My Round 1 of the 2024 Daily Chess.Com Championship: AKA How To Start Off a Tournament Badly

With the start of 2024, many things began: The beginning of the end of my winter break, the year 2024, and the 2024 Daily Chess.Com Championship. This tournament's divided into 4 rounds, and we'll be discussing my 1st round in it here.

Did I advance? Well... I dunno because the writing of this blog commenced well before round 1 had finished. But read on to find out.

My Division

My division was actually quite nasty, as we had three users with a rating over 1000. One of them was rated above 1800 elo in daily and 2200+ in rapid. As only the person/people who place number one in each division advance... I had basically no confidence that I'd be able to sneak into round 2.

Fortunately, my rapid rating is 1500 despite my daily rating being nearly 300 lower than that. I hardly play daily and did a grand total of 5 daily games in 2023, which is why my elo here lagged behind as my rapid rating skyrocketed.

In order to make it to the second of four rounds here I'd need to beat @Chessaholic_1 in one of our matches, or I'd have to draw both games against them. On top of that, I'd need to win as many games against the rest of my division as they did, and I assumed that would mean all of them.

So, I set out with the hope of defeating someone that's 2200 rapid and not fumbling against the rest of the field. The latter of those goals doesn't seem particularly impossible, but the former ensures that we're already starting off with at least one wildly unrealistic expectation.

The Timeouts

The Chess.Com Daily Championship events always feature an extraordinary amount of timeouts, as it's a one day "no vacation" tournament where you have to log in daily to move... Which is a bit sweaty but there's nothing wrong with being a big "nerd" like me.

Quite literally - as of the publication of this blog - around 584 thousand out of 690 thousand (85%) of games in the tourney were won or lost by timeout. And of my opposition, a huge amount of them were hardly opposition at all: Most of my division (7 people) timed out and forfeited within 6 moves. So, we were left with numerous genius tactical wins of mine just like the one below.

Despite this timeout, I think I managed to revitalize the game of chess with this incredible victory in 2 moves as I clearly deviated from theory greatly in this masterpiece and startlingly long game. But more seriously, there were sadly a large number of admittedly skilled users that actually played against me. So let's move onto my bouts against them.

The Cheater

Interestingly enough, one of the 400s in my division was a cheater: @CheckmareMaster got banned before round 1 had ended. Fortunately, they timed out against me in both matches after 6 moves, but I find it interesting how their opening knowledge impressed me and it turned it how I and the rest of my division dodged a bullet by not being embarrassed by that AI.

But it's easy to see how they get caught given this insane win percentage:

GeekRio: The Impressive Beginner

The only unrated player not to time out in my division was @GeekRio, and they actually put up a startlingly impressive fight against me. Well... Not in the first game. But their second match against me wasn't complete dominated by me despite the elo gap and their newness to chess (their account was formed only a couple weeks ago).

Here, GeekRio played a pretty bad opening and I punished him for it. It happens, and I've seen infinitely worse from other 400s so it's not that embarrassing. I mean, I still remember when I fell for the 4 move mate for the first time. And I fell for it again when I was 1200 hundred after I bonked my head, and booted up a game of chess. So, it happens.

I claimed victory in both games, but my opponent did a phenomenal job with the white pieces: It took me quite long to get a big advantage and only checkmated them after 37 moves.

If you're reading this, GeekRio, you played fabulously. Keep improving at chess: You're a great player for someone who joined Chess.Com just two weeks ago and all I'd say is to find another opening with black!

KingDolken: The Ever-Active 1000

In round 1, I also had to battle agains @KingDolken, who was a 1000 rated daily player. The sweaty user would make moves almost immediately after I made mine, and the cycle would go on for quite some time as I use this site a lot as well. On a more serious note though, kudos to KingDolken for being active: It made me worry that I would flag.

The first of our games to resolve ended in only 13 moves as KingDolken offered me a bit of an unnecessarily early resignation. I would've played it out a bit more as - despite being down a bit materially - it's still very winnable and you need as many wins as possible to advance.

KingDolken played well here until he blundered a bishop. Then, I was able to gobble up some of his pawns and simplify until I entered a completely winning endgame with two strong and connected passed pawns.

Overall, I was rather nervous about flagging but this match wasn't too difficult. I wouldn't say it was just a mindless guaranteed dub, but it was mostly smooth sailing. Strangely, I sadistically enjoyed piling pieces next to the pinned pawn that couldn't be taken without blundering the queen. But hey... A maximum of one player can win after all!

Benjaminkoptic: The Scary 1200

Though I had to beat an 1800 to advance, there was one other player who I was particularly worried about ruining my tournament @benjaminkoptic.

Benjamin's name was shockingly... Benjamin Koptic. And even though my rapid elo was way higher than this daily one, it's still hard to win with both colors on demand at any level against a moderately talented opponent. So, I was desperately worried my esteemed throwing skills would kick in.

In this first game, I used a new tricky variation of the Fried Liver - that was created by GM Aman Hambleton - to win a bishop early. Not only did Benjamin lose that bishop, but he hung a knight shortly after. At that point, I was up 5 points of material by move 12 and he resigned.

Here, Benjamin played the English and I utilized my typical counter: Exchanging my bishop for his knight to disrupt his pawn structure and then beginning to vie for the center. He blundered his bishop early on, though I gave it right back. Fortunately, I still entered a nice middlegame where I was up a pawn, castled, and where his d-pawn was basically undefendable.

Ultimately, my rooks infiltrated his side of the board and I converted my salivating position into a very winning endgame where I was up two pawns and had one that had his rook immobilized to stop it from queening. I was actually a bit irrationally anxious about winning this endgame even though Stockfish views it as -5. But Benjamin resigned, and now I'd advance if I scraped out just one win against Chessaholic.

Chessaholic_1: The overpowered 1800

Well... I had a perfect score against the rest of the field, but now I had to battle the powerhouse of my division: @Chessaholic_1. He was over 1800 in daily and above 2200 in rapid, which is more than a 700 elo difference between my rating in the latter format and his.

If I just eked out one victory against him or drew both games, I'd be guaranteed to advance. But I knew the odds of beating such a better player were slim.

I decided to play an aggressive variation of the London that revolves around launching an early kingside attack and either castling queenside or not at all. Sadly, I hunga a pawn on move 6 and fumbled even more from there as I allowed 15 points of material to target my king and blundered mate in 2.

I was losing throughout the whole game, but still had a solid chance at getting a dub after I formed a nice battery with my queen and rooks. But, after white played qd4+ I just trusted my intuition and not calculations by blocking with my queen instead of tucking my king away. Sadly, that was a massive blunder and caused me to lose my rook and knight.

On move 21, 21 hours ran off of Chessholic's clock before he moved, so I fought to the very end in the hopes that he'd flag. But I quickly walked into a checkmate after that and my first Chess.Com Daily Chess Championship ended in defeat.

Conclusion

Welp... There's always next year and hopefully I'll at least make it round 2 then. All my opponents were phenomenal... Mostly. But while I was able to triumph over most of them, I only got 2nd place in my division to the player who - unfortunately for me - didn't underperform: Chessaholic.

It was quite funny because I joined the tournament after I found it in @1ccb's profile and was barraged with 22 daily games around the start of 2024... Only for half the players to flag a couple days later.

But nah, the tournament was quite fun overall and I hope you enjoyed hearing what happened for me in the 2024 Chess.Com Daily Championship. If you liked this blog, feel free to follow or friend me and consider joining my blogging club: Me Like Blogging!