2024 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship Marks 1 Year Of My Daily Chess

Hello people! 😃

(And your pets 🐶🐱 if they are reading this with you)

As you may know, with New Year comes Chess.com Daily Chess Championship🏆, where everyone can participate in! (Only your pets not I guess.) It's a 1-day per move Daily Tournament, where players are divided into 12-player groups and only the winner 🥇 advances to a further round (unless it is a tie for first - then everyone with the highest score advances). It's a chaotically enormous tournament - this year there are 6️⃣3️⃣3️⃣5️⃣2️⃣ people participating in it! (Or less because you know timeout stories...)

In this blog, I will talk about my performance in 2023 and 2024 Chess.com Daily Chess Championships and other Daily stuff as well. So, buckle up, take your drinks 🥤and enjoy! 😉

• 2023 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship
• A Year of Daily Chess
• 2024 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship: Game 1-5

2023 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship

I created my account on May 14th of 2022 after being demolished by my friend in an OTB blitz⚡match. I just wanted to get better! And I was sooooo excited! 😜 But I quit after a month... So... 😐

I came back in November, and now I have NO IDEA WHY. Interestingly, a bit before than CHESS BOOM 🧨 happened. What pushed me? I don't know.

All this time I played live matches, usually with bots, sometimes with real people. I remember how bad I was back then, and seeing my 2022 games makes me 🤯 and 🤮.

In December, I saw a banner to join in 2023 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship. Okay, I said, I will join. What will happen? 🤔 I thought there will be live matches and I will not be able to compete there. Actually, I did not know that daily chess EXISTS AT ALL! So what a surprise 🎁 came on the first day of 2023.

I logged in at 4-5 p.m. of my time and saw that it is my move in daily chess! And there was something like 16-18 games, I don't remember. I was shocked 🤯 what's happening, but I realized 😲 quickly and was soooo excited, that I finished all my games in 10 days. 

I didn't know the tournament format and I thought there is only one round and you fight for a podium 🥇🥈🥉 in a 12-player group. So, let's go!

Second day, 12 WINS!!! 💪 Of course by timeouts. ⏰

I will not talk about that tournament too much, because I didn't win a single game not by a timeout. 😟 I won ✅ 4 more by timeouts, even both games against my neighbour in standings, and lost ❌ all other 6 games by checkmate. Here are the standings: 

P.S. noelnagy was banned after the tournament, in September.

We tied for 4th, but at that time I thought I have to be alone at 4th because I win by head-to-head tiebreak. 😡 But actually that's not important at all. 😐

Anyways, if you want to see my awful 🗑 lost games, here are 2 of them:

The future isn't very promising... Or is it? 🤫

A Year of Daily Chess

So, 2023 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship was a tip-off ▶️ of my Daily Chess. This tournament ended for me, but 2023 didn't! 😄 What's now? Daily Chess!

This will be a quick summary 📃 of my 2023 Daily Chess. 

This tournament ended for me right in the chess boom! 🧨 All my friends (okay, the majority) started playing chess. ♟ This was for a few weeks, and only few friends kept playing it. One of them didn't know the rules at all, but he learned and so loved ❤ chess! His excitement for this game lasted for 5 months, the most time of my friends. We played live most of the time, but also some daily.

I wanted more daily games, so I started playing with randoms. 🙋‍♂️ I liked daily chess because if you don't know how much time do you have or have not a lot of it, 🕑 you can make a move in a few games! But it was not reaaally exciting, so I joined my first daily tournament,🏆 later joined more. I joined only to tournaments with a rating range, ↔️ because I wanted to win! 🥇 If you join to a random big open tournament, you have 0 ⛔ chances to win with not so big rating.

One time daily games' number decreased, ⬇️ so I joined in more tournaments. But I completely forgot 🤦‍♂️ that other rounds of my tournaments are waiting! ⏳ And more and more games have started, and I had too much of them. 😨 However, I have never timeouted, although my performance was a bit worse. Since then I have never joined in more tournaments.

By the way, I always helped 🤝 my country Lithuania 🇱🇹 participating in World League 🌍 and European League. Although I played very well there, 👌 we didn't manage to promote to Division D. 😭 Here is my performance in WL and standings when new season has started (not all games have finished at that time, so there may be some changes):

One day in December, I forgot to check my games, and when I checked, I saw that 7 MINUTES LEFT 😳 for one of my games! And I timeouted 🕑 my very first game (other one), but it was unrated and lost game, so I guess I didn't lose anything. 😌

In 2023, I played in 20 tournaments 🏆 (including Chess.com Daily Chess Championship). I got six 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇 1st places, six 🥈🥈🥈🥈🥈🥈 2nd places and two 🥉🥉 3rd places. Note that most of these tournaments were small, with less than 20 people 👥 in it. Also, 11 tournaments were still ongoing in the end of 2023, I was eliminated from 2 of them.

Also, on February 26th of 2023, I started my Daily puzzle streak and didn't forget to do a puzzle all time. Except for one day, 😬 but luckily next day I was able 😌 to continue my streak solving by doing that day's and previous day's puzzles. Later, I reached 365 day streak, and right after that day, I forgot to solve once again. Luckily, we can regain the streak. Streak is still ongoing! 🔥 (It's not Daily Chess, but Daily Puzzle, sooo Daily. 😉)

So, that future which I was talking about, has come! 🥳 Is it promising? Decide by yourself. But I think yes, ✅ because besides daily I really increased ⬆️ my rapid and blitz ratings. So... Happy New Year! 🎆

2024 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship

Finally it has arrived! 🥳 This was the only tournament I joined after my Daily games boom. But I didn't have much of them, so everything is ok. 😉 And... one year of my Daily Chess is done! 🎂

On January 2nd, we are collecting all timeout 🕑 wins! ✅ In my group, there were 5 players who didn't make a single move, 2 more people timeouted few days later, plus 1 player got banned 🚫 (he played really strong, that's why I couldn't handle it).

So that situation leaves me to a 4-player group. 😁 Here are my opponents! Ratings are shown from beginning ▶️ of the tournament to the day the last player's game was finished. 🏁

*Unrated

Just_Candidate timeouted one game against me later, and this was his only timeout. So I'm lucky, I guess? 😊 So, I won 17 🤯 games by timeouts after first few days. 5 normal games for me this time. Ready! Set! Go! 😄

Game 1. Demolishing Englund Gambit

Here we go! Game 1.

Great start! 😊 In the summer, 🏖 preparing for my first OTB tournament, 🏆 I watched a video how to play against Englund Gambit and memorized all lines by heart, 🧐 and after half of the year, this was the first game I used it exactly the video showed. I only needed to turn advantage into victory. 🎉

Game 2. Bishop Wins It All

First is done, 4 more to go.

2 from 2 against Subhronil1! 👌 Even though he timeouted, I would still have won. ✅

But you know what? That bishop is just incredible! It took 🍽 a pawn on move 11 for breakfast, a queen on move 17 for lunch, a rook on move 18 for dinner, and a knight on move 20 for supper! This is 18 points of material out of 39 on the starting position! BISHOP WINS ✅ THE GAME FOR ME!!!

Since Subhronil1 timeouted or lost all of his games in that "4-player group", he is out ⛔ of the tournament.  So, 3 players left and standings updated. ✅ Here they are:

I'm at second place now, 🙄 but played 2 games less than Just_Candidate. 😌 I have a lot of opportunities 🤗 to advance to round 2. Here are the options:

• To win against Just_Candidate (we both will have 20 points with no games left for Just_Candidate, and RolloCasanova can only reach 20 as well, and since there is no tiebreaker, all will advance with the same amount of points)
• To win both games against RolloCasanova (I will have 21 points, Just_Candidate will have 20, so he can only make a tie for first, RolloCasanova will have 18)
• To win one game (or score 1.5 points) against RolloCasanova AND make a draw against Just_Candidate (Me and Just_Candidate will have 20.5 points each, RolloCasanova will have 19)

So, there are a lot of chances. 😉

Game 3. Miracle

3 games left. Now - against RolloCasanova.

What a comeback! 🔄 I was really glad I made it. I defeated him with the same weapon, ⚔ as he took advantage from me. Not resigning paid off.

Pay attention to my b1 knight. It had never moved! 🤯 Never! Not a single time! And I still won. 😎

When he pinned my queen to the king, I said to my friend that the tournament was over, since the game against Just_Candidate wasn't very promising. 🙁 But I was wrong. 😏

Standings updated! Here they are:

My chances to advance to round 2 are way better. 😁 My options:

• To make at least a draw against Just_Candidate (I will have 20.5 or 21 points and he will have 20.5 or 20 points, when a draw and win happens for me respectively, RolloCasanova can only reach 19)
• To win against RolloCasanova (I will have 21 points, Just_Candidate will have 20 points with one game left, RolloCasanova stays with 18)

Less options, but they are way easier.

Game 4. Desperado Tactic

2 games left! If I win this game, I get a ticket ✈ to round 2.

Wow, I was a move away from losing. But I won! ✅ I'M GOING TO ROUND 2!!! 🛩

And nothing would have happened if desperado hadn't existed. 😊

There was nothing interesting until move 23, so that's why my comments were short until that point. 👌

Standings updated once again! 😄

Yes, Just_Candidate can only make a tie.  He has to win, but I don't need it. 😊 But of course I will fight.

Game 5. En Passant! And Only Loss...

Last game of the tournament. 🏆

Even though I lost, I did EN PASSANT!  🎉

He won with a really good tactic, congratulations! 😉

So, all this group's matches have ended. ✅ Here are the FINAL STANDINGS:

I made it! And I hope for a great fight ⚔ for the ticket ✈ to round 3.

Conclusion

It was a really great round 1 of this championship. 🏆 I advanced to round 2, and this is a really good achievement. To pass round 2 is impossible for me, but I will try. 🙂 Did you also play in this championship? I hope the answer is "yes"! 😃