Lazavik Wins Titled Tuesday’s Top New Prize

The Esports World Cup qualifiers may have already been decided, but there was still much to play for in Titled Tuesday on June 2, with a new prize fund of $10,000. The new prizes attracted a field of more than 500 players for the first time since July 29, 2025, a 20% increase over last week. Among additions to the prizes include nearly as much money for first place ($2,500) as the entire previous fund ($3,000), as well as a jackpot for a 100% score that grows every week without a perfect 11/11. 

GM Denis Lazavik earned the first $2,500 first place prize of the new era with a 10/11 performance, winning by a full point. The victory was Lazavik’s 12th in his Titled Tuesday career, but first of 2026. Tiebreaks were needed to sort out second place after seven players scored 9/11, with GM Alexey Sarana leading the pack after defeating GM Arjun Erigaisi in the final round.

Recap

In the large field, 15 players started 4/4 to reach the first break undefeated, and seven of them returned from the break in similar form to reach 5/5. One of the least surprising was Arjun, with games like the quick second round knockout of FM Casper Liu.

By the end of six rounds, only three perfect players remained: Lazavik, Arjun, and GM Fabiano Caruana, who appears to be learning new skills as he was on the winning side of a dirty flag in the sixth round against GM Vidit Gujrathi. He wasn’t so lucky in the seventh round against Vidit’s compatriot Arjun, who moved to 7/7 after achieving queenside dominance out of the French Defense.

Lazavik also won, delivering Sarana’s first and only loss of the tournament and leading to a battle of 7/7 scores with Arjun. It was Lazavik who moved to 8/8, and crushingly to boot.

With Lazavik now in the sole lead, only GM Haik Martirosyan was half a point behind, while six players still had 7/8. Arjun was one, of course, as well as Caruana, who recovered to win with Black against GM Aleksandar Indjic. Martirosyan, meanwhile, had reached 7.5/8, also with Black, against GM Vladimir Fedoseev.

Coming out of the second break, Lazavik didn’t get anything going and made a draw with Martirosyan. (The perfect score bounty goes to $500 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 $7,250 in this week’s tournament.) Lazavik’s draw was still enough to maintain the lead on 8.5/9, but now three players trailed him—Martirosyan, Caruana, and Arjun.

With Black in round 10 against Caruana, another drawish game ended as such for Lazavik. Caruana briefly had an extra pawn in a rook ending, but the engine never saw a win. That dramatically wasn’t the case in Martirosyan vs. Arjun, the latter of whom settled for a repetition only a few moves after mate-in-four appeared on the board. To be fair, it was a puzzle-like mate he would have had to find in under 30 seconds:

And so Lazavik retained his half-point lead, with Fedoseev now also half a point behind him. Lazavik’s slow-but-steady draws in the previous two rounds paid off as he blew Fedoseev off the board and clinched the tournament.

Meanwhile, Martirosyan and Caruana drew, assuring a tie for second place, but the prize ended up going not to any of the four players who were in range of passing Lazavik in the final round. Instead, Sarana recovered from a draw in the second round and his loss to Lazavik in the seventh. Sarana’s win over Arjun eliminated Lazavik’s last competitor and earned Sarana $1,500.

Martirosyan took third and Caruana fourth. You can see all the prize winners below the standings table.

Standings Table (Top 25)

Full final standings.