Duda Domination Defeats Titled Tuesday Field

GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda impressively won Titled Tuesday on June 9 with a score of 10/11. He becomes the second player to win the new first-place prize of $2,500, and also the second player, after GM Javokhir Sindarov, to win three Titled Tuesdays in 2026. GM Sina Movahed finished on 9.5/11 for outright second place and a $1,500 prize, while GM Tuan Minh Le took third on tiebreaks and won $1,000, equal to the old first-place prize.

Recap

In a field of nearly 500 players, 16 of them got to take their first break with a perfect 4/4 score. Eight of them made 5/5 (two of them winning on time in drawn positions in round five). In round six, only two of those eight players won: Duda took down Movahed in a rather early matchup between ultimate first and second place, while GM Hikaru Nakamura was upset by GM Dau Khuong Duy. 

Khuong eventually finished in 16th place, good enough to win one of the new prizes, for highest-finishing youth player (age 16 or younger).

Playing to keep their perfect score going, Khoung and Duda were fairly equal out of the opening. But Duda began applying pressure, and his shot 40…Rg3! took advantage of a pin to trap the queen to clinch victory and 7/7.

Sliding in half a point back were Le, GM Rasmus Svane, and GM Bharath Subramaniyam. Duda got White against Le, and they reached a heavy piece endgame by move 21, with Duda briefly a pawn up. Mutual back rank blindness on move 24 was the only point where the game could have truly swung, but both players missed the moment, and the game ran its course as a draw.

Thanks to this draw, the perfect score bounty goes to $750 next week. To give you an idea of how this prize could evolve, had the bounty been put in place immediately after GM Magnus Carlsen became the most recent player to score 11/11, it would have been worth $7,500 in this week’s tournament.

Meanwhile, Bharath made an early blunder against Svane, but came back to win and tie Duda in the standings with 7.5 points entering the second break. 

Six players trailed the co-leaders on 7/8. In round nine between Duda and Bharath, Duda was again involved in missed tactics. This time, he would have been on the winning end, had he found 20.Qf3+ and 21.Re1+. Duda played the first move but not the second, but luckily for him, he was still able to better handle a complicated endgame and regained sole first place, which he would not relinquish.

His reward in round 10 was Black against Nakamura on 7.5/9, while the two players on 8/9, Le and Movahed, faced off. Not much happened in the draw between Movahed and Le, which was good news for Duda. Nakamura realized too late that Duda had 16…Ne8 to defend mate and even gain the advantage. It took a long time to show, and with both players under 30 seconds, the computer thought Nakamura missed a couple draws with Qd8+ (moves 69 and 72). Nonetheless, Duda finally pulled it off, and now led by a full point.

Svane joined Le and Movahed in the tie for second, but a draw with White is all Duda needed to clinch the tournament, and he successfully obtained a dull, lifeless position by move 17 to get it done. While Duda had already made a draw, and so the perfect score bounty was unavailable, it will be interesting to see how big it will get before people on 10/10 play for a win in round 11 instead of risking getting caught up to.

Anyhow, back in this tournament, Le plopped a rook on d6 against Lazavik, but didn’t have much once it was traded off. Movahed gained two bishops against Sarana’s two knights; they weren’t doing much of anything for a while, but their long-term advantages eventually played out. By the time Sarana traded one of them off, Movahed’s rooks dominated Sarana’s, and the game was soon over.

Once Le drew with Lazavik soon thereafter, Movahed clinched sole second on 9.5/11. Le still retained third place on tiebreaks despite six players catching up with him on nine points. You can see all the prize winners below the standings table.

Standings Table (Top 25)

Full final standings.