Martinez's Fast Start Brings Tournament Victory
GM Jose Martinez won Titled Tuesday on May 26, starting off 9.5/10 before winning on tiebreaks over GMs Parham Maghsoodloo and Nihal Sarin. The spring split concludes with GM Sina Movahed atop the standings for a $5,000 prize. Next week, there is no active split, but the tournament prize fund increases to $10,000 weekly.
CCT Standings
Nihal's third-place finish wasn't quite enough to catch Movahed in the spring standings, but he still won a $3,500 prize for second place.
| Rank | Fed | Player | Points | Prize |
| 1 | GM Sina Movahed | 36 | $5,000 | |
| 2 | GM Nihal Sarin | 34 | $3,500 | |
| 3 | GM Arjun Erigaisi | 27 | $2,500 | |
| 4 | GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 26 | $1,500 | |
| 5 | GM Alexey Sarana | 25 | $1,000 | |
| 6 | GM Hikaru Nakamura | 24 | $750 | |
| 7 | GM Hans Niemann | 21 | $500 | |
| 8 | GM Parham Maghsoodloo | 19 | $350 | |
| 9 | GM Jose Martinez | 15 | $250 | |
| 10 | GM Tuan Minh Le | 15 | $150 |
Full Standings | Titled Tuesday Info | CCT Info | CCT Standings
The other spring split prize winners were:
Women
| Rank | Player | Points | Prize |
| 1 | GM Alexandra Kosteniuk | 56 | $2,000 |
| 2 | IM Polina Shuvalova | 35 | $1,500 |
| 3 | FM Anastasia Avramidou | 35 | $1,000 |
| 4 | IM Karina Ambartsumova | 26 | $600 |
| 5 | FM Rose Atwell | 24 | - |
| 6 | IM Le Thao Nguyen Pham | 24 | $400 |
Note: Rose Atwell's highest-value prize was 1st place in the Girls section, and players are only eligible to receive a single prize in a split.
Seniors
| Rank | Player | Points | Prize |
| 1 | GM Alexander Rustemov | 80 | $1,500 |
| 2 | IM Georgios Souleidis | 48 | $1,000 |
| 3 | GM Sergei Iskusnyh | 40 | $600 |
| 4 | IM Nikolai Vlassov | 38 | $400 |
Juniors
| Rank | Player | Points | Prize |
| 1 | GM Sina Movahed | 69 | - |
| 2 | IM Dau Khuong Duy | 60 | $1,500 |
| 3 | IM Faustino Oro | 42 | $1,000 |
| 4 | FM Roman Al Nosach | 35 | $600 |
| 5 | FM Havard Haug | 23 | $400 |
Note: Sina Movahed's highest-value prize was 1st place in the open section, and players are only eligible to receive a single prize in a split.
Girls
| Rank | Player | Points | Prize |
| 1 | FM Rose Atwell | 39 | $1,000 |
| 2 | WFM Anastasiia Hnatyshyn | 38 | $600 |
| 3 | WGM Afruza Khamdamova | 35 | $400 |
Tournament Recap
With 425 players vying for glory, six made it to 5/5, but only two got to 6/6. In the resulting seventh-round game between Martinez and GM Haik Martirosyan, Martinez broke through with 19.exd5, opening up the diagonal for his queen to threaten a check on g6. Martirosyan's open king was doomed.
Maghsoodloo took the first shot at Martinez, and the game turned on a single move. It's rare for castling to come so late, and it's rare for castling to be such a losing blunder, but that's what happened on move 28. Martinez reached an 8/8 score, taking advantage of a textbook case of "castling into it."
Martinez's lead over the field only grew with the result; Vokhidov was the only player besides Maghsoodloo who entered the round on 6.5/7, and he also lost. A full point behind Martinez was the winner of that game, GM Arjun Erigaisi, as well as Martirosyan, GM Benjamin Bok, and GM Khuong Duy Dau.
Martinez's perfect run finally ended in the ninth round, but he did make a draw against Khuong. Martirosyan lost to Nihal while Arjun won another game, against Bok, and became the only player on 8/9. In Arjun's attempt against Martinez in round 10, the aggressive 18...Qf6 only served to take a square away from his knight. Martinez continued building an advantage around the "knight on the rim" from there, converted, and with the win, clinched a share of first.
He didn't quite have it outright, as within a point still were Maghsoodloo and Nihal. Nihal would be Martinez's final test, while Maghsoodloo faced Arjun. Martinez seemed on his way to at least a draw when Nihal's 40...Nf4!! changed things completely.
The turnaround was not enough to ruin Martinez's tournament as the tiebreaks worked in his favor. Nihal even had to settle for third on the tiebreaks after Arjun made another unusually inexplicable blunder of a back rank mate in two to Maghsoodloo.
Another three players scored nine points: Bok took fourth, GM Frederik Svane fifth, and last week's winner, GM Alexey Sarana, sixth. The women's prize went to WGM Afruza Khamdamova.
May 26 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 25)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 24 | GM | @Jospem | Jose Martinez | 3185 | 9.5 | 79 | |
| 2 | 27 | GM | @Parhamov | Parham Maghsoodloo | 3169 | 9.5 | 74 | |
| 3 | 3 | GM | @nihalsarin | Nihal Sarin | 3314 | 9.5 | 71.5 | |
| 4 | 25 | GM | @GMBenjaminBok | Benjamin Bok | 3161 | 9 | 72 | |
| 5 | 39 | GM | @frederiksvane | Frederik Svane | 3124 | 9 | 69.5 | |
| 6 | 4 | GM | @mishanick | Aleksei Sarana | 3295 | 9 | 68 | |
| 7 | 26 | IM | @ChessFighter_2011 | Dau Khuong Duy | 3161 | 8.5 | 75 | |
| 8 | 28 | GM | @Shield12 | Shamsiddin Vokhidov | 3160 | 8.5 | 73 | |
| 9 | 8 | GM | @artooon | Pranesh M | 3223 | 8.5 | 71 | |
| 10 | 12 | GM | @FabianoCaruana | Fabiano Caruana | 3199 | 8.5 | 70 | |
| 11 | 18 | GM | @vi_pranav | Pranav V | 3164 | 8.5 | 65 | |
| 12 | 31 | GM | @Grandelicious | Nils Grandelius | 3124 | 8.5 | 62 | |
| 13 | 6 | GM | @Polish_fighter3000 | Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 3269 | 8.5 | 62 | |
| 14 | 20 | GM | @Micki-taryan | Haik Martirosyan | 3175 | 8 | 78.5 | |
| 15 | 2 | GM | @GHANDEEVAM2003 | Arjun Erigaisi | 3298 | 8 | 78.5 | |
| 16 | 1 | GM | @Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 3392 | 8 | 74 | |
| 17 | 10 | GM | @Sina-Movahed | Sina Movahed | 3209 | 8 | 72.5 | |
| 18 | 13 | GM | @Msb2 | Matthias Bluebaum | 3203 | 8 | 72 | |
| 19 | 7 | GM | @FairChess_on_YouTube | Dmitry Andreikin | 3233 | 8 | 71.5 | |
| 20 | 57 | GM | @Sam_ChessMood | Samvel Ter-Sahakyan | 3065 | 8 | 70 | |
| 21 | 53 | GM | @Byniolus | Zbigniew Pakleza | 3052 | 8 | 69.5 | |
| 22 | 125 | FM | @M_Pank_537 | Maksym Pankiv | 2912 | 8 | 69.5 | |
| 23 | 16 | GM | @BogdanDeac | Bogdan Daniel Deac | 3174 | 8 | 69 | |
| 24 | 74 | GM | @dretch | Conrad Holt | 3005 | 8 | 68 | |
| 25 | 50 | IM | @Turboplombir | Sergey Sklokin | 3074 | 8 | 67.5 | |
| 73 | 168 | WGM | @FARIZA2018 | Afruza Khamdamova | 2774 | 7 | 55.5 |
Prizes: Martinez $1,000, Maghsoodloo $750, Nihal $350, Bok $250, Svane $150, Sarana $100, Khamdamova $100. Streamers' prizes to be posted on the Events page.
Titled Tuesday is Chess.com's weekly tournament for titled players. It begins at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Standard Time.
Nathaniel Green is a staff writer for Chess.com who writes articles, player biographies, Titled Tuesday reports, video scripts, and more. He has been playing chess for about 30 years and resides near Washington, DC, USA.
