Nearly Perfect Sarana Tops Returning Carlsen

GM Alexey Sarana won Titled Tuesday on June 16 with a nearly perfect performance, scoring 10.5/11, with his only non-victory a draw against GM Magnus Carlsen in round eight. Carlsen, playing the full tournament for the first time in weeks, wasn’t too shabby himself, finishing in sole second place on 9.5/11. The victory was Sarana’s second in a month, as he also won on May 19.

Recap

Sarana and Carlsen were among 16 players to start 4/4 and six to reach 5/5. Facing IM Yoseph Theolifus Taher in the fifth round, Carlsen gave his opponent a chance to tactically win a pawn on move 33, but came back and locked in the win on move 62.

Carlsen’s sixth-round opponent, GM Christopher Yoo, got his bishop trapped out of opening, which Carlsen converted without trouble. He was joined by Sarana and GM Parham Maghsoodloo on 6/6, Maghsoodloo getting there in more interesting fashion:

In the next round, Carlsen got Black against Maghsoodloo, while Sarana had Black against Terry’s 5.5/6, but having the second move didn’t affect either player. Carlsen appeared to be getting one of his classic endgames with a small edge when Maghsoodloo blundered an exchange. Sarana kept pace when his passed d-pawn and active king were decisive against Terry.

No one had 6.5 points, so the Carlsen-Sarana matchup offered both players a chance to really start to pull away. If anyone was pushing for a win it was Sarana, but the game ended in a repetition, ending chances at seeing a perfect tournament and moving the bounty to $1,000 next week. (Already the same as the gap between first and second place, it will continue to grow by $250/week so long as 11/11 remains illusive.) The players remained in first place by themselves, but five players closed to within half a point: Taher, GM Sergey Drygalov, GM SL Narayanan, NM Ethan Sheehan, and GM David Paravyan. 

Coming out of the break, Drygalov got the shot at Carlsen, while Sarana faced Paravyan. Once again, Carlsen was slightly behind the proverbial eight-ball for much of the game, but Drygalov didn’t exploit it as accurately as he could. He also fell way behind on time, but still saved a draw with 20 seconds to spare. That gave Sarana the sole lead on 8.5/9 when he toppled Paravyan, leaving only Carlsen and Narayanan, who defeated Sheehan, on 8/9.

Naranyan vs. Sarana and Carlsen vs. Bluebaum headlined round 10, where Carlsen reached a completely winning pawn ending by move 35, but Sarana stayed in front with a shocking triple tactic: underpromotion, fork, and pin combining to win no less than a whole queen. Feel free to play the move yourself, even if we just gave away the answer:

Sarana now needed only one more win, against Maghsoodloo, to claim first prize. Only Magnus, facing GM Haik Martirosyan, could catch him, as the next closest players were 1.5 points behind Sarana. The tournament leader’s 35.h3 was sneaky, dangerous, and resulted in a pawn checkmate just four moves later when Maghsoodloo didn’t sense said danger.

Carlsen only drew with Martirosyan, but that was enough to lock in second place. Naranyan recovered to win with Black in the last round and take third place with better tiebreaks than GMs Alexander Grischuk and Zhamsaran Tsydypov, also on nine points. The full standings and prize tables are below.

Standings Table (Top 25)

Full final standings.