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Minh Le Continues Blitz Run In 3 0 Thursday GM Tuan Minh Le followed up his Titled Tuesday victory by winning the first 3 0 Thursday tournament of the week on August 20. He's the fifth player to complete the Tuesday-Thursday double victory on the same week, joining the company of GMs Fabiano Caruana, Denis Lazavik, Arjun Erigaisi, and Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Duda also had a successful day, winning the second tournament. GM Aravindh Chithambaram was first among equals in the third event, edging out three other players on tiebreaks to take the title. First Tournament: Minh Le Undefeated Minh Le had a strong start to the first tournament, winning four games before giving up a draw to GM Maxim Matlakov in round five. He responded by winning a spectacular sixth-round game against GM Dmitrij Kollars, where he sacrificed both rooks for a mating attack. Another two wins brought Minh Le to 7.5/8, but draws in rounds nine and 10 allowed GMs Alexey Sarana and Nils Grandelius to catch him with 8.5 points. In the final round, Sarana defeated Grandelius, while Le faced GM Dmitry Andreikin. In the end, Le edged Sarana by just half a tiebreak point to take first place. Sarana settled for second, while GM Hikaru Nakamura took third with 8.5 points. IM-elect Rose Atwell took the women's prize with 7.5 points, the highest score by a woman competitor in any of the day's three events. Second Tournament: Duda In Clear First Duda was the day's only clear winner, winning in the first eight rounds in the second tournament, which he led the whole way. His eighth-round game against Aravindh earned a nearly-perfect 99.4 accuracy score from Game Review. Duda slowed toward the end, losing to GM Andrey Esipenko in round nine and drawing with GM Jose Martinez in round 10. That meant that he would need to win his final game against GM Oleksandr Bortnyk to ensure that no one could catch him in first place. Martinez took second place with nine points, half a point behind Duda. GM David Paravyan followed them with 8.5 points. GM Tan Zhongyi took the women's prize with six points. It was her fourth straight week taking the prize in at least one Thursday tournament. Third Tournament: Aravindh First Among Equals While Duda earned sole first in the second event, the third tournament saw a pile-up for first place. Aravindh emerged with the best tiebreaks, just ahead of IM Renato Terry, GM Jules Moussard and GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son. The fortunate tiebreaks shouldn't belittle Aravindh's accomplishment. He played some spectacular attacking chess, including a beautiful queen sacrifice to defeat IM Yoseph Taher in round eight. He followed up in round nine with a smooth game against GM Liem Le. While the top players all scored on 8.5 points in the end, Tan took the women's prize for the second time on the day with 6.5 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.