GM won the early on March 25 on ahead of World Champion GM and GM , although Nakamura scored his 9.5 points in just 10 games after missing round three, which also hurt his tiebreak scores. GM won her third straight women’s prize.
The late tournament was won by GM outright with 10 points, his second straight week winning the second event of the day, while GM secured a fourth-place finish in both of the day’s events. At the conclusion of the day, Nakamura had regained the lead in the standings.
Procedural note: Next week, the late tournament permanently moves up an hour, henceforth starting at 4 p.m. ET/22:00 CET.
Wins in the late two weeks in a row for Denis Lazavik! 👏
— chess24 (@chess24com)
Early Tournament
It’s unclear why Nakamura didn’t get a game in the third round of the 592-player event, as he tried to. Gukesh also didn’t score a point in the round, but that was from losing a game. It was the last time during the tournament that the top three finishers didn’t score at least half a point.
Sindarov and Vachier-Lagrave were the last perfect players, reaching 7/7 before drawing each other in the eighth round. In the ninth round, Sindarov took the outright lead with a win over GM , and he would remain in first place for the rest of the tournament.
Sindarov’s outright lead was only possible because Vachier-Lagrave lost to Nakamura in a quite similar game: pretty even throughout the , before Black pulled away in the .
In the 10th round, Sindarov drew with Nakamura, while Gukesh moved into a tie for first with a win over GM —another win for Black.
Sindarov and Gukesh made a draw in the last round, but it was a strange one. It’s not clear why White should be winning at the end, at least not clear enough for Sindarov to find the path, such that he went for the instead. But the computer finds several alternatives that win.
The other final-round game everyone was watching was Nakamura versus GM , who, despite his opponent and his own chance at moving into a tie for first place, did not seem to take the game very seriously: he opened with half of , 1.f3, or the —the . Maybe he felt bad about Nakamura’s missing game? (Ha. No.) Of course, a dumb opening isn’t enough to sink Magnus Carlsen, but too many bad moves oughta do it, even for the greatest, and that’s what happened on moves 26 and 29.
Nakamura missing the third round probably feels slightly less bad than had it happened in the 10th or 11th, but it’s probably in fact worse, since the earlier the round, the more likely a win. As it was, taking third place with only 10 games is an impressive accomplishment. But Sindarov will take the win.
March 25 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)
Rank
Seed
Fed
Title
Username
Name
Rating
Score
Tiebreak
1
9
GM
@Javokhir_Sindarov05
Javokhir Sindarov
3184
9.5
78
2
27
GM
@GukeshDommaraju
Gukesh D
3058
9.5
70
3
1
GM
@Hikaru
Hikaru Nakamura
3322
9.5
67.5
4
7
GM
@LyonBeast
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
3213
9
76.5
5
14
GM
@penguingm1
Andrew Tang
3102
9
69
6
15
GM
@VincentKeymer
Vincent Keymer
3107
9
67
7
17
GM
@wonderfultime
Tuan Minh Le
3099
9
67
8
8
GM
@HansOnTwitch
Hans Niemann
3171
9
64.5
9
24
GM
@jefferyx
Jeffery Xiong
3048
8.5
77.5
10
3
GM
@MagnusCarlsen
Magnus Carlsen
3243
8.5
76
11
18
GM
@ChristopherYoo
Christopher Woojin Yoo
3079
8.5
67.5
12
6
GM
@DenLaz
Denis Lazavik
3203
8.5
65.5
13
32
IM
@TrahtarBelarus
Artiom Stribuk
2996
8.5
64
14
68
FM
@snowlord
Ivan Yeletsky
2911
8.5
58
15
38
FM
@artin10862
Artin Ashraf
2978
8.5
51.5
16
48
GM
@Durarbayli
Vasif Durarbayli
2960
8
69.5
17
13
GM
@NikoTheodorou
Nikolas Theodorou
3084
8
69.5
18
59
GM
@SavelijTartakover
Dmitry Kryakvin
2928
8
69
19
12
GM
@LiemLe
Liem Le
3098
8
68.5
20
11
GM
@mishanick
Aleksei Sarana
3122
8
68.5
46
79
GM
@ChessQueen
Alexandra Kosteniuk
2832
7.5
50
(.)
Prizes: Sindarov $1,000, Gukesh $750, Nakamura $350, Vachier-Lagrave $200, Tang $100, Kosteniuk $100.
Late Tournament
Lazavik started 9/9 in the field of 487, and the back third of those first nine rounds were a gauntlet: first Carlsen went down, then Vachier-Lagrave, then GM . It’s hard to know which of these games to showcase, so let’s just see all three:
Firmly in first, a full point ahead of anyone else, Lazavik now stepped off the gas instead of going for the rare 11/11 perfect score. But draws in the last two rounds didn’t keep him from the outright victory. One of those draws, against GM , came against the eventual second-place finisher.
From there, Duda faced Carlsen in the final round. Carlsen took this game a little more seriously, playing a theoretical —not a Barnes. Sometimes you have to beat Carlsen twice to actually win, and that’s what happened, with Duda gaining a big edge but losing it for a few moves in the endgame before Carlsen’s final error.
Below Lazavik and Duda would be a six-way tie on nine points, and Firouzja’s 28-move win over GM earned him the best tiebreaks to obtain third place.
March 25 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)
Rank
Seed
Fed
Title
Username
Name
Rating
Score
Tiebreak
1
4
GM
@DenLaz
Denis Lazavik
3241
10
75.5
2
8
GM
@Polish_fighter3000
Jan-Krzysztof Duda
3172
9.5
76
3
1
GM
@Firouzja2003
Alireza Firouzja
3252
9
81.5
4
3
GM
@LyonBeast
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
3235
9
78
5
25
GM
@dropstoneDP
David Paravyan
3024
9
65.5
6
9
GM
@Oleksandr_Bortnyk
Oleksandr Bortnyk
3128
9
62.5
7
1
GM
@LiemLe
Liem Le
3121
9
61
8
124
IM
@Brave_spirit12
Eldiar Orozbaev
2767
9
55.5
9
2
GM
@MagnusCarlsen
Magnus Carlsen
3251
8.5
81.5
10
10
GM
@mishanick
Aleksei Sarana
3148
8.5
77.5
11
6
GM
@HansOnTwitch
Hans Niemann
3177
8.5
75.5
12
7
GM
@FabianoCaruana
Fabiano Caruana
3163
8.5
69
13
11
GM
@Parhamov
Parham Maghsoodloo
3121
8
74.5
14
15
GM
@ChristopherYoo
Christopher Woojin Yoo
3068
8
73.5
15
14
GM
@penguingm1
Andrew Tang
3087
8
73.5
16
24
GM
@Annawel
Jules Moussard
2995
8
73
17
5
GM
@Javokhir_Sindarov05
Javokhir Sindarov
3178
8
73
18
19
GM
@jefferyx
Jeffery Xiong
3052
8
70
19
72
GM
@tjallkompall
Kjetil Lie
2843
8
66
20
45
FM
@IMchanged
Felix Ilinca
2915
8
66
70
126
IM
@Meri-Arabidze
Meri Arabidze
2689
7
49
(.)
Prizes: Lazavik $1,000, Duda $750, Firouzja $350, Vachier-Lagrave $200 (daily total: $400), Paravyan $100, Arabidze $100. Daily totals:
Grand Prix Standings
Other than the slight reshuffling at the top half, no changes to the overall standings.
Rk
Username
Score
Title
Name
1
@Hikaru
92.0
GM
Hikaru Nakamura
2
@MagnusCarlsen
91.5
GM
Magnus Carlsen
3
@DenLaz
91.5
GM
Denis Lazavik
4
@Jospem
91.0
GM
Jose Martinez
5
@Oleksandr_Bortnyk
90.5
GM
Oleksandr Bortnyk
6
@Msb2
89.5
GM
Matthias Bluebaum
7
@GHANDEEVAM2003
89.5
GM
Arjun Erigaisi
8
@wonderfultime
89.5
GM
Tuan Minh Le
With her two straight impressive weeks, Kosteniuk now leads the women’s standings. As in the open leaderboard, the same eight players are the top eight.
Rk
Username
Score
Title
Name
1
@ChessQueen
72.0
GM
Alexandra Kosteniuk
2
@Flawless_Fighter
71.0
IM
Polina Shuvalova
3
@karinachess1
70.5
IM
Karina Ambartsumova
4
@Meri-Arabidze
68.0
IM
Meri Arabidze
5
@Sanyura
67.5
WGM
Aleksandra Maltsevskaya
6
@Fh2411
65.0
IM
Le Thao Nguyen Pham
7
@anasta10
64.5
FM
Anastasia Avramidou
8
@jinbojinbo
64.0
GM
Jiner Zhu
Seniors (born 1975 or earlier), juniors (born 2009 or later), and girls (born 2005 or later) do not have SCC places on the line, but there will be cash prizes in each of these categories. The current leaders are:
Seniors: GM (@AlexeiShirov), 81.5 points
Youth: GM (@Philippians46), 86.5 points
Girls: WFM (@rollercoaster29), 62.5 points
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).
The next Titled Tuesday to hit 1,000 participants will award prizes to the top 30 players.
📢 BIG NEWS 📢Titled Tuesday registrations have been going WAY up lately, with a record 905 last week!To celebrate, the first Titled Tuesday of 2025 with over 1,000 players will have a DOUBLED prize pool! Let the games begin 🙌
— Chess.com (@chesscom)
