1,000)
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).
