Moussard Wins Titled Tuesday – Chess.com

GM Jules Moussard became the latest first-time Titled Tuesday winner on June 23, taking home the tournament by a full point on a 10/11 score. Moussard is the third player to join the ranks of first-time Titled Tuesday victors in 2026, joining GMs Zhamsaran Tsydypov (March 24) and Haik Martirosyan (April 14). GM Denis Lazavik and IM Renato Terry completed this week’s podium with the best tiebreaks in a group of six players on nine points.

Recap

The 18 players on a perfect score after four rounds dwindled to two after the sixth, the only survivors being Moussard and GM Matthias Bluebaum. Moussard did so with Black by barreling over GM Dmitry Andreikin in 27 moves.

It was actually Bluebaum who won the seventh-round matchup with Moussard, but he would lose his perfect score in bizarre fashion in round eight, simply hanging a rook against GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda. (With that, the perfect score bounty moves to $1,250 next week, a 50% bonus on standard first place if it’s achieved.) Terry joined Duda in the lead share entering the second break, but the other player with a chance to do so, GM Rinat Jumabayev, lost to GM Oleksandr Bortnyk.

Terry got White against Duda coming out of the break. He didn’t get much out of the opening, but the tide began to turn his way thanks to better pawns and a more active rook.

Moussard continued to recover from the seventh round with his second straight win, while Bortnyk won his eighth game in a row, against GM Bardiya Daneshvar, as the two moved to 8/9, a half-point behind Terry.

It was Bortnyk whom Terry faced in round 10, with Moussard taking on Duda. As Black, Terry got the worst out of an unusual French Defense and then, like Bluebaum a couple rounds earlier, made an uncharacteristic blunder. The mate-in-one gave Bortnyk his ninth straight win but not the sole lead, as Duda did not correctly handle Moussard’s 31…Bc5!! and lost soon after.

Back in a share of the lead, Moussard faced Bortnyk in the final round in a good old-fashioned battle between co-leaders (as opposed to the common situation of having played earlier and facing different opponents at the end). Stakes where they were, naturally the opening was the Four Pawns Attack in Alekhine’s Defense, where Black provokes White into a loss of impulse control. Such openings put pressure on Black to survive until the right counterattacking moment, but that moment never quite came for Bortnyk, and Moussard’s central mass of pawns ended up being decisive.

None of the three players who were half a point back entering the round—Terry, Xue, and Le—won, with the first two drawing with each other and Le dropping his game to Lazavik. Lazavik’s win actually earned him second place, passing Terry and Bortnyk on tiebreaks. Le allowed his king and last bishop to get forked, then resigned instead of defending a bishop-and-knight mate attempt from Lazavik, as Le would certainly have just lost on the clock at best.

Standings Table (Top 25)

Full final standings.