Firouzja Wins March 30 Titled Tuesday
GM Alireza Firouzja (@Firouzja2003) won the Chess.com Titled Tuesday tournament on March 30 with an undefeated 10/11 score. It was his second Titled Tuesday victory, after having won on June 23, 2020.
This week's Titled Tuesday tournament had a total of 740 participants. As always, it was an 11-round Swiss with a 3+1 time control.
This time, Firouzja managed to remain undefeated throughout the tournament. He started with seven wins, then drew twice, with GM Hikaru Nakamura and GM Aleksei Pridorozhni (@Alexsur1981), and next finished with two more wins.
In round two, he won with a nice little trick in the opening:
If you were wondering how these super GMs perform when given the basic endgame of bishop and knight vs. lone king, the answer is: perfectly—at least in Firouzja's case. He showed textbook technique and won it effortlessly:
A bamboozling game was the one between GM Daniel Naroditsky and Nakamura, where the wild tactics eventually led to a winning position for White. All the way to the end in a pawn endgame, Naroditsky continued to spoil things:
Another crucial encounter in this tournament was Firouzja's clash with Naroditsky in the penultimate round. The American was doing well during the first half of the game but eventually blundered in time trouble:
March 30 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)
| # | Rk | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | SB |
| 1 | 2 | GM | @Firouzja2003 | Alireza Firouzja | 3118 | 10 | 73.25 | |
| 2 | 43 | GM | @Alexsur1981 | Aleksei Pridorozhni | 2918 | 9.5 | 70.75 | |
| 3 | 29 | GM | @ChessWarrior7197 | Nodirbek Abdusattorov | 2921 | 9.5 | 66 | |
| 4 | 31 | GM | @Zhigalko_Sergei | Sergei Zhigalko | 2924 | 9.5 | 58.75 | |
| 5 | 42 | GM | @Eltaj_Safarli | Eltaj Safarli | 2903 | 9.5 | 58.25 | |
| 6 | 18 | GM | @igorkovalenko | Igor Kovalenko | 2951 | 9 | 64.25 | |
| 7 | 1 | GM | @Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 3200 | 9 | 64 | |
| 8 | 4 | GM | @DanielNaroditsky | Daniel Naroditsky | 3040 | 9 | 59.25 | |
| 9 | 24 | GM | @Beca95 | Aleksandar Indjic | 2916 | 9 | 52 | |
| 10 | 13 | IM | @wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 2998 | 9 | 50.5 | |
| 11 | 17 | GM | @Srinavasan | Undisclosed | 2985 | 8.5 | 57.75 | |
| 12 | 6 | GM | @BogdanDeac | Bogdan Daniel Deac | 3028 | 8.5 | 54.75 | |
| 13 | 12 | GM | @Alexander_Zubov | Alexander Zubov | 2990 | 8.5 | 51.75 | |
| 13 | 32 | GM | @Smirnov_Pavel | Pavel Smirnov | 2846 | 8.5 | 51.75 | |
| 15 | 61 | GM | @superchess02 | Undisclosed | 2820 | 8.5 | 50 | |
| 16 | 56 | FM | @liczner | Lukasz Licznerski | 2840 | 8.5 | 49.5 | |
| 17 | 9 | GM | @FairChess_on_YouTube | Dmitry Andreikin | 3002 | 8.5 | 48.75 | |
| 17 | 58 | GM | @Shield12 | Shamsiddin Vokhidov | 2837 | 8.5 | 48.75 | |
| 19 | 23 | GM | @EvgenyT | Evgeny Tomashevsky | 2933 | 8.5 | 48.5 | |
| 20 | 27 | GM | @BilodeauA | Kirill Alekseenko | 2895 | 8.5 | 48.25 |
(Full final standings here.)
Firouzja won $750 for first place, Pridorozhni $400 for second, GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov (@ChessWarrior7197) $150, and GM Sergei Zhigalko (@Zhigalko_Sergei) $100.
The $100 prize for the best female player went to WGM Nafisa Muminova (@Tenamu) who scored 8/11.
Titled Tuesday is Chess.com's weekly tournament for titled players. It starts each Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time (19:00 Central Europe).
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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