So here's how my 2022 Daily Chess Champs went...

It’s become tradition for me to join the annual Chess.com Daily Chess Champs, and 2022 was no exception. 22 games kick off simultaneously on 1 January, and for the next month it’s a mad scramble to juggle games while trying not to time out in the 24-hours per move time control.

This year’s competition had a record-breaking 33633 (!) participants and this meant that I started as top seed in my group, outrating the second seed by a considerable 200 rating points. Since only one player per group advances to round 2, this put me in a good position… as long as I didn’t slip up in any of the games.

The first slip-up didn’t take too long to rear its ugly head - after winning 10 games through opponent timeout (or 2-move resignation), my first proper game ended abruptly when I blundered my QUEEN against a player rated 1364 at the time (and 678 in the seedings). If it sounds strange that a titled player blundered a queen in daily chess, here’s the game with an explanation for what I think went wrong!

The next two games to finish were against the second seed in the tournament, who timed out just out of the opening - material was equal in both games, but I had a positional advantage in both of the games. With 400 rating points now separating me and the next highest rated player in the group, there was still hope of advancement to round 2 - after all, I wouldn’t be blundering my queen again!

Two days later I got a nice win in a game where I was able to punish my opponent for playing f6. Even though I didn’t attack or convert the game in the most accurate manner, I was still able to win my opponent’s queen via a skewer, and then get a nice-looking checkmate.

I followed up with a win against the same opponent - after missing a tactic, that I present below as a puzzle, I was still able to win a piece, and finish off with a nice little sequence - see if you can spot it yourself!

Try spot why 12.b4?? Is such a blunder

White has just played 26. Rh1 to attack the bishop on h4. What should black do in this position?

My second slip-up happened against the same opponent I blundered my queen against (now rated nearly 1600) - this time I blundered my bishop to a simple puzzle-rush tactic, and a few moves later I was finished off with another tactic that I didn’t spot (my opponent kindly informed me via chat that I could resign because they’d spent 20 minutes looking at all of the possibilities - see if you can spot the winning combination faster than that!)

Black has just captured one of the passed pawns on d6, and has evaluated that there might be chances with white’s exposed king and undefended rooks after some exchanges on f7. What’s white’s most efficient way to get the job done and eliminate any counterplay?

By now, having lost twice to the same opponent (who had thus far only lost one other game vs a player I was still fighting against), chances of progressing to round 2 were looking even less likely than Nepo’s World Champ title hopes after Game 8 in the 2021 match. Four time-out wins were therefore welcome, but not at all satisfying.

The first win was in a game where I had gained material but been stressed in the middlegame, but in the final position I was up a rook, knight and three pawns, and a win was the likely outcome regardless of any time considerations.

Similarly, the second game was (if you’ll excuse the pun) only a matter of time - while the engine gives the final position an evaluation of Mate-in-9, I have no doubt I would have been able to convert the win in the next 10-15 moves. 

If you’re up for a challenge, see if you can find the mate-in 9 in this position!

Third of this batch of timeouts was a game where I had a completely winning endgame that also shouldn’t have given me any trouble to convert (unless I blundered back-rank mate). 

And the final timeout was a game where I’d need to be careful with the queens and rooks still on the board, but the hanging pieces I’d won or forked earlier in the game should have been enough to secure me the win.

It soon came down to two games which were only a matter of pride, as the opponent I’d gifted a queen and bishop to had won my group with a score of 21/22. Both games were tricky throughout, and I’m embarrassed to see how many tactics I missed for both sides. Here’s just one example - I’d like to think I’d never miss this in a puzzle rush, but sadly here I was scrambling to equalise what I thought was a worse position for me.

Black has just played 32…fxe4 and both queens are under attack. What should white do?

Both games were similar in that they ended up in tricky endgames that I told my Twitch chat I wasn’t even sure if I was playing for a win or a draw. Uncharacteristic for my usually Daily Chess gameplay, I even resorted to using the analysis board and saving my analysis in both games so that I didn’t forget what I was planning on doing. That being said, I still didn’t spend hours analysing the positions as I could’ve (and maybe should’ve, as a calculation and endgame exercise), so I was very relieved when I was able to get a win from what the engine now tells me was a drawn position, and I was a bit disappointed that my opponent spotted all my tactics to get a draw in a position I had thought I might have a couple of chances in (after previously being completely lost). I leave the two endgames here for you to have a look at or work out yourself, if interested.

All in all, it was a rollercoaster of a tournament, and although I’m disappointed not to have made it to round 2, I can’t complain too much as I bettered my 2021 score where I ended on 17/22 (compared to this year’s 19.5/22). I can see how much 2 years without serious OTB chess has affected my calculation ability, and hopefully I’ll return much stronger in 2023 now that OTB events are starting to return in South Africa.

Let me know in the comments how your 2022 Daily Chess Champs went, and if you’ve made it to Round 2, I’d love it if you send me your best (or most instructive/confusing) games from next round so I can feature them in future blog posts or Youtube videos. Whether or not you got to round 2, I hope you all had fun in the event, and I wish you all the best for your chess in 2022!