GM Vincent Keymer took home the last Titled Tuesday of 2025 on December 30, scoring 10/11 to become the first player to reach a double-digit score in the tournament since November 18. Only two players could win entering the final round, and Keymer defeated GM Alexey Sarana, who took third place on tiebreaks behind last week’s winner, GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda.
In the end, Keymer, who doesn’t play this event very often, was almost unstoppable, fitting for the highest FIDE-rated player in the field. The world number-four won every game outside of draws in rounds four and seven for his first Titled Tuesday victory of 2025—just in time for 2026. Will he play more next year? Tune in to find out.
Broadcast
There was no official Take Take Take broadcast this week. GM David Howell and crew will see you back in the new year on January 6!
CCT Standings
Duda now ranks third in the current Titled Tuesday split as part of the Champions Chess Tour (CCT). The updated top 10 are as follows:
| Position | Fed | Title | Player | Points | Week 4 |
| 1 | GM | Magnus Carlsen | 21 | ||
| 2 | GM | Sam Sevian | 19 | ||
| 3 | GM | Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 18 | +7 | |
| 4 | GM | Haik Martirosyan | 14 | ||
| 5 | GM | Hikaru Nakamura | 12 | ||
| 6 | GM | Vincent Keymer | 10 | +10 | |
| 7 | GM | Denis Lazavik | 7 | ||
| 8 | GM | Sina Movahed | 7 | ||
| 9 | GM | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | 7 | ||
| 10 | GM | Vladislav Artemiev | 7 |
Tournament Recap
With the World Blitz Championships wrapping up in the middle of the holiday season, 269 players joined the final Titled Tuesday of the year. Despite the absence of several stars, several others were here. Although neither finished in the top three, GMs Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Bogdan-Daniel Deac reached scores of 6/6 to become the last perfect players. Deac won their seventh-round battle, leaving no one within half a point of him and nine players within one point.
But Duda defeated Deac in the eighth round, winning with Black in just 22 moves after setting up a nasty trap based on a discovered check that Deac fell right into. The result put them both at 7/8, where they would be joined by Keymer, GM Matthias Bluebaum, and Sarana.
Coming out of the ensuing break, five players at the top became three as Keymer defeated GM Jeffery Xiong, Duda beat Bluebaum, and Sarana delivered Deac’s second consecutive loss. GMs Martyn Kravtsiv and Maciej Klekowski were a half point behind.
With three people at the top, it was Keymer who played someone lower in the standings, that being Klekowski. Keymer held the advantage throughout and converted a rook ending to take the tournament lead. While it took 88 moves for Keymer to finally promote a pawn and induce Klekowski’s resignation, the outcome was never in doubt for the last 50 of those.
It looked like Keymer would have that lead in the standings to himself, as Duda-Sarana appeared headed for a fairly quiet draw. Suddenly, however, Duda flagged in a moment that would ultimately help cost him back-to-back Titled Tuesday victories.
Only Sarana or Keymer could now win the tournament, with a round remaining and nobody a half point away from them. Duda-Terry and Pragg-Deac played for the lower spots. Sarana with White had a big chance to take control on move 22. Almost as soon as he’d missed it, the tide began to turn against him and he found himself a pawn down. The matter wasn’t yet settled as the position simplified into a knight ending with pawns all on the kingside, making things more difficult on Keymer. However, he was able to sideline Sarana’s knight for several moves, and Sarana could do no better than trade it off into a losing pawn ending.
All the while, Duda was pushing a big advantage against Praggnanandhaa, and he won at almost the exact same moment as Keymer.
With that, Duda leapt past Sarana on tiebreaks, and took second place when Deac settled for a draw against IM Renato Terry in a winning four-on-three queen-and-pawn ending. Deac was still able to take fourth place, ahead of GM Bharath Subramaniyam in fifth and Bluebaum in sixth. The women’s prize went to IM Karina Ambartsumova.
December 30 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 7 | GM | @VincentKeymer | Vincent Keymer | 3201 | 10 | 74 | |
| 2 | 2 | GM | @Polish_fighter3000 | Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 3226 | 9 | 73 | |
| 3 | 13 | GM | @mishanick | Alexey Sarana | 3116 | 9 | 72.5 | |
| 4 | 3 | GM | @BogdanDeac | Bogdan-Daniel Deac | 3206 | 8.5 | 75.5 | |
| 5 | 30 | GM | @FGHSMN | Bharath Subramaniyam | 2996 | 8.5 | 73.5 | |
| 6 | 4 | GM | @Msb2 | Matthias Bluebaum | 3185 | 8.5 | 70.5 | |
| 7 | 6 | GM | @jefferyx | Jeffery Xiong | 3176 | 8.5 | 70.5 | |
| 8 | 8 | IM | @MITerryble | Renato Terry | 3171 | 8.5 | 69.5 | |
| 9 | 40 | FM | @puz2010 | Semyon Puzyrevsky | 2927 | 8.5 | 61 | |
| 10 | 25 | IM | @scarabee43 | Marco Materia | 2989 | 8.5 | 60 | |
| 11 | 1 | GM | @rpragchess | Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu | 3242 | 8 | 76.5 | |
| 12 | 17 | GM | @Dr_Tyger | Haowen Xue | 3069 | 8 | 75.5 | |
| 13 | 16 | IM | @DonkyDonkyDonkey | Eray Kilic | 3052 | 8 | 66 | |
| 14 | 33 | GM | @Byniolus | Zbigniew Pakleza | 2958 | 8 | 62 | |
| 15 | 76 | CM | @misutodn | Luong Vu Nguyen | 2797 | 8 | 58 | |
| 16 | 21 | NM | @Little_Skib | Ethan Sheehan | 3009 | 8 | 56 | |
| 17 | 27 | GM | @maciek_92 | Maciej Klekowski | 3013 | 7.5 | 73 | |
| 18 | 29 | GM | @Cayse | Martyn Kravtsiv | 2998 | 7.5 | 71.5 | |
| 19 | 22 | GM | @hansen | Eric Hansen | 3008 | 7.5 | 71 | |
| 20 | 12 | GM | @OparinGrigoriy | Grigoriy Oparin | 3077 | 7.5 | 67 | |
| 53 | 82 | IM | @karinachess1 | Karina Ambartsumova | 2769 | 6.5 | 60.5 |
Prizes: Keymer $1,000, Duda $750, Sarana $350, Deac $250, Bharath $150, Bluebaum $100, Ambartsumova $100. Streamers’ prizes to be posted on the events page.
Titled Tuesday is Chess.com’s weekly tournament for titled players. It begins at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Standard Time.
