The History of Atomic World Championships
Before I start, I would like to credit @JkCheeseChess for inspiring me to write this with his blogs on the 4PC bots and the evolution of chess engines . I do not intend for this blog to be plagiarism of his blogs in any form and strongly recommend that you take some time to read his blogs.
Another thing I would like to point out before I start is that I am only 1900 atomic on Lichess so my understanding of the game is quite limited. My comments on the matches may not be the best quality.
Introduction
If you have played some chess variants on the Chess.com variants page before, you would likely be familiar with the variant atomic chess. Those who have played it know how easily it is to be dead lost, if not already lost, before the end of the opening stage. Those who play it frequently know how frustrating and theory heavy it could be, with comebacks being common due to the explosion rule. Those who have played elite atomic players know how good those players actually are.
Unfortunate reality
An Atomic World Championship had been held in 1998, 2005 and every year since 2016. There has been nine completed Atomic WCs with seven winners as of me writing this. Currently the 2023 Atomic World Championship is in progress, which you can find the results for on their Challonge . All of this begs the question: how did we get here?
1998 Atomic WC
Three years after atomic chess was first introduced to the internet chess community in 1995, a community developed of players who found interest in atomic chess. In May, the Middle East Wild Internet Server (MEWIS) held the earliest known Atomic WC. Four server championships were held in succession according to the rules put forth by MEWIS.
Like the FIDE World Championships, a Candidate tournament was held to determine who gets the right to challenge the MEWIS champion in a Championship match. The six highest rated players on MEWIS receive an invitation to participate in the tournament, and invitation goes to the next in line if somebody declines. The tournament was to be a quadruple round robin and all games should be played in 5+2 time control unless negotiated otherwise.
Match I
Atomic Match I of the World Championship was played between Ebenfelt (FM) and MrNobody (AM) in a best of six, with an Armegeddon being chosen to decide any potential 3-3 ties, where white has four minutes and black has five, but wins if the game ends in a draw.
The first three rounds went rather smoothly for MrNobody, who won all three games. The fourth game ended in a draw, which makes MrNobody the winner. The players played the last two games but MrNobody won both of them to finish the match with a score of 5.5-0.5.
Results for match one of the 1998 AWC
Match II
The second match of the 1998 Atomic WC was played between the winner of Match I, MrNobody and the challenger, Grasdraaier. The defending champion, MrNobody, lost the first three games to the challenger. As MrNobody seemed to have been making a comeback by winning the fourth game, Grasdraaier secured the win with two more draws.
Results for match two of the 1998 AWC
Match III
The third match was played between defending champion Grasdraaier, who had just obtained the title of AM, and the challenger Javil. The match looked promising for Javil at the start, with Javil holding Grasdraaier to a draw in game one and even beating him in game three after losing. Unfortunately for Javil, the unexpected nature of atomic chess allowed Grasdraaier to win the next two games. Although Javil managed to win the last game, the final score of 3.5-2.5 Grasdraaier's way meant that he only needed to defend his title one more time to become the 1998 Atomic World Champion.
Results for match three of the 1998 AWC
Match IV
The challenger to Grasdraaier in match four was again, MrNobody. Both players knew that there were high stakes involved. If Grasdraaier were to win, he would become the first Atomic World Champion, but if MrNobody were to win, he would be able to still contest the title.
After the first three rounds, it seemed like the tournament was already over MrNobody as he had lost all three games. However, in a miraculous turn of events, he went on to win the next three times to send the match into Armageddon. MrNobody had the white pieces in the first game in a must win situation, where unfortunately, he only managed to draw, making Grasdraaier the 1998 Atomic World Champion.
Since I could not even find the MEWIS website anymore, let alone the archived games, I have no games to show. There were also no accounts with the username Grasdraaier on Chess.com nor Lichess so I do not know if he still plays atomic now .
Grasdraaier is the 1998 Atomic World Champion
2005 Atomic WC
In the early 2000s, the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) was extremely popular, due it being a completely free version of its predecessor, the Internet Chess Server (ICS). It was so popular, in fact, that some of Chess.com's early marketing campaigns were centered around proving that their site was better than FICS.
This tournament had a different format to the 1998 Atomic WC, in the way that it was in a 16-player knockout format. The players play a best of ten match and if a 5-5 tie is reached, another set of ten games are played. Repeat if tied 10-10. If the score is tied at 15-15 after thirty games, there will be an Armageddon where white gets five minutes and black gets three minutes with draw odds.
Participants of the 2005 AWC
Round 1
Round two of the 2005 Atomic WC saw two adoption matches, one by top seed tipau against 16th seed luckybbad and another by second seed siggemannen against 15th seed grogers.
Results for round one of the 2005 AWC
Round 2
Like round one, round two also saw no upsets, with the higher seed player winning every match. At this point, it seemed as if a tipau vs siggemannen finals match was imminent.
Results for round two of the 2005 AWC
Round 3
Round three against saw no upsets, with third seed TCK forfeiting to siggemannen and tipau defeating WildKiller with a score of 6.5-3.5, securing both players spots in the finals.
Results for round three of the 2005 AWC
Round 4 (Final)
Going into the championship final, it seemed as if the match would be an interesting one, featuring the two best atomic chess players in the world playing each other, both of whom had been dominating their respective opponents. However, going into game four, it didn't seem good for tipau as siggemannen had managed to win the first three games. Game four was likely the game that had tilted tipau as he lost in seven moves with white.
Siggemannen went on to win every remaining game except one to win the 2005 Atomic World Championship with a dominant score of 9-1.
Siggemannen is the 2005 Atomic World Champion
2016 Atomic WC
Now, you may be wondering, why was there such a big gap between the 2005 and 2016 Atomic WCs. The main reason for that was the decline of FICS, which had fallen out of favor with players due the launch of Chess.com in May 2007 and Lichess in June 2010. Neither site offered chess variants to their users until 2015, when Lichess introduced them, starting with atomic .
In 2016, another official Atomic World Championship was organized by tipau on Lichess. Unlike the past AWCs, there were 41 entrants in 2016. In order to limit the amount of entrants down to 32, the bottom 18 seeds played for spots in the knockout event . One notable player in the tournament was eighth seed penguingim1, also known as GM Andrew Tang. Results for the tournament can be found on their Challonge .
Results for the 2016 AWC qualification round
Round of 32
The 2016 round of 32 went mostly as expected, with no upsets except minor ones, such as 17th seed ProgramFox defeating 16th seed Illion 5.5-4.5 and 20th seed Flamenguista defeating 13th seed zanbato 5.5-4.5. 7th seed Mabrook also forfeited against 26th seed strategoo .
Results for the round of 32 of the 2016 AWC
Round of 16
No upsets occurred in the round of 16 of the 2016 AWC, with most of the higher seed players being able to easily win, except eighth seed penguingim1, who was tied 5-5 with ninth seed lord-zero after 10 games. Andrew Tang won the next two tiebreak games
Results for the round of 16 of the 2016 AWC
Quarterfinals
Going into the quarterfinals, three players (onubense, tipau and pashpash) had not conceded a draw nor loss. Top seed onubense defeated Andrew Tang relatively easily with a score of 5.5-2.5 and second seed tipau defeated tenth seed monstruito with a score of 5.5 -1.5.
The match between fourth seed Arka50 and fifth seed pashpash resulted in a 5-5 tie after ten games, but Arka50 won the first tiebreak game and drew the next to secure a spot in the semifinals. Third seed fast-tsunami was not as lucky to escape an upset, losing 4-6 against sixth seed krasss.
Results of the quarterfinals of the 2016 AWC
Semifinals
The pairings of the semifinal matched onubense with Arka50 and tipau with krasss. Tipau was able to defeat krasss rather easily with a score of 6-3.
The match between onubense and Arka50 was more interesting. It was tied at 5-5 after ten games. The first game of the tiebreak ended in draw.
In the second tiebreak game, onubense had a winning position for the entire game until the end, when it came down to a complicated knight, bishop and pawn vs bishop and pawn endgame where onubense, in the position below, played Bc3?? allowing Arka50 to set up an incredible fortress.
Onubense couldn't have been too happy with that game, but luckily for him, Arka50 had a chess lesson scheduled just then so he had to forfeit the match, so onubense was to play tipau in the final for the title of the 2016 Atomic World Champion.
Results for the semifinals of the 2016 AWC
Championship Final
Early in the first game of the championship final match, onubense made a careless mistake that costed him the game. In the position below, onubense played hxg5??, which tipau quickly capitalized on with 5.Qd3 g6 6.Nd5 e5 7.Qb5 c6 8.Nc7+ Kf7 9.Ne8 f5 10.Ng5+ Ke7 11.Nxe6 (see below).
By game seven, tipau was ahead 5-2 with only one win or draw away from being the 2016 Atomic World Champion. In game eight, both players managed to simplify until tipau cracked and onubense won by advancing his kingside pawns.
Something I find interesting was that in the spectator chat of the eighth game, a few strong players and eliminated participants were discussing the possible opening for game nine and if tipau has any force draw lines up his sleeve as white. They speculated that he might opt for a 1.Nf3 line, in particular the line with 2.d4.
They were half right. Tipau decided to play the more drawish 1.Nf3 line instead of the 1.Nh3 line that had been played a lot throughout the tournament, but he played 2.e4 instead of 2.d4. It's likely that tipau was only looking for a draw to win the tournament but onubense's desperate efforts resulted in an open position with his king still in the middle and with no way of preventing the white's rooks from infiltration, onubense resigned and tipau became the 2016 Atomic World Champion .
Tipau is the 2016 Atomic World Champion
2017 Atomic WC
After the successful completion of the 2016 Atomic WC, tipau ran another tournament in 2017. In this tournament, there are 44 entrants. Like the previous year, there was a qualification round to decide which 12 of the lowest 24 seeds qualify for the knockout event . The results were not very significant. There four forfeits and only two upsets, by 34th seed Teentra against 31st seed ChessWhiz with a score of 5.5-0.5 and by 35th seed iiro97 against 30th seed Itdonutdagger with a score of 5.5-4.5.
Results for the qualification round of the 2017 AWC
Round of 32
The round of 32 in the 2017 AWC was rather uninteresting compared to a lot of rounds in previous AWCs. Except for the forfeits, there were no upsets in the round. However, eighth seed kreedz was too close to losing to 25th seed venuslippe. The match was tied at 4.5-4.5 after game nine but kreedz was able to win with a beautiful #4 pattern.
Round of 16
The round of 16 had mostly expected results, with only one upset by 11th seed Feeglood against 6th seed monstruito with a score of 5.5-4.5. Our good friend kreedz was once again in the same situation, tied at 4.5-4.5 after game nine. In the last game, he quickly gained a considerable advantage as white but his opponent kept fighting. Despite his opponent's attempts, kreedz was able to open up the kingside and deliver checkmate.
Results for the round of 16 of the 2017 AWC
Quarterfinals
Unfortunately in the quarterfinals, our good friend kreedz was paired against the one and only onubense, who was over 150 elo above second seed Arka50 going into the tournament. Kreedz won the first game against onubense because of a very careless, elementary-level mistake but onubense destroyed him in the next six games to move on to the semifinals.
The game between Arka50 and penguingim1 was won by Arka50 with a score of 6-1, conceding no losses and only two draws in the whole match. Fourth seed pashpash also defeated 12th seed Illion easily with a score of 6-0.
Defending World Champion tipau couldn't say the same about his match against 11th seed Feeglood. It was a back and forth match with Feeglood and tipau both a game each for the first six games. After winning the seventh game, Feeglood seemed to have lost the eighth same but tipau, who later admitted that he was not in form, blundered a game-ending tactic.
The other top players in spectator chat were in disbelief that the World Champion missed that (to be honest, I wouldn't have found that myself even as white but I'm no WC). Tipau was trailing 4-5 after winning the ninth game in a must-win situation as black, which is difficult at the top level but not impossible due to the unpredictable nature of atomic chess. Unfortunately Feeglood came out victorious and tipau was eliminated.
Results for the quarterfinals of the 2017 AWC
Semifinals
The semifinals of the 2017 AWC again did not have any unexpected results. Onubense and Arka50 were both in great form. Arka50 was able to defeat Feeglood 6-2 without much trouble. In the spectator chat a user by the name TrackDown remarked that if Arka wanted to win, he probably hoped that pashpash stops onubense. He also said, "pashpash [is] very good, but onubense is still [better]", which was proven to be true when onubense defeated pashpash four days later with a score of 5.5-3.5.
Results for the semifinals of the 2017 AWC
Championship Final
Due to the short 3+2 time control, there were a lot of crazy time scrambles where mistakes were made by both players. One example was in game five, where in the position below, Arka50 had 10 seconds as white and onubense had 5 seconds as black. Onubense played the move 27...Rxh3+?? which allowed Arka to play 28.Qh3 and win the game. The engine suggested 27...Bxf1 to remove the queen first but mistakes are bound to happen in atomic time scrambles .
The match was tied 3-3 going into game seven. As expected, Arka won the next game with the pieces and in round eight, onubense had the white pieces for a chance to even the score. In the game, onubense made some mistakes that I have to admit, I don't understand at all, but eventually Arka was able to get the e and f pawns rolling down the board and win the game.
As proven throughout the AWCs time and time again, it is difficult to win must-win games as black. Arka50 opted for a drawish position which onubense could not do much about. Onubense did try push for a win but only ended up in a losing position, making Arka50 the 2017 Atomic World Champion.
Arka50 is the 2017 Atomic World Champion
2018 Atomic WC
Following the successful organization of the 2016 and 2017 AWCs, tipau organized another tournament in 2018. Challonge was used once again for this tournament. There were 65 players on the list of entrants for the 2018 AWC so a match had to be played between the bottom two seeds to decide who qualifies for the knockout event. 64th seed Link defeated 65th seed TJMorley with a score of 6-4 to qualify for the knockout stage.
Result for the qualification match of the 2018 AWC
Round of 64
As usual, the round of 64 went just about as expected and saw very few upsets. 33rd seed DanDan2016 defeated 32nd seed Iubar 5.5-3.5, 44th seed BoasConstrictor defeated 21st seed dpalm 5.5-4.5 and 42nd seed Balamb_Garden defeated 23rd seed MeetYourDemise 5.5-4.5 .
Results of the round of 64 of the 2018 AWC
Round of 32
The 2018 AWC was the first edition to introduce a losers' section, but for the sake of not making this blog too superfluous, I will not be covering that section. However, if you would like to see the results, they are in the Challonge bracket. If you don't know how the losers' section works, basically, when a person loses in the main knockout bracket, they are moved down to the losers' section and the winner of the entire losers' section gets to play the winner of the main knockout bracket in the championship final.
The round of 32 was again not the most interesting, with most higher seed players being able to win their matches with relative ease. However, there were three upsets. There was one minor upset by 17th seed APU_1 against 16th seed SouL-FLy with a score of 6-4. 29th seed IMaDale pulled off an impressive 5.5-1.5 win against none other than Andrew Tang himself. BoasConstrictor, for the second round in a row, pulled of an incredible upset against 12th seed Pitufimentiroso with a score of 6- 1.
Results for the round of 32 of the 2018 AWC
Round of 16
For the second round in a row, IMaDale pulled off an upset. This time it was against 13th seed Illion with a score of 7-3. 10th seed InsaneHasReturned also upsetted 7th seed monstruito with a score of 5.5-2.5. BoasConstrictor, who has in great form in the past few matches, couldn't boast about another upset as he went down 1-6 against 5th seed Xeransis.
Results for the round of 16 of the 2018 AWC
Quarterfinals
The quarterfinals saw matches that were a lot closer than the previous rounds, with tipau defeating InsaneHasReturned 6-4 and Arka50 defeating kreedz 5.5-4.5. Amazingly, IMaDale pulled off another upset against 5th seed Xeransis with a score of 7-5 to join tipau , Arka50 and onubense in the semifinals.
Results for the quarterfinals of the 2018 AWC
Semifinals
Arka50 was not online during the agreed match time so he forfeited the match, allowing tipau to move onto the winners' bracket finals to play onubense, who had ended IMaDale's upset streak with a crushing 5.5-0.5 score. I know I said that I would not cover the losers' section but the last few rounds of it are important. IMaDale was no match for Arka50 in the losers' semifinal, going down 1-6.
Results for the winners' semifinals of the 2018 AWC
Finals
The winners' final was played between tipau and onubense. The match was back and forth as expected with tipau ahead 5-4 placing onubense in a must win situation with white. He tried to push for a win but was unable, eventually reaching the position below where tipau can just shuffle his king and there was nothing onubense could do.
With Arka50 beating onubense in the losers' final, the championship final was going to be a set of two ten-game matches between tipau and Arka. If you are wondering why there were two matches, I do not know myself as the Google Site containing all the rules has been deleted. The first match was absolute dominance by Arka, defeating tipau 5.5-0.5. The second match did not end as desired for tipau either, with him losing to Arka 2.5-5.5, making Arka50 the 2018 Atomic World Champion .
Arka50 is again the 2018 Atomic World Champion
2019 Atomic WC
The 2019 AWC was the first to utilize qualifying tournaments. Two three-hour long 3+2 tournaments were held for spots in the championship brackets. The first qualifying tournament was won by Xeransis and the second was won by Vannto. As usual there was a qualifying round for the bottom 44 seeds out of the 54 participants. The website I have been using for all the tables, chronatog.com , did not provide any tables for the results, and screenshotting each individual result would take up too much space. Challonge shows the results for the group stage and the final eight players, the results can also be found here.
Quarterfinals
The rest of the tournament was not too significant, so I will skip straight the quarterfinals. The 2019 AWC quarterfinals saw well established names like onubense and Illion, but also newer players like vlad_00, SMASHtimeFOOLS and Xeransis. Onubense was able to defeat Vlad 6- 2, SMASHtimeFOOLS defeated Illion 6-2, Xeransis defeated Natso 5.5-2.5 and GrandLapin defeated Wolfram_EP 6-3.
Results for the winners' quarterfinals of the 2019 AWC
Semifinals
Onubense being onubense, against destroyed his opponent SMASHtimeFOOLS 6-2 and GrandLapin defeated Xeransis 5.5-3.5. In the losers' section, Vlad_00 defeated Illion 6-1 and Wolfram_EP defeated Natso 6-2.
Results for the winners' semifinal of the 2019 AWC
Finals
The winners' finals were played between onubense and GrandLapin. GrandLapin did well to hold onubense until tiebreak but onubense could not be stopped, winning both tiebreak games and moving on to the championship final.
Meanwhile in the losers' bracket, GrandLapin played Xeransis for a chance of redemption. He was able to easily beat Xeransis 5.5-0.5. In the redemption final against onubense, GrandLapin made the mistake of playing the same openings he played against Xeransis, which onubense was prepared for. Onubense had the upper hand and won 5.5-0.5, making him the 2019 Atomic World Champion.
Onubense is the 2019 Atomic World Champion
2020 Atomic WC
The 2020 AWC utilized the same format as the 2019 AWC. The first few rounds, as usual, weren't very significant, except one match where a player by the name of Gagarin_Vadim beat vlad_00 with engine assistance and was caught by Lichess, thereby receiving a forfeiture and a lifetime AWC ban. As usual, the results are available on Challonge .
Quarterfinals
The 2020 AWC finals stage was similar to the previous year's AWC. There were some close matches in the quarterfinals, with 2x Atomic WC Arka50 barely defeating kreedz 8-7. Arka was in a must win situation as black against kreedz without draw odds but he managed to win the Armageddon game.
The match between Wolfram_EP and vlad_00 also had to go into an Armageddon match, where Wolfram_EP was able to win with the white pieces. Pashpash and fast-tsunami had less trouble, defeating GrandLapin and Natso with scores of 6-3 and 6-1 respectively .
Results for the winners' quarterfinals of the 2020 AWC
Semifinals
In the winners' bracket, Wolfram_EP was unable to stop Arka, who won 6-4. The fast-tsunami vs pashpash match was a bit closer, with fast-tsunami winning the tenth game as white to win with a score of 5.5-4.5 .
GrandLapin won the losers' semifinals after beating Vlad_00 5.5-2.5, again thanks to a decisive tenth game with white.
Results for the winners' semifinals of the 2020 AWC
Finals
The final match of the winners' bracket was the match between Arka50 and fast-tsunami. Arka started strong with a lead of 5-1 after game six. Despite fast-tsunami winning the next two games, a draw was all that was needed for Arka to move onto the championship final. Arka used the infamous 1.Nf3 f6 2.e3 d5 3.Ng5 line to secure a draw and a chance to play either fast-tsunami or GrandLapin in the championship final.
Fortunately for GrandLapin, fast-tsunami was not in great form, allowing GrandLapin to win 6-2 and have a chance to play Arka in the championship final.
In typical Arka fashion, he was able to win the first three games. Just as the match seemed like it was going to be over, GrandLapin won the next three games. The next two points were split evenly between the two players, but Arka being Arka, won the last two games to become the 2020 Atomic World Champion.
Arka50, for the third time, is the 2020 Atomic World Champion
2021 Atomic WC
The 2021 AWC followed almost the same format as before. As usual, the results can be found on their Challonge. When I first looked at the participants list, I noticed something interesting. While some of the big names were still there, like vlad_00, fast-tsunami and Wolfram_EP, others like Arka50, onubense and kreedz were not there.
Chronatog.com also didn't cover the results on the 2021 AWC page so I don't know how the match went except the results from the Challonge bracket.
Round of 16
The 2021 AWC had a 16-player knockout bracket for the finals instead of 8 players like previous years.
No surprise results for this round except pashpash, who seems to have forfeited (I don't know because I only get Challonge data). Wolfram_EP, vlad_00 and fast-tsunami all won their matches quite easily.
Results for the winners' round of 16 of the 2021 AWC
Quarterfinals
In the quarterfinals, vlad_00 defeated chrisrapid with a score of 6-4 and fast-tsunami defeated Stephenhello 7.5-2.5. Wolfram_EP, however, was defeated by Astavakra, which wasn't really an upset because Astavakra was higher seed but still, they have never made it this far in a AWC before so it's impressive.
Results for the winners' quarterfinals of the 2021 AWC
Semifinals
The winners' semifinals saw favourites vlad_00 and fast-tsunami defeat their opponents Astavakra and lesha2002 6-2 and 6. 5-3.5 respectively.
However, Astavakra and lesha2002 were able to defeat Natso and Wolfram_EP 5.5-4.5 and 8-7 respectively. When paired together for the losers' semifinals, lesha was able to win 5.5-2.5.
Results for the winners' semifinals of the 2021 AWC
Finals
The match between vlad_00 and fast-tsunami resulted in a win for fast-tsunami with a score of 6-3, sending vlad_00 down to the losers' final to play with lesha2002.
Vlad_00, being the clear favourite in the match, won convincingly with a score of 7-3 and had a chance for redemption in the championship final against fast-tsunami.
The match was closer than the two's previous encounter, with fast-tsunami ultimately winning with a score of 6-4, making him the 2021 Atomic World Champion.
fast-tsunami is the 2021 Atomic World Champion
2022 Atomic WC
The 2022 AWC again saw a new wave of previously unknown players. Fast-tsunami, vlad_00 and Natso were still participating, but there was a lack of pashpash and Wolfram_EP along with most of the atomic legends. As usual, the results can be found on the Challonge.
Round of 16
In the round of 16, vlad_00 and fast-tsunami were able to defeat their opponents Crepuscular and Maracker 7-1 and 7.5-2.5 respectively.
Third seed sutcunuri, a new name in the AWC finals, also defeated his opponent Dr_MaD_AtOmIc 8.5-1.5.
Results for the round of 16 of the 2022 AWC
Quarterfinals
Vlad_00 defeated lesha2002 6-4 while fast-tsunami defeated Hysterix 7-3. Sutcunuri defeated HolyLizard 7.5-1.5. Chrisrapid also defeated JakeStateFarm but in a much closer 5.5-4.5 match.
Results for the winners' quarterfinals of the 2022 AWC
Semifinals
Vlad_00 was the favourite in his match against chrisrapid, for good reason. He won the match 6-4, but 2021 Atomic WC fast-tsunami wasn't so lucky, going down to sutcunuri 2.5-5.5.
Neither losing players were able to win their respective matches in the losers' bracket, with chrisrapid losing to Natso 4.5-5.5 and fast-tsunami losing to lesha2002 2.5-5.5. The Natso vs lesha2002 match resulted in a win for lesha with a score of 6.5-3.5, allowing them to play either vlad_00 or sutcunuri for a chance at the championship final.
Results for the winners' semifinals of the 2022 AWC
Finals
The final match of the winners' bracket was played between vlad_00 and sutcunuri where the latter was able to win with a score of 6-4, sending the former down to play lesha in the losers' final.
The losers' final had vlad_00 beat lesha2002 with a score of 5.5-4.5, which allowed him to have another try at WC championship final. Unfortunately for vlad_00, sutcunuri won the match 5.5-2.5, making him the 2022 Atomic World Champion.
sutcunuri is the 2022 Atomic World Champion
Current State and Future for Atomic WCs
As I am writing this sentence, the round of 32 of the 2023 AWC is currently underway. As of this year, it is run by tipau, Chronatog, ProgramFox and ijh and streamed by tipau, ijh and Natso. A quick look at the list of participants will show you that legends of the past, such as tipau, onubense and Arka50, have retired from Atomic WC contention.
In the next few years, it doesn't seem like a lot will change except newer names appearing and older ones leaving.
As current fourth highest rated atomic player catask put in his Lichess bio, "Math is a lot like Atomic: Gödel proved that initial position is losing, but people keep developing theory."
Thanks for reading.
