GMs Jose Martinez and Alexey Sarana have been scoring victories in 3 0 Thursday tournaments since the very first day of the event, and both players added to their trophy cases on May 7. Sarana won the first tournament of the day before finishing half a point behind Martinez in the second event. Martinez won the third tournament as well, his 12th title overall, tying him with IM Renato Terry for the most first-place finishes in Thursday blitz tournaments.
First Tournament: Sarana First Among Equals
In the first event of the day, Sarana scored an undefeated 9/11. He started with five wins and then cruised at the end with four draws and two victories in the last six games. He scored a beautiful win in the third round, with a brilliant rook sacrifice against GM Alexander Rustemov.
Sarana’s performance seemed unlikely to be enough to win the tournament as GM Matthias Bluebaum led the event with 8.5/10 heading into the final round. Bluebaum faced GM Aravindh Chithambaram in that critical game, and he wasn’t able to secure tournament victory.
That victory brought Aravindh to nine points, tied with Sarana and IM Reza Mahdavi. Sarana took first on tiebreaks, with Aravindh in second and Mahdavi in third. Bluebaum, who led for much of the event, had to settle for fourth place. IM Mai Narva scored seven points to take the women’s prize for the first time.
Second Tournament: Martinez Back On Track
Entering the day, Martinez hadn’t won a 3 0 Thursday tournament since April 2, a drought by his impressive standards. His odds looked slim after an opening-round loss, playing down nearly 500 rating points against IM Deysi Cori.
Cori proved that her win wasn’t a fluke, defeating GM Markus Ragger in the next round, before slowing down and finishing the tournament with an even score.
Martinez bounced back from his opening-round defeat by winning his next eight games! In the tenth round he pressed for a win against Sarana, but wasn’t quite fast enough to win after 106 moves.
Heading into the final round Martinez led Sarana and FM Havard Haug by half a point. Martinez sacrificed an exchange against GM Oleksandr Bortnyk to score an impressive win and secure tournament victory.
Martinez’s win meant that no one could catch his 9.5 points. Sarana won to take second with nine points, followed by Haug with 8.5. IM Karina Ambartsumova took the women’s prize with six points, a record 15th prize for her in a 3 0 Thursday tournament.
Third Tournament: Martinez Goes Back To Back
Martinez didn’t need a big winning streak in the third tournament of the day. He went undefeated, mixing wins and draws on his way to 8.5 points. He had a critical game in the eighth round against Terry, who’s always a force in 3 0 Thursdays.
IM Yoseph Theolifus Taher led the event with 8/10 prior to the final round, but GM Haowen Xue, the highest-rated player in the tournament, defeated him to reach 8.5 points himself. Martinez had to win on demand with Black against FM James Chirilov to keep pace.
Martinez had the better tiebreaks, allowing him to take first place ahead of Xue. GM Andrew Hong took third with eight points, edging out Taher, Terry, and FM Ethan Guo on tiebreaks. FM Anastasia Avramidou won the women’s prize in the third tournament for the second straight week, scoring six points.
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.
