Lazavik Completes Dominant Week With 3 0 Thursday Victory

GM Denis Lazavik, who won Titled Tuesday this week with a dominant 10/11 score, repeated the performance in the first 3 0 Thursday tournament on June 4, scoring another 10 points to take clear first place. The second and third tournaments of the day both came down to tiebreaks: GM Christopher Yoo won his first 3 0 Thursday by catching FM Havard Haug in the final round and IM Renato Terry won the final tournament of the day for the second straight week. That was his 14th tournament win, tying GM Jose Martinez for the most in the history of the event.

First Tournament: Lazavik Continues Winning Streak

Fresh off his Titled Tuesday win, Lazavik continued his good form in the first 3 0 tournament. He won his first eight games and then cruised to victory with two draws and a win to end the event. His most critical test came in round seven against GM Oleksandr Bortnyk, his closest pursuer throughout the tournament. By move five, they reached a position where Bortnyk has more experience than all other top players combined, as the database will attest.

Despite that loss, Bortnyk managed to keep the pace afterward, finishing with 9.5 points and forcing Lazavik to continue his strong play in the later rounds, such as in this battle with GM Matthias Bluebaum.

GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son took third place with nine points, behind Lazavik and Bortnyk. IM-elect Rose Atwell took home the women's prize with seven points, her third in the last two weeks.  

Second Tournament: Yoo Catches Haug In Photo Finish

He ended up in fourth, but Havard Haug was the story of the second tournament of the day. The 15-year-old Norwegian missed the first round but then won nine games in a row. He defeated Yoo in the eighth round in a sharp Sicilian Dragon.

Haug continued his streak from there, defeating GMs Parham Maghsoodloo and Bortnyk to reach 9/10. However, Haug's good fortune finally ran out in the final round, when he lost a tough endgame against GM Jonas Buhl Bjerre. That allowed Bjerre to catch him on 9/11. Bortnyk defeated IM Aleksandr Usov to join the crowd on nine points, while Yoo defeated IM Patryk Cieslak to join the leaders. Perhaps his most exciting game was his fourth round battle with GM Dmitrij Kollars. 

Yoo finished with the best tiebreaks to claim first place, followed by Bjerre and then Bortnyk and Haug. IM Karina Ambartsumova took the women's prize with 6/11, her amazing 18th prize in the event!

Third Tournament: Terry Wins Final 3 0 Thursday For Tenth Time!

Terry won the third tournament of the day for the second straight week. The last event of the day is his specialty, as the third event accounts for 10 of his 14 total victories in the tournament. The key matchup of the day came in the seventh round, when Terry somehow held on and won from a miserable position against GM Benjamin Bok. 

Bok recovered from the defeat and finished with nine points, which meant that Terry had to win with Black in the final round to keep pace. It was a tall task on the black side of the Exchange French against GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, but Terry got it done.

That win brought Terry to nine points, where he passed Bok on tiebreaks to take first place. GM Andy Woodward finished third with 8.5 points and WFM Hoang Minh Tho Do won the women's prize with 6.5 points, her fourth Thursday prize to date.

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.