Titled Tuesday: Salem Saleh's Almost Perfect Prep For Abu Dhabi Super Blitz Challenge
GM Salem Saleh's preparation for today's Abu Dhabi Super Blitz Challenge couldn't have been better. The UAE resident won April's second Titled Tuesday tournament alone with 8.5/9 after winning his first eight games.
With another Titled Tuesday yesterday, Chess.com moved the tournament to a weekly event—with an increased prize fund of $1,600. The tournament again broke its record for the number of participants: from 888 last week to a staggering 1,126 yesterday!
Saleh was in fantastic shape as he rolled up player after player with solid games that were decided by accurate calculation. Only in round eight, he got into big trouble against GM Vladimir Fedoseev (@BigFish1995) and was on the verge of defeat, but in a crazy time scramble Caissa was still on his side:
Even in the final game, when he faced world number-four GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, Saleh was doing well when his opponent made a mouse slip on move 11. However, it's understandable that he took the draw:
Saleh won the $750 first prize for finishing clear first with 8.5/9. A group of seven grandmasters, including Nepomniachtchi and GM Gata Kamsky (@TigrVShlyape), scored half a point less and all won $92.86.
GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (@ChessQueen) won the $100 prize for the best female player, and Nepomniachtchi won the Chess.com streamers' prize of $100 that was given as 20 gifted subs to his channel.
In what was yet another strong field full of world-class grandmasters, many of them stumbled somewhere along the way. GM Anish Giri, for example, was dealt with a tactical blow that didn't win straight away but set the tone for the remainder of his game in round seven.
GM Alexander Grischuk won an exciting game in round eight, where first White faced a battery over the light squares and then he got an identical attack himself:
And, last but not least, an amazing endgame between GM Hikaru Nakamura and GM Aryan Tari. A piece down, the Norwegian grandmaster found a fortress based on a stalemate idea which was the same as in the game Fichtl-Hort, Czechoslovakian Championship, Kosice 1961 as e.g. mentioned in the excellent book "Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics."
The same position, mirrored, as Fichtl-Hort 1961 - know your stalemates! https://t.co/RH3B7cqURs pic.twitter.com/2XXMHe1UMw
— Daniel King (@DanielKingChess) April 14, 2020
April 14, 2020 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Players on 7.5 or more)
| # | Fed | Title | Name | Handle | Rtg | Pts | SB |
| 1 | GM | Salem Saleh | @Arabicfalcon | 2936 | 8.5 | 47.5 | |
| 2 | GM | Zaven Andriasian | @Zaven_ChessMood | 2926 | 8 | 48.75 | |
| 3 | IM | Dmitry Obolenskikh | @okriak | 2845 | 8 | 48 | |
| 4 | GM | Ian Nepomniachtchi | @lachesisQ | 3111 | 8 | 44.5 | |
| 5 | GM | Giga Kuparadze | @GigaQuparadze | 2935 | 8 | 44 | |
| 6 | IM | Abdulla Gadimbayli | @GadimbayliA | 2912 | 8 | 42 | |
| 7 | GM | Jose Eduardo Martinez Alcantara | @Jospem | 2924 | 8 | 41.5 | |
| 8 | GM | Gata Kamsky | @TigrVShlyape | 2881 | 8 | 40 | |
| 9 | GM | Jeffery Xiong | @jefferyx | 2904 | 7.5 | 42.25 | |
| 10 | GM | Samvel Ter-Sahakyan | @Sam_ChessMood | 2917 | 7.5 | 41.75 | |
| 11 | GM | Yasser Quesada Perez | @YQPerez | 2985 | 7.5 | 41.5 | |
| 12 | GM | Alexander Grishuk | @Grischuk | 3090 | 7.5 | 40.75 | |
| 13 | GM | S.L. Narayanan | @Indianlad | 2973 | 7.5 | 40.5 | |
| 14 | IM | Sergey Drygalov | @sergoy | 2905 | 7.5 | 39.75 | |
| 15 | GM | Maksim Chigaev | @Fandorine | 2921 | 7.5 | 39.25 | |
| 15 | GM | Le Quang Liem | @LiemLe | 3007 | 7.5 | 39.25 | |
| 17 | GM | Kirill Alekseenko | @BilodeauA | 2912 | 7.5 | 38.25 | |
| 18 | IM | Tuan Minh Le | @wonderfultime | 2948 | 7.5 | 36.5 | |
| 19 | GM | Oleksandr Bortnyk | @Oleksandr_Bortnyk | 3034 | 7.5 | 35.25 | |
| 20 | GM | Vladimir Fedoseev | @Bigfish1995 | 3090 | 7.5 | 34.25 | |
| 20 | GM | Georg Meier | @GeorgMeier | 3050 | 7.5 | 34.25 |
See also:
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.”
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