Ultimate Sensei Season 2 - 1st Power Rankings

Ultimate Sensei Season 2 Power Rankings – After the Draft
by Mitch Fabian and IM David Pruess
I want to thank David for allowing me to be a part of this season’s Ultimate Sensei power rankings. I really enjoyed the bi-weekly report last season and anxiously awaited to see what the judges thought of my performance. Now that I am on this side of the show, I see how hard it is to come up with these. Before getting into it, I want to say how extremely balanced this season feels after the draft. Kudos to David for the idea of having 12 players to draft 8 from. It feels like these 8 players are much closer in strength at the start of the season than in season 1.
In the below rankings, I could see any player taking games from any other player. I think that we have a top 3 this season that is interchangeable and that the remaining 5 could also be in any order. Last season, after the draft, the three judges giving the power rankings were pretty consistent, which made it feel like the draft gave a pretty solid estimation of the strength of each player. I honestly have very little faith in my rankings being predictive of final standings this season, though. I want to stress to any of the players reading this that the power rankings are not the end all be all. You all have so much potential, and I am looking forward to watching you grow. I really hope that we get to give our two cents at the end of “most improved” along with the final standings.
I think that is the real measure of this show, and truly measured last season as well. It’s easy to say that Kimmy won the final tournament, but the most important thing is that she also was the most improved player in the field. Saying that may seem weird, as she “only” moved from 2nd to 1st, which doesn’t look like a huge jump. But, in the final tournament, all the players had improved to being very close in strength, with everyone able to score at least a half point off each other, and with even a 2nd place player like myself going to tiebreaks with the player who finished 8th. Kimmy, however, scored perfectly and in dominating fashion. She became the clear favorite. Her partner, Max, also improved a ton throughout the event. It is clear that David was the Ultimate Sensei of season 1, having the most improved and 2nd most improved players on his team. I’m interested to see this season who improves the most and who becomes the Ultimate Sensei!
For reference, here were the scores in the Draft Tournament : Nargaef 4, AkaBlueJae 3, ChessNumbers 3, falk 2, drittman 2, Seth_Lichtenstein 2, velcrodot 2, lularobs 2, CGreidanus 1.5, GustavoLucca 1, nordovic 1, SimonMTL .5

1st – AkaBlueJae – Jae finished 3.0/4 in the draft tournament, but I believe that his one loss to MorphyFan was due to a mouseslip (though I have not confirmed this). Qe6 in that position made no sense to me, and Qxf5 was completely winning. Due to this, I believe we easily could have seen Jae finish with a perfect score. He played with confidence in all of his games, and with great accuracy in his tactical flourishes. He was playing a little too quickly though, reminding me of someone else who received first in the power rankings last season . I’d like to see Jae slow things down, and to potentially change up his openings.
2nd – Falk – Falk was the 1st pick in the draft, being drafted by Kostya over players with a better score in the tournament than him. 3 of the 4 coaches said that they were going to choose him first also! With only 2.0/4, why did the coaches all want him over the 4.0s and 3.0s? It’s because Falk had the most dominating positions out of the players and was playing both solidly and aggressively. His losses did show his greatest weakness, though – inability to play under time pressure. I’d like to see Falk improve his endgames and his confidence in time scrambles.
3rd – Morphyfan – MorphyFan ended the tournament with the only perfect score – 4.0/4. Here is where I would like to stress again that I believe that the top 3 players are pretty close to interchangeable. What makes me put Morphyfan below the other two at this point was that many of his aggressive attempts to complicate the games were actually inaccurate. I think that Morphyfan played with the most confidence out of any of the players, and that paid off well. His opponents trusted his calculations, which led him to win each game. I’d like to see Morphyfan keep that confidence, but to improve his calculation throughout the event so that his aggressive plays are good aggression.
4th – Seth – Seth starts the list of remaining players that I could also see being placed in any order. He finished on 2.0/4, but I place him ever so slightly above his partner who finished on 3.0/4. I do this because Seth has a style that is hard to teach. He is extremely solid and principled. I would like to see Seth improve at tactics and at playing aggressively when the position calls for it.
5th – ChessNumbers – Tai finished on 3.0/4 and may be mad at me for not placing him higher on the list. Sorry Tai, I love your blog and the stats you share with us each tournament. We saw a couple wins go Tai’s way as giveaways from opponents who blundered in otherwise strong positions. This could very well be what we see in later tournaments as well, but I do think that we will see the quality of play improve by all contestants, so this likely won’t be as true later on. I’d like to see Tai improve his opening principles and strategic thinking.
6th – LulaRobs – Going into the tournament, I don’t think I would have initially ranked Lula here, but what made me choose to put her here was that she is the newest to chess in this field, which will allow her to learn a lot from her coach. As a streamer, this competition will be very important to her also. I could see her rising in the ranks a lot over the course of the event. I hope she doesn’t play 1.b4 during the final tournament though!
7th – VelcroDot – I was actually planning on putting Kat in 5th following the tournament, but then ChessDojo raided her and I saw that she immediately was reviewing the games with an engine instead of on her own before looking at the engine. While this is possibly true about all of the contestants, I saw it here, so I will say it here. I hope that all of the contestants can learn how to improve through self-analysis prior to engine use. You learn so so so much more by doing so. I think that, like Lula, Kat has a ton of potential as a newer chess player and as a streamer to gain a lot from this event and hope to see her improve a ton.
8th – Drittman – I’d again like to reiterate that I truly think 4th through 8th could be in pretty much any order and that I can see everyone taking a game off of everyone at this point. Dritt even took a game off Falk already! I could easily see Dritt at 4th or 5th also, but put him here because I think he can take the criticism well and can improve a ton from it. I’d like to see him play with more confidence, and would also like to see him play less bullet.

SENSEI PERFORMANCE
When it comes to deciding “who won the draft?” it is very hard to give a good answer. I feel that the players are very close in skill and it will come down to which teams mesh the best and put in the most effort. I think that WGM Sasha won the draft by that measure. I think that Jae and Lula, as streamers, have a lot of reason to really grow from this experience. I also think that Lula will fit well being trained by Sasha. I think IM Kostya’s team is a close second, with both players being long-time dojoers who he knows well. Jae and Falk impressed me the most in the draft, but Lula has impressed me the most since then with her efforts on stream to improve. It’ll be interesting to watch and see who improves the most and who will be the Ultimate Sensei!

DAVID'S POWER RANKINGS
To me, how much the players improve from here is going to depend so much on the coaching-- and not just "objectively" how good the coaching is, but how well the coaching fits for each players. My first power rankings here reflect only my sense of the current strength and potential of the students, and don't yet include any thought of how well they will or won't mesh with their teachers. In late installments, I will try to start predicting which players and teams will come out on top at the end of the season based on how they are working together.
Two players impressed me most in this initial tournament: Falk and nargaef, and I went back and forth on their order for a while, considered putting them as "equal first," but what's the point of reading rankings and predictions if the commentator doesn't even provide a ranking??

1. Falk. Falk played many impressive moves in this first event, despite winding up on 2/4. A tough, but correct, pick by Kostya, he was taken at the #1 spot. His best games were the best, and that shows a bit where the potential is. An outrageous 3rd round blunder spoiled his tournament, but I'm not holding it against him too much right now. I also have the benefit of having coached him before and watched him over the course of the past year, and he is on a strong growth trend. Ultimately, it is my sense that he is already working hard and purposefully on his chess that pushes him up to #1 for me.
2. Nargaef. 4-0, what more do you need to do? Nargaef was impressive throughout the tournament, got the results and points, and also plenty of great moves along the way. I have not seen a lot of Nargaef recently, so I don't know how hard he is working on his chess right now, but often coming off a break is great for energy and motivation, and I imagine this competition will spur him to put in some serious work. He is the clear "person to beat" after the Draft Tournament.
3. AkaBlueJae. Jae enters the event as the highest rated player, and showed off good skills in a couple encounters: solidity and opportunistic tactics in his most impressive win against velcrodot, and good opening understanding and killer calculation against Seth. The one loss was to tournament winner Nargaef, but this game was a shaky performance by both of them. My main concern is time usage, as playing too fast is not going to cut it in the finals in January-- there will be too many strong opponents there.
4. Drittman. Drittman has some very clear strengths and weaknesses, which were best shown in his 1st (disaster) and 4th (impressive) games of this event. This is a very dangerous player, who at his best could beat Falk (as he just did :-D), so I'm ranking him higher than a mass of other players who scored the same as him, as he has a very high ceiling/potential. He's gained about 100 points this year, and could gain another with proper coaching and work.
5. ChessNumbers. Tai scored a lot of points in this tournament, which speaks well for his mental fortitude and fighting spirit, but none of the games impressed me.
6. Velcrodot. Katrina showed strengths and weaknesses in the draft tournament, coming out with a respectable 2-2 just like Drittman, Lula, and Seth. One thing that I think both Katrina and Lula have going for them is that they are newer chess players, who are both still early in their improvement. I suspect (but don't know) that neither of them has had professional coaching yet, and that can be a particularly great boost when it's your first time. In other words, their potential is probably largely untapped, which makes possible some big leaps. Katrina's play in this first draft tournament was more solid than Lula's hence my ranking her higher. I can see her growing into a frustrating opponent for three of my early "favorites:" Drittman, AkaBlueJae, and Falk.
7. LulaRobs. Lots of potential here. I saw a lot of uneven spots in the draft tournament as well, as one would expect from a 1400 player, but through the ups and downs I saw that potential shining through. I think Lula has ideas about the game that she is willing to fight for and defend, and a growth mindset that is allowing her to adapt and develop those ideas from her practice. She can become quite a chess player.
8. Seth. Strength-wise, Seth is currently ahead of Velcrodot and Lula. However, they have more potential for a sudden huge burst of improvement, and from my knowledge of Seth, it's going to take some very tricky coaching to get him the ~100 point improvement that is needed to really compete for winning this competition.

SENSEI PERFORMANCE
According to my rankings, Kostya clearly won the draft. However, if you look at points scored in the draft tournament, he actually got the lowest-scoring team, so this is not by any means an obvious conclusion. I expected Kostya to get a good draft, since he had the advantage of knowing a few of the participants beforehand, but it could also be a disadvantage, because it could cause you to be biased in favor of the players you know better over the players you know less well. But I do think that getting Drittman at 8th pick was very lucky for him, especially since Drittman and Falk already work very well together. According to my rankings, the second strongest team out of the gates is Andras' team of Nargaef and Velcrodot.
Now of course, there's a long road to go, and we will see which coaches coach the best and which students do the work best. Later today, we will get a good chance to evaluate the players' tactical skills as well as composure under pressure with the Ultimate Sensei Tactics Challenge, at 1 pm pacific on twitch.tv/chessdojolive