Nakamura Wins Titled Tuesday Drama-Free, Joins CCT Leaders

GM Hikaru Nakamura took his first Titled Tuesday in the new system on September 23, entering the top four of the Champions Chess Tour standings. Other than two quick draws in the seventh and eighth rounds, he scored every possible point on his way to a win with 10/11, and closed out the tournament with some convincing victories. GM Alireza Firouzja finished with 9.5 points to come in second place.

Broadcast

If you missed the official Take Take Take broadcast with Kaja Snare and GM David Howell, you can catch it below!

Recap

GM Magnus Carlsen was going for his third straight Titled Tuesday win this week, even though he is the only player already qualified for the next Esports World Cup. Why? Carlsen’s expression screamed, “What kind of question is that?” but his actual answer was, “I like chess.”

In the sixth round, Carlsen faced GM Sina Movahed for the third straight Titled Tuesday. This time, after coming just short twice, it was the Iranian youngster who came out ahead, keeping him in a tie with Nakamura and Firouzja on a perfect 6/6.

But the next two rounds is when Nakamura made those two consecutive draws, both in a well-known 14-move opening sequence. The first came against Movahed, at the same time that Firouzja was beating GM Denis Lazavik to become the only player to reach 7/7. Nakamura then made his second straight draw against Firouzja, ending the field’s last chance at a perfect 11/11 score.

In the round after that, the ninth, a surprise contender emerged. GM Sergey Drygalov, who has once before won Titled Tuesday back in 2023, took Black against Firouzja. They reached a relatively equal endgame, but Firouzja led by a good margin on the clock. Suddenly, however, he blundered a rook. Drygalov had just 8.2 seconds against Firouzja’s 50 to turn that good luck into a win, but was able to make eight moves in 3.9 seconds to force a mate-in-one and resignation.

Drygalov now led the tournament outright with a score of 8.5/9, but he was rewarded for his shock victory with a matchup against Nakamura, and once again had the second move to boot. Nakamura locked in and did not let Drygalov the same chances that the underdog had enjoyed in the previous round.

Nakamura was now on 9/10, half a point ahead of three players, all of whom he had already faced: Firouzja, Drygalov, and GM Fabiano Caruana. While getting to play an opponent on a lower score would normally be advantageous—something Nakamura had addressed on stream as intentional—this would not necessarily be the case against his specific pairing: Carlsen. Surprisingly, however, Nakamura again won with little drama.

Firouzja, meanwhile, had recovered from his setback with wins in the last two rounds to take second place—and to do so, like Nakamura had first place, without tiebreaks. Caruana was Firouzja’s final victim, also winning surprisingly smoothly despite the prominent opponent. 

GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave would emerge in third place with nine points, leading tiebreaks in the group of five players on that score. GMs Alexey Sarana, Daniel Naroditsky, and Andrey Esipenko all also received paid positions while GM Vidit Gujrathi was out of luck despite also getting to nine points. Vidit, along with Drygalov, Lazavik, and Caruana still got CCT standings points with top-10 finishes. FM Liya Kurmangaliyeva completed the list of prize winners with the women’s prize.

September 23 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings.)