GMs Fabiano Caruana and Matthias Bluebaum have fallen out of contention in the ongoing FIDE Candidates Tournament. That didn’t stop them from trying their luck in 3 0 Thursday after completing their game in the Candidates. Both players played well in the second tournament but fell short in the end.
It was a past candidate who had the most successful day of blitz, as GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda improved on his second-place finish in the first tournament to win the second one. GM Tuan Minh Le beat Duda on tiebreaks in the first tournament, and IM Yoseph Thelifus Taher took his first 3 0 Thursday victory in the third event.
IM Meri Arabidze took the first women’s prize. IM Karina Ambartsova won her 12th women’s prize in the second tournament, and newly minted IM elect Rose Atwell took the prize in the third tournament.Â
1st Tournament: Minh Le Wins A Three-Way Tie
After seven rounds of the first event, it didn’t appear to be going Le’s way. He had just lost back-to-back games against GMs Alexey Sarana and Aravindh Chithambaram. However, his victories in the first five rounds meant that he was only one point off the lead. He corrected course in round eight against GM Alexander Rustemov, using the London System, one of his favorite openings.
In the very next round he faced the teenage 12-year-old FM Sergey Sklokin. Minh Le relied on another pet variation, the Nimzowitsch Sicilian, an opening that he recorded a lesson series on.Â
Le continued with a fortunate win in round 10, when FM Rustam Rustamov hung his queen in a possible mouse-slip. Finally, an 11th round win against GM Abhimanyu Puranik brought Le to 9/11 and better tiebreaks than Duda and GM V Pranav, who took second and third respectively.Â
2nd Tournament: Duda Faces The Candidates
Caruana and Bluebaum both scored well in their 3 0 Thursday tournament, after drawing their Candidates games earlier in the day. Bluebaum took third place with 8.5/11, defeating Duda in the final round. It wasn’t enough to catch the winner, as Duda had already scored a dominant 9/10 before that game. Even after the loss he had better tiebreaks than GM Jose Martinez, who took second place.
How did Duda score so well? He began by winning the first seven games of the tournament, including against Martinez, who had won four 3 0 Thursday events in the previous two weeks.Â
After an eighth-round loss against GM Parham Maghsoodloo, Duda faced Caruana, the only player besides Martinez to ever win two 3 0 Thursdays in the same day.
Duda defeated GM Benjamin Bok in the 10th round, ensuring at least a tie for first place. Despite his loss, only Martinez was able to catch Duda, but couldn’t pass him on tiebreaks.
3rd Tournament: Taher Takes His First Title
The third tournament was a big event for the non-grandmaster set. Taher, an IM, scored his first victory in a 3 0 Thursday. His 9.5 points was the highest score of any player on the day. Second place went to 15-year-old Norwegian FM Havard Haug, Haug recently defeated GM Magnus Carlsen in a 3 0 Thursday tournament and build on that success, beating another countryman, GM Aryan Tari, in the last round to end on 8.5 points. The lone GM to crack the podium in the tournament was Sanan Sjugirov, who recovered from a loss to Taher to reach eight points.
Taher won the event, while playing sharp and rare openings. In the 6th round he defeated GM Haik Martirosyan with the Hippopotamus Defense.Â
In the tenth round he caught Tari in a tactic in sharp Vienna Gambit.Â
Up-and-coming players like Taher and Haug will likely be GMs soon, but they are demonstrating that they don’t need to wait for the title to compete with the world’s best in online events.
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.
