Inaugural Chess 18 World Championship
A short time ago in a small town far, far away…
A great World Championship took place!
On Saturday, August 13th 2022 at FIDEDH (Fédération Internationale des Échecs Dix-Huit) Headquarters in beautiful Westminster, Massachusetts, USA, the 1st Chess18 World Championship was contested.
The 3 strongest Chess18 players in the world (*) played a round-robin match. The time control was G/15(+10).
First a word about Chess18 which was initially described (to the best of my knowledge) in a letter that I wrote which appeared in the July 2013 edition of “Chess Life” magazine. In Chess18 the pawns, kings, and rooks start on their normal squares. The purpose of this is to maintain the same castling rules (and avoid the bizarre castling rules of Chess960). After that, black places a bishop on any of the 5 open available squares, after which white mirrors the placement (e.g., black places a bishop on d8 so white places theirs on d1). White then takes the other bishop and places it on a square of the opposite color to ensure that both sides have a light and a dark squared bishop. After that black chooses either a knight or a queen and places it on one of the remaining open squares which white again mirrors. If black placed the queen, then the knights occupy the remaining squares. If black chose a knight, then white gets the final choice of where to place the remaining knight and queen. The 18 possible opening setups are shown below.
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The first game, pitted Mike Commisso of Brookline, NH against Rene Minalga-Rheault of Shirley, MA. The opening was a story of lots of missed opportunities, most likely due to a combination of the short time control and the unfamiliar setup. Many new things had to be figured out on the fly, like how best to develop the queens on g1/g8. Mike chose the f1->e2 route while Rene chose to “edge-fianchetto” with h6 followed by Qh7. It was a relatively even game until Rene grabbed the poisoned pawn on g2 and Mike smoothly converted from there.
Mike was now out for blood, knowing that a win in this game against Dave Couture of Westminster, MA would guarantee him the World Championship title. The game turned into a battle of whether white could successfully win the black knight stuck on h1. The answer was a resounding NO, and experts have been wondering how Dave could have thought that it was safe to play 24. Rxh1?? Dave’s explanation that he had hallucinated that the bishop would be defending the rook after it retreated was met with disbelief until it was pointed out that the massive head wound he had suffered the day before (see photo below) explained everything 😉
Analysis
With this win Mike Commisso became the 1st World Chess18 Champion – a Wilhelm Steinitz for the 21st Century!
Now it was just a matter of who would become the Vice-Champion. In this final game, Dave demonstrated that just as in regular chess, a single move can turn a winning advantage into a mate-in-1 loss! This time Dave’s attempts to chalk up his mental lapse to the previous day’s head injury were accepted by absolutely no one 😊
Analysis
It should be noted that there were errors in the recording of the 2nd game that the recorder (who shall remain nameless, though her initials are RMR) attributed to the appearance of 2 cats who the (nameless) recorder described as being “so d*mn cute”. It should additionally be noted that one of the cats, whose name is Stewie, is widely acknowledged to be almost pure evil.
The biggest question now is whether the champion intends to defend his title. He has hinted that his motivation to defend the title has begun to wane after his first full week as champion. He has further hinted that if the current "Chess1" title holder, Magnus Carlsen, is interested in challenging, then he would be willing to play. FIDEDH officials are currently considering giving Mike a deadline to make his decision. The Chess18 world awaits his decision...
(*) Agreed to by the 3 players themselves 
