Artemiev Wins 1st Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix
GM Vladislav Artemiev became the winner of the first Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix, formerly known as Titled Tuesday. The Russian grandmaster beat his compatriot GM Sergey Karjakin in the final, an eight-player knockout held after 10 rounds of Swiss.
The next Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix will be played on June 9 at 10 a.m. Pacific / 19:00 Central Europe.
The very first Speed Chess Grand Prix tournament was held on Tuesday, June 2. It was a revamped version of Chess.com's good old Titled Tuesday, with more chess, more prize money, as well as Grand Prix points to be earned.
The live broadcast of the tournament.
Former world championship challenger Karjakin (@SergeyKarjakin on Chess.com) decided to try his luck this Tuesday evening (it started 8 p.m. Moscow time), and he ended up winning the Swiss segment of the event. He was the only player on 8/8, and then finished with two draws.
Many of his games showed wonderful determination, such as the following. After squandering a winning advantage in a rook endgame (missing a typical tactic), Karjakin just continued playing good moves, and won anyway:
Besides Karjakin, seven other grandmasters qualified for the knockout phase—the new addition to the tournament—including Artemiev (@Sibelephant) and also GM Anish Giri (@AnishGiri). This part of the tournament was played with all players visible via their webcams.
June 2 Speed Chess Grand Prix | Swiss Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Score | SB |
| 1 | GM | @SergeyKarjakin | Sergey Karjakin | 9 | 62.75 | |
| 2 | GM | @OparinGrigoriy | Grigoriy Oparin | 9 | 57.75 | |
| 3 | GM | @Sibelephant | Vladislav Artemiev | 8.5 | 54.75 | |
| 4 | GM | @abykhovsky | Anatoly Bykhovsky | 8.5 | 52 | |
| 5 | GM | @Shtembuliak | Evgeny Shtembuliak | 8.5 | 51.75 | |
| 6 | GM | @AnishGiri | Anish Giri | 8.5 | 51.5 | |
| 7 | GM | @VincentKeymer | Vincent Keymer | 8.5 | 49.75 | |
| 8 | GM | @vladislavkovalev | Vladislav Kovalev | 8.5 | 48.75 | |
| 9 | GM | @Bigfish1995 | Vladimir Fedoseev | 8.5 | 48.25 | |
| 9 | GM | @Radzio1987 | Radoslaw Wojtaszek | 8.5 | 48.25 | |
| 11 | GM | @Parhamov | Parham Maghsoodloo | 8.5 | 46.25 | |
| 12 | GM | @hanzo_hasashi1 | Nodirbek Yakubboev | 8.5 | 42.25 | |
| 13 | GM | @2Vladimirovich90 | Dmitry Andreikin | 8.5 | 39.25 | |
| 14 | GM | @Dr-Bassem | Bassem Amin | 8 | 49.5 | |
| 15 | GM | @Jumbo | Rinat Jumabayev | 8 | 48 | |
| 16-17 | GM | @Grischuk | Alexander Grischuk | 8 | 47 | |
| 16-17 | GM | @Konavets | Sam Sevian | 8 | 47 | |
| 18 | FM | @AlexSuv | - | 8 | 46.5 | |
| 19 | GM | @LittlePeasant | Alejandro Ramirez | 8 | 45.5 | |
| 20 | GM | @Rybka1989 | Petro Golubka | 8 | 44.5 |
The eight-player knockout starts with a round of quarterfinals, when a single 3+1 game is played with the higher seed having white. The winner moves on to the semifinals.
In case of a draw, a 1+0 sudden-death game is played with the same player starting with white, and then another one with reversed colors until someone wins. The semifinals and final are played over two 3+1 games and if needed, one or more 1+0 games.
This final in this first edition was played between two Russian top GMs, Artemiev and Karjakin. The latter had beaten GM Vladislav Kovalev (@vladislavkovalev) and GM Anatoly Bykhovsky (@abykhovsky), while Artemiev had eliminated Giri and then his compatriot GM Grigoryi Oparin (@OparinGrigoriy).
After a loss in game one (see below, alongside all other games of the final eight), Karjakin seemed to be scoring 1-1 with a crushing win until he suddenly went for the wrong plan:
The tournaments have a $50,000 prize fund spanning 20 weeks and will take place every Tuesday from June 2 through October 13—that's $2,500 in cash prizes available every week.
Artemiev won the $1,000 first prize, while Karjakin took second ($500). Oparin and Bykhovsky won $200 while the losing quarterfinalists got $100.
GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (@ChessQueen) won the $100 for best female player, while GM Alexander Zubov (@Alexander_Zubov) won the Chess.com streamers' prize of $100 that was given as 20 gifted subs to his channel.
Players will look to improve their season score, as their eight best individual performances and all bonus points will count towards the Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix standings. At the end of the season, the players with the four best grand prix scores will advance to the Speed Chess Championship to be hosted later this year.
Based on the points system mentioned above, here are the final standings of the tournament with grand prix points included:
June 2 Speed Chess Grand Prix | Overall Final Standings (Top 20)
| # | Fed | Title | Name | Username | Swiss Points |
Bonus Points |
Overall Points |
| 1 | GM | Vladislav Artemiev | Sibelephant | 8.5 | 12 | 20.5 | |
| 2 | GM | Sergey Karjakin | SergeyKarjakin | 9 | 8 | 17 | |
| 3 | GM | Grigoriy Oparin | OparinGrigoriy | 9 | 4 | 13 | |
| 4 | GM | Anatoly Bykhovsky | abykhovsky | 8.5 | 4 | 12.5 | |
| 5 | GM | Vincent Keymer | VincentKeymer | 8.5 | 2 | 10.5 | |
| 6 | GM | Vladislav Kovalev | vladislavkovalev | 8.5 | 2 | 10.5 | |
| 7 | GM | Anish Giri | AnishGiri | 8.5 | 2 | 10.5 | |
| 8 | GM | Evgeny Shtembuliak | Shtembuliak | 8.5 | 2 | 10.5 | |
| 9 | GM | Vladimir Fedoseev | Bigfish1995 | 8.5 | 0 | 8.5 | |
| 10 | GM | Dmitry Andreikin | 2Vladimirovich90 | 8.5 | 0 | 8.5 | |
| 11 | GM | Parham Maghsoodloo | Parhamov | 8.5 | 0 | 8.5 | |
| 12 | GM | Radoslaw Wojtaszek | Radzio1987 | 8.5 | 0 | 8.5 | |
| 13 | GM | Nodirbek Yakubboev | hanzo_hasashi1 | 8.5 | 0 | 8.5 | |
| 14 | GM | Maksim Chigaev | Fandorine | 8 | 0 | 8 | |
| 15 | GM | Rinat Jumabayev | Jumbo | 8 | 0 | 8 | |
| 16 | GM | Victor Mikhalevski | VMikhalevski | 8 | 0 | 8 | |
| 17 | GM | Petro Golubka | Rybka1989 | 8 | 0 | 8 | |
| 18 | GM | Alexander Grischuk | Grischuk | 8 | 0 | 8 | |
| 19 | GM | Alejandro Ramirez | LittlePeasant | 8 | 0 | 8 | |
| 20 | GM | Bassem Amin | Dr-Bassem | 8 | 0 | 8 |
Games final eight
The Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix is presented by Gambit, where you can play classic games like Reversi, Backgammon, and Oh Ship by playing with players from around the world.
More information about the Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix can be found here.
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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