IM Reza Mahdavi followed up his win in the final 3 0 Thursday the previous week by winning the opening 3 0 Thursday on February 26. Not to be outdone, IM Renato Terry won the second tournament of the day with his record seventh title overall. GM Arjun Erigaisi joined the club, winning his inaugural Thursday championship in the third tournament.
On the women’s side, WIM Kalyani Sirin won prizes in the first and third event, giving her five in just the last three weeks. IM Karina Ambartsumova won the prize in the second event, giving her a record 11 victories to date!
1st Tournament: Mahdavi Comes Back To Take Another Title
Mahdavi won the final 3 0 Thursday tournament last week, and made it two in a row in the first tournament this week. He won his first three games, but then lost to GM Mahdi Orimi in round four. In the fifth round Mahdavi faced the strong FM Semyon Puzyrevsky, who tried the dubious and rare Latvian Gambit. Unfortunately for fans of this wild opening, Mahdavi played flawlessly and converted his extra material into a win.
Mahdavi’s chances looked bleak after a sixth-round loss to CM Nika Volkov left him two points behind the leader, GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda. However, Mahdavi won his final five games consecutively to catch the leaders, culminating in a short demolition of GM Hikaru Nakamura, who had been leading on 8.5/10.
That victory brought Mahdavi to nine points, enough to take first place on tiebreaks. Second place went to IM Yoseph Taher, who completed an even more staggering comeback, winning his final seven games to reach nine points. Arjun also recovered from an early loss to take third with 8.5 points.
2nd Tournament: Terry Wins 7th Thursday Tournament
Entering the day, Terry jointly held the record for 3 0 Thursday victories with GM Jose Martinez. However, Martinez held the momentum in their rivalry, having won twice since Terry’s last victory on January 22. Terry rarely had difficult in this tournament, winning seven games and drawing four. In retrospect, the key moment of the event came in round three when Terry overcame a dubious position to win an endgame against GM Cristobal Henriquez.
That game proved crucial as Henriquez scored 7/8 the rest of the way, catching Terry atop the standings and taking second on tiebreaks. Henriquez helped assure Terry’s tournament victory by defeating Martinez in the final round, who would also have reached nine points with a win.
GM Sergey Drygalov took third place with 8.5 points. He would have won the event were it not for a final round loss to GM Amin Tabatabaei.
3rd Tournament: Arjun Wins His First 3 0 Thursday
After two tournaments won by IMs earlier in the day, Arjun showed that the top classical players are strong at blitz as well. Arjun won his first five games, including a nice fourth-round victory against IM Aaron Mendes, one of the participants in the upcoming Chesskid Youth Championship.
Arjun’s tenth round game against IM Vidyarthi Vyom secured the lead before the last round.
Arjun won again in the final round against IM Satria Cahaya to reach nine points and sole first place. His co-leader GM Tuan Minh Le only drew, and had to settle for third place with 8.5 points, just behind the other co-leader GM Oleksandr Bortnyk, who took second.
3 0 Thursday is a set of three weekly Swiss tournaments for verified titled players featuring their favorite time control. Each of the three tournaments is an 11-round Swiss with a 3+0 time control. The combined prize fund is $3,000 every week.