Sina Movahed, the 15-year-old Grandmaster from Iran, shocked the world number one Magnus Carlsen with a perfect game enroute to his victory at the latest Titled Tuesday.

The 15-year-old prodigy earned 10.5/11 to register a dominant victory in the weekly tournament. This is now the first time that a player has scored 10.5 in Titled Tuesday. Carlsen finished second with 9.5 points. The win helped Movahed secure $1000 as prize money.

Movahed terms Carlsen’s opening dubious

Movahed met Carlsen in the seventh round of the tournament. The Iranian played with white and started the standard e4 to which Carlsen replied with the Sicilian defence. However, Movahed termed Carlsen’s opening ‘dubious’.

“This is not something I expect, but in blitz I feel like I have really great chances, especially online. The opening he chose [today] was also very dubious,” the Iranian GM said after his win as per Chess.com.

His performance against Carlsen was described as “masterpiece” by English Grandmaster David Howell. Movahed achieved 100% accuracy in his win where he put Carlsen under pressure early on and even though he was down a pawn in the midgame, he set things up nicely to earn a big win.

Despite scoring 10.5 in 11 rounds, Movahed was not happy with his performance in the early rounds. “The first four rounds were terrible, I could have lost any of them,” he said about his accuracy.

Movahed started with eight straight wins before being held on to a draw by Greek Grandmaster Nikolas Theodorou in the round. That was a small setback for the 15-year-old who still managed to finish a full point ahead of Carlsen to win the tournament.

Movahed recently also won the Under-16 ChessKid Youth Championship and is emerging as a solid young talent. With his home country Iran in turmoil after attacks from the United States and Israel, Movahed carries on with his focus totally on chess.

“I just play chess—this is my work—so I don’t really have thoughts on that,” said Movahed on the ongoing conflict between Iran and US-Israel.