Carlsen, Niemann Tussle Tuesday, Both Win

NathanielGreen

Updated: Jan 31, 2024, 9:08 AM | 36 | Chess Event Coverage

In a long-awaited moment, GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Hans Niemann have played another game of chess against each other, their first since September 2022. It was an 87-move draw in the early Titled Tuesday event of January 30, won by Carlsen with a 10/11 score, his first Titled Tuesday victory of the year. Niemann came right back and won the late tournament, also on 10 points but needing tiebreaks over GM Hikaru Nakamura.

Early Tournament (Carlsen, 10/11)
Late Tournament (Niemann, 10/11)
Titled Cup Standings

Early Tournament

Exactly 750 players joined the early tournament, and Niemann started with a perfect 7/7 score. So did GM Jose Martinez, and it was Martinez who won their eighth-round battle. But Martinez only scored 0.5/3 the rest of the way, with Carlsen immediately beating him in round nine.

Niemann also won in the ninth round, and the stage was set for the showdown with Carlsen. Their game was a rather silly draw, with nothing but kings and pawns left on the board after just 28 moves, but it took almost 60 more turns before the game ended in a repetition. The moves on which the positions repeated: 47, 69, and 87.

When the game finally ended, the players were about 10 moves away from the 50-move draw, too. And because of the simple position throughout most of the game, each player scored nearly 100% accuracy and ended the game with several more seconds than at the start of the game.

Magnus vs. Hans on Titled Tuesday ends in a long draw, with 99.7 and 99.8 accuracy respectively! 👏 pic.twitter.com/tL5L6me0lJ
— Chess.com (@chesscom) January 30, 2024

The draw worked out better for Carlsen, who entered the final round tied on 9/10 with GMs Jeffery Xiong and Anton Korobov. Carlsen took on Korobov and won, while Xiong and Niemann played to a draw, and thus Carlsen had his first Titled Tuesday tournament win in 2024, with Xiong taking second.

January 30 Titled Tuesday | Early | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	2		GM	@MagnusCarlsen	Magnus Carlsen	3302	10	74.5
2	40		GM	@jefferyx	Jeffery Xiong	3019	9.5	67
3	3		GM	@HansOnTwitch	Hans Niemann	3210	9	77
4	21		GM	@dropstoneDP	David Paravyan	3060	9	73
5	46		GM	@SantoBlue	Vahap Sanal	2982	9	68.5
6	38		GM	@GOGIEFF	Anton Korobov	3009	9	68.5
7	27		FM	@Sina_Movahed	Sina Movahed	3044	9	66
8	49		IM	@AlmasRakhmatullaev	Almas Rakhmatullaev	2988	9	65.5
9	52		FM	@JimDiGrease	Ivan Zemlyanskii	2975	9	65.5
10	34		GM	@wonderfultime	Tuan Minh Le	3018	9	65
11	63		GM	@VitaliyBernadskiy	Vitaliy Bernadskiy	2927	9	63.5
12	30		GM	@FormerProdigy	David Navara	3043	9	63.5
13	1		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3279	9	59
14	24		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3067	8.5	77.5
15	36		GM	@artooon	Pranesh M	3027	8.5	69.5
16	62		GM	@frederiksvane	Frederik Svane	2931	8.5	69
17	14		GM	@Grischuk	Alexander Grischuk	3077	8.5	67
18	84		FM	@snowlord	Ivan Yeletsky	2883	8.5	64.5
19	113		IM	@scarabee43	Marco Materia	2866	8.5	61
20	47		GM	@amintabatabaei	Amin Tabatabaei	2959	8.5	60.5
93	237		WGM	@Sanyura	Aleksandra Maltsevskaya	2656	7	58.5

(Full final standings here.)

Carlsen won the $1,000 grand prize. Xiong took home $750 for second place. After that was an 11-way tie on nine points; Niemann ended up third for $350, GM David Paravyan fourth for $200, and GM Vahap Sanal fifth for $100. WGM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya won the $100 women's prize.

Late Tournament

Carlsen was done, not playing the late event, leaving it at 499 participants. But Niemann was very much not done. Although he drew a game as early as round two, he took the tournament lead after nine rounds by defeating Nakamura with Black in almost 100 moves.

The result not only leapfrogged Niemann into sole first, but it upended Nakamura's bid to score 11/11 and ended up the only blemish on Hikaru's record in the late tournament. Nakamura recovered to beat GM Dmitry Andreikin in round 10 and GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda in round 11, finishing with 10 points, which is usually enough to win.

But it wasn't enough this time. After another victory in round 10 for Niemann, he drew with GM Denis Lazavik in the last round to allow Nakamura back into a tie, but Niemann easily had the better tiebreak score.

January 30 Titled Tuesday | Late | Final Standings (Top 20)

Number	Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Rating	Score	Tiebreak 1
1	2		GM	@HansOnTwitch	Hans Niemann	3226	10	73
2	1		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	3305	10	63.5
3	16		GM	@DenLaz	Denis Lazavik	3064	9	76
4	52		GM	@platy3	Alan Pichot	2901	9	65.5
5	10		GM	@Jospem	Jose Martinez	3067	9	64.5
6	28		GM	@SantoBlue	Vahap Sanal	3010	9	62.5
7	38		GM	@TigrVShlyape	Gata Kamsky	2968	8.5	71
8	11		GM	@dropstoneDP	David Paravyan	3055	8.5	70.5
9	7		GM	@GMWSO	Wesley So	3093	8.5	69.5
10	55		GM	@Elsa167	Leon Livaic	2913	8.5	68
11	15		GM	@Polish_fighter3000	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	3054	8.5	67.5
12	27		GM	@Beca95	Aleksandar Indjic	2978	8.5	62.5
13	45		FM	@dmitrijiIM	Dmitry Rostovtsev	2920	8.5	61.5
14	47		GM	@h4parah5	Jaime Santos Latasa	2931	8.5	61
15	24		GM	@Msb2	Matthias Bluebaum	3002	8	73
16	8		GM	@FairChess_on_YouTube	Dmitry Andreikin	3085	8	68.5
17	17		GM	@Njal28	Aram Hakobyan	3041	8	68.5
18	43		GM	@tptagain	David Anton Guijarro	2921	8	68
19	22		GM	@SpeedofLight0	Andrew Hong	3027	8	67.5
20	3		GM	@mishanick	Aleksei Sarana	3111	8	66
64	201		IM	@Fh2411	Le Thao Nguyen Pham	2609	7	55.5

(Full final standings here.)

Niemann added $1,000 to his early prize for $1,350 on the day. Nakamura won the $750 second-place prize. Lazavik finished third for $350, GM Alan Pichot fourth for $200, and Martinez fifth for $100, while Sanal finished a tough-luck sixth. IM Le Thao Nguyen Pham won the $100 women's prize.

Titled Cup Standings

Nakamura and Sarana remain in the top two spots in the open standings. IM Karina Ambartsumova now leads the women's standings, passing GM Aleksandra Goryachkina.

Open

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@Hikaru	82.0	GM Hikaru Nakamura
2	@mishanick	77.5	GM Alexey Sarana
3	@dropstoneDP	76.5	GM David Paravyan
4	@Zhigalko_Sergei	70.5	GM Jose Martinez
5	@Msb2	70.0	GM Matthias Bluebaum
4	@Zhigalko_Sergei	70.0	GM Sergei Zhigalko

Women

#	Username	Score	Player
1	@karinachess1	53.5	IM Karina Ambartsumova
2	@Goryachkina	45.5	GM Aleksandra Goryachkina
3	@Sanyura	41.0	WGM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya
4	@jinbojinbo	34.0	FM Jiner Zhu
5	@anasta10	34.0	GM Anastasia Avramidou

Other Category Leaders

Juniors: CM Artem Bardyk (60.0 points)

Seniors: GM Alex Rustemov (62.0 points)

Girls: WFM Megan Althea Paragua and WCM Veronika Shubenkova (31.0 points each)

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).

Nathaniel Green

Nathaniel Green is a staff writer for Chess.com who writes articles, player biographies, Titled Tuesday reports, video scripts, and more. He has been playing chess for about 30 years and resides near Washington, DC, USA.