Fastest Piece Alive
Fastest Piece Alive
Recently, I played in a bullet tournament for 1500+. It was a small tournament with 6 rounds, 1-minute time control with no increments. But that tournament was probably the best bullet tournament that I've ever played in, minus the last game that I had.Â
A Quick Overview of Rounds 1-5
In the first round, I played black against an 1813 from Britain. He was rated much higher, but I was able to pull off a win on move 52 with 4 seconds on the clock and be tied with several people in first. I was also able to play over 90 % accuracy in the first round, which is difficult in bullet.Â
In the second round, I played black again against a 1788 from Ukraine. Another highly rated opponent, but I was on a role today and was able to win on move 48 with 11 seconds left. Additionally, it was another over 90% accuracy bullet game, which I don't do very often. So you can imagine that I was feeling pretty good to be still tied in first.
In the third round, I played against the strongest player I faced: a 1887 from Vietnam. I played with white, but I would lose from timeout in a position with mate in three. I dropped down to fifth place with my first loss.
The fourth round was crazy. I played black against a 1556 from India. I would be able to win by flagging him with only a second left on my clock. That win put me back on the podium, but it was a lot less accurate than my other wins.Â
The fifth round was the epitome of bullet chess. I played white against a 1746 from Spain. I went from completely losing, to somehow delivering checkmate on move 45 with 4 seconds left. It just goes to show that bullet can be unpredictable to the last second. Now, I was in second and fighting for first in the final round.
The Ultimate Speed
In the final match, I played against a 1641 from Vietnam with the white pieces. I began with c4, and black decided to play d5, an anglo-Scandinavian. I took, and he brought out Nf6. I played Nc3, and he took my d pawn and I took the center with d4. From there, we traded knights, I fianchettoed my light bishop, developed our minor pieces, and we both castled short. We both had about 50 seconds left.Â
I brought out my queen to b3, and black offered a queen trade, so I brought my queen back instead of trading. I would also fianchetto my dark square bishop, but black took control of the c file and played Rc2, so I also had to bring back my bishop. I was not making progress, but I was just going back and forward. Not the best way to play. I was even down some time with 39 sec vs 44.
Then, things got really chaotic with black doubling his rooks on the open file. He also attacked my rook, and I didn't want to keep going back and forth, so I put it on the second file. But instead of trading, he played Bc3, cutting off the doubled rooks to attack my rooks, but this allows me to play Rxc2 and pin the bishop. Now I'm winning, and we have used about half of our time.
Black doesn't even try to take my rook, but moves his second rook to be protected. This allows me to begin opening up my position and using tempo to activate my rooks to better squares.Â
Soon, I am able to trade his bishop off and I'm a bishop up in material. We have about 20 seconds left.Â
The game continues by trading rooks, and I am able to put my bishop on a better diagonal. All the while, black is kind of making passive moves because it is difficult to find the right moves. By move 30, we are down to 15 seconds each.
The game continues with some random moves. Black refuses to trade, and I have trouble opening the position. I decide to do something that only works in bullet. But a word of caution, the following diagrams and moves may be disturbing to some readers.Â
I decide to just go crazy with my knight and just play whatever I can with it, as I was down quite a bit of time, now less than 10 seconds. I would even be able to pick off enough pawns to be equal in materials for the knight that I lost by checking the king.
And I must say, in some respects, it might have worked because my opponent began playing really inaccurately after that and hung his queen. I was now up 12 points in material with 5 seconds vs my opponent with a knight and four pawn and double the time.Â
But little did I know, my opponent was about to use my own tactics against me...
My opponent just started moving his knight so fast. He literally used less than 2 seconds to make 7 deliberate moves with his knight. Especially on move 43, where he gave a check that I wasn't ready for, I would use 2 seconds to make one move. On move 47, I flagged with my opponent having 8 seconds remaining.Â
Conclusion
Now, I was able to finish the tournament with 4 wins and 2 losses and still was able to tie for second. I also lost both of my games playing the white pieces against players from Vietnam, which is an interesting coincidence. But most importantly, the knight unlocks some sort of superpower in the last 10 seconds of a game and quite literally becomes the strongest piece because of its difficulty to calculate in such a short amount of time and the quick L movement of the mouse.  
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But what are your thoughts on this game? What are your best knight moments? Let me know!
