Untitled Tuesday and Saturday recaps: July 4th and 8th
Apologies for the delayed report. We're all volunteers here, so sometimes things don't quite go according to plan, especially when work is lost due to Windows 10 restarting itself to apply updates.
The recap for the Tuesday event was written by @dpnorman.
The month of July left us with perhaps the most entertaining and bizarre event we've had yet, and undoubtedly no shortage of drama at the top of the standings. If you're reading this report as a member of the Untitled Tuesday group, you already know the drill, so let's get started:
Untitled Tuesday: July 4, 2017
The July Untitled Tuesday event, contested among 62 players, was probably the most entertaining event we've held yet. I can tell you that, as a writer for Untitled Tuesday, I had problems figuring out which games I wanted to fit into this article because there were too many important and interesting games to fit into just this article. The field featured three 2200+ players followed by a number of players in the low 2000s or high 1900s. The top of the standings went back and forth in the final few rounds as several key matchups helped determine the winner.
The field was more evenly spread entering the first round, but a few disasters led to withdrawals from some of the higher-rated players. The early rounds produced a couple of major upsets, mainly due to some surprising "D'oh!" moments by the favorites. In 3-minute blitz on the internet, all sorts of wild things can happen, although it seemed to be an early theme in this one:
Another major upset occurred when Greek-God (2144) went down to a 1600-player, Unic0rn1213, as an early Bxf7+ sacrifice didn't pan out as expected.
The very top of the standings, though, went largely as expected through the first few rounds. Dominus_et_Deus, DatualiSinsuat, and nissou-ach, the three players entering the event at over 2200, had 4, 4, and 3.5 points respectively through the first four rounds. One more player, Marignon, also had 4/4, and he faced off with Dominus_et_Deus in the fifth round. While it wasn't due to a simple oversight by any means, the underdog once again prevailed, as the lower-rated Marignon won a wild game:
Marignon played some of the most intriguing games of this tournament, and probably some of the longest, too. In the next round, he finally lost to 2200 opponent DatualiSinsuat, who was actually in a lot of trouble despite being up an exchange the whole gam until white made two blunders in a row.
This allowed DatualiSinsuat to take the lead temporarily, but after he lost to Dominus_et_Deus in a Tarrasch French, a huge logjam was created at the top. See if you can find the winning tactic (1300-level):
The deciding game in the last round was between Dominus_et_Deus (who won all his games apart from the loss to Marignon) and nissou-ach, the only remaining player who had yet to lose a game. Unfortunately for nissou-ach, who really did play a great event, he fell victim to a quick strike in the opening and never recovered.
Dominus_et_Deus finished in clear first with 7/8, the only blemish being his loss to Marignon. DatualiSinsuat finished in clear second with 6.5/8, and third place was split between Marignon, nissou-ach, Snow_Lion, and Mewtwo_EX.
Event link: https://www.chess.com/tournament/live/untitled-tuesday---july-2017-865663
Note: @LonerDruid was live-streaming this event. The archived videos are at part 1, and part 2. His streaming channel is at https://www.twitch.tv/thenextmove- check it out!
Saturday Event, July 8th
The recap for the Saturday event was written by @MGleason.
After three rounds, we had a three-way tie between @SmyslovFan, @LllionKing, and @Tudorache_M.
@SmyslovFan built the first lead due to a blunder from @Tudorache_M.
@drunkchesspirate stole a win when @LllionKing blundered a won endgame to stay right behind the leader.
