Untitled Tuesday and Saturday recaps - May 1st and 5th
The Tuesday recap was written by @SmyslovFan.
The very first Untitled Tuesday tournament was in May, 2017. It was a "test" event that featured 29 players, of whom 21 finished. This May, a year later, 36 players started the Untitled Tuesday tournament, and only 20 finished. Usernames change, but I only saw two players who participated in both events, myself and MGleason. In the last year, there have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, of players who have participated in these great monthly events.
This May's Untitled Tuesday event was one of the strongest events, with six players starting the event with a +2000 blitz rating, and the top seed (Scacchista89), sporting a very posh 2384 blitz rating! As so often happens in these Untitled Tuesday events though, lower rated players often perform quite well. In fact, only two of the top six seeds finished in the top six this time, and that's quite common.
The first round saw a major upset:
In round three, I played the second seed.
The tournament saw quite a few games where one side sacrificed a Rook for N. Sometimes there was enough compensation, sometimes there wasn't, and sometimes, the game just went crazy. Here's one from the third round where it's not clear at first whether the exchange sac was good:
The two perfect scores squared off in round five and BilboFlaggins created a masterpiece. For the record, it wasn't actually BilboFlaggins, but the engine he was using. He was banned shortly after the tournament. Nonetheless, this game is a thing of beauty. White already had a big edge by move 8, but the attack is really worth playing over:
There were two especially exciting games in round 7. UT regulars Schachmasteo and Lllionking put up an incredible fight that was finally determined by the clock.
The tournament standings after round seven showed that Scacchista was pulling away from the field.
The fight for first was decided in rounds 8 and 9. Here's the board one game for round 8:
And Enderao-Schachmasteo, a battle between third and fifth at the time, ended in a miniature:
Some players seemed to experience connection problems in this tournament. After Schachmasteo's excellent win in round 8, he withdrew. Kstorn also withdrew after forfeiting on board 2. Scacchista had an almost insurmountable lead after eight rounds, but six players were bunched up at 5.5 and 5 out of 8 fighting for second and third.
Round 9 was the pivotal round for most of the top players. On board one, Scacchista89 won the tournament with his victory over chessguy1012
Round ten was anti-climatic as most of the top players had already faced each other. There were some interesting match ups, but unfortunately, there were no great games in this last round. As an example. Scacchista, who had already won the tournament mathematically, played me and reached an inferior position only for me to blunder a piece to ruin the game.
Scacchista89 won the tournament with only the one loss to BilboFlaggins, who had been using an engine.
thomaswhitmann earned second with 7 out of 10 points, and freude34 won third place with 6.5 out of 10. The field was tightly bunched, with 4-7 scoring 6 and 8-10 scoring 5.5 points out of ten.
Only twenty players completed the event, and every player who finished won at least one and lost at least one game. As always, this was well run by MGleason, but some players complained of lag during the event, which may have contributed to some players dropping out.
A year after the first test event, there are still some bugs to be worked out, but the tournament is vibrant and attracts strong untitled players. Let's get more players involved to make the next year even better!
The Saturday report was written by @MGleason with game analysis by @kstorn.
The Saturday event was at an awkward time for North America, and some of our regulars from Europe and Asia were missing, so it was shortened to seven rounds due to the low turnout. However, despite the low turnout, there were several strong players, with @MrDodgy, @tevdore2, and @SmyslovFan being the top seeds.
In the first round, @Midav_Veahkar put up a fierce fight against @MrDodgy, but was ultimately outplayed:
@A-boy415 spotted a nice tactic against @tevdore2, but was unable to finish off his stronger opponent.
In the third round, @MrDodgy shared a draw with @SmyslovFan:
He followed this up with a win over @tevdore2:
@SmyslovFan beat @chess_pagol to keep pace at the top:
After four rounds, @MrDodgy and @SmyslovFan shared the lead on 3.5 points, while @tevdore2 and @losingforever were half a point back. @losingforever eventually finished tied for fifth place, and is probably the lowest-rated player to finish in the top five in an Untitled Tuesday event.
In the fifth round, @SmyslovFan beat @tevdore2:
@MrDodgy beat @losingforever, thus opening up a full point gap behind the pair at the top, with @chess_pagol sitting in third. However, a sixth-round win over @chess_pagol allowed @tevdore2 to reclaim third place:
@MrDodgy and @SmyslovFan also won, widening the gap to third.
In the final round, @MrDodgy beat @chess_pagol, while @Midav_Veahkar played spoiler and beat @SmyslovFan, giving @MrDodgy a clear win. Even a win would not have been enough for @SmyslovFan, however, due to @MrDodgy's superior tiebreak.
@MrDodgy won, @SmyslovFan came in second, and @tevdore2 took third.
