Dmitry Andreikin Snags 5th Masterclass Titled Tuesday Victory
Four Titled Tuesday veterans triumphed over 184 other titled contenders in an American Independence Day edition of the internet's largest regular online chess tournament. GM Dmitry Andreikin secured his fifth victory in 4 July's MasterClass Titled Tuesday Blitz. Only GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Georg Meier have more wins to their credit.
Our three other victors were GM Akshat Chandra and IMs Vladimir Seliverstov and Minh Le. The champions 8/10 in what proved to be a thrilling and messy tournament, full of more upsets and oopses than usual.
The most notable upset was Nakamura, who won his first three games including this scary encounter versus GM Jaan Ehlvest.
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Unfortunately, having escaped Ehlvest, Nakamura dropped a draw and was then defeated in round five by GM Ivan Saric in this mud-slinging duel in which a decisive advantage was exchanged between the players multiple times.
Saric is no stranger to upset, in the 2015 chess Olympiad, he defeated World Champion Magnus Carlsen, becoming the 99th player in the elite Chigorin club which consists of players who have defeated reigning world champions.
Nakamura was then also defeated in round seven, provoking an early withdrawal.
GM Ivan Saric may have 99 problems (or not), but defeating a World Champ isn't one.
At that point, many players were in hot contention for first. GM Sergei Azarov won his first four and collected two more wins before dropping this bomb on Andreikin to snag a nice half-point.
Azarov went into the last round in the lead with Andreikin and Chandra and looked for the longest time to be likely to grab the full point here and at least a share of first place...
That allowed Minh Le to move to 8/10, which looked to be good for 2nd as Chandra hit Andreikin with a simple tactic and was well on his way to victory. We'll let GM Eric Hansen take it from there...
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Andreikin did indeed hold the draw, plopping himself and Chandra into that 1st place podium where they were joined by Keranke as he bested IM Guillermo Vazquez.
Final Standings | MasterClass Titled Tuesday Blitz, July 2017
| Place | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Score |
| 1 | 6 | GM | 2Vladimirovich90 | Dmitry Andreikin | 8 | |
| 2 | 12 | GM | AkshatChandra | Akshat Chandra | 8 | |
| 3 | 18 | IM | Keranke | Vladimir Seliverstov | 8 | |
| 4 | 11 | IM | wonderfultime | Minh Le | 8 | |
| 5 | 5 | GM | SergeiAza | Sergei Azarov | 7.5 | |
| 6 | 2 | GM | OparinGrigoriy | Grigoriy Oparin | 7.5 | |
| 7 | 42 | GM | Msb2 | 7.5 | ||
| 8 | 24 | GM | Muisback26 | Rauf Mamedov | 7.5 | |
| 9 | 17 | IM | renatoterrylujan | Renato Alfredo Terry Lujan | 7.5 | |
| 10 | 181 | IM | gena217 | Guillermo Vazquez | 7 | |
| 11 | 23 | GM | BilodeauA | Kirill Alekseenko | 7 | |
| 12 | 49 | GM | ChessQueen | Alexandra Kosteniuk | 7 | |
| 13 | 35 | FM | Witik | 7 | ||
| 14 | 84 | FM | popov_m | Михаил Попов | 7 | |
| 15 | 31 | GM | Gabrielian_Artur | Артур Габриелян | 6.5 | |
| 16 | 104 | GM | TregubovP | 6.5 | ||
| 17 | 180 | NM | JeffReinberg | 6.5 | ||
| 18 | 54 | IM | kleinebeer98 | Thomas Beerdsen | 6.5 | |
| 19 | 26 | FM | DrVelja | Velimir Ivic | 6.5 | |
| 20 | 13 | GM | Elshan1985 | Elshan Moradiabadi | 6.5 | |
| 21 | 22 | GM | Noukii | Yannick Gozzoli | 6.5 | |
| 22 | 44 | GM | Indianlad | Mystery Man | 6.5 |
Find the full standings and results here.
The full tournament with commentary from GM Eric Hansen, the sharpest blitz commentator in the known and unknown galaxies, is available on Twitch.tv/chess.
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Prize money is always split evenly in Titled Tuesday so GMs Andreikin and Chandra and IMs Seliverstov and Le each won $325 while a large split for 5th place collected GMs Azarov, Grigoriy Oparin, Mathias Bluebaum, and IM Renato Lujan $20 each. The monthly streamer's prize goes to GM Krikor Mekhitarion for his popular Portugese stream, available here.
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