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My 2023 Daily Chess Championship
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My 2023 Daily Chess Championship

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New years day is the beginning of a brand new 12 months. For some, it is the day to party hard, or it could be the time to make resolutions that break quicker then Elon Musk's ego. But to me, January first was the day that the 2023 chess.com daily championship would begin. 

This was going to be the biggest tournament I had ever competed in, with a whopping 35,000 members. Rating-wise, I would be in the top 17 percent of all people here. That sounds pretty good, except for the fact that there are thousands of unrated players, and about a hundred players with a title. 

And even worse, if you wanted to advance to the next round, you would have to get the most tournament points out of 11 different people. If any of those members would happen to be higher rated then you, your dreams of winning this tournament would virtually be over.

But I was not in this tournament to get first, third, or even get in the top thousand. 

Instead, I joined to hopefully win $100 per round for making a blog about my 2023 daily chess championship experience. I had also just recently became a top blogger, so my confidence for this is extra high. 

My ideal situation would be to get to round three, win all three "best blog" $100 prize, get a 1400+ daily rating, and buy a square off pro rollable chess board with my winnings. 

I had big hopes for this tournament, but when I saw my bracket, my ambitious dream got ran over by a semitruck. 

I was the third highest person, which doesn't sound so bad except that the #2 seed @ExistentialChess apparently had a 1700 USCF rating, and an 1800 rapid. and the #1 seed @suhanahsanchess was rated 1800 in daily.... 

So to keep my daily chess championship goals afloat, I would have to make some pretty big upsets. 

But then, when I woke up on the second day of this tournament, I saw this- 

Apparently, timing out on the first round was a very normal thing to do, because half of my opponents ran out of time. They timed out on everybody's game's though, so I did not just start out this tournament with a 12 point lead. But it certainly made my life easier, considering that I don't have to deal with 20 daily games every few hours. So without further ado, lets see how good I played my remaining games.

The 300 Rated Player

When I saw that I was going to be facing a player rated 300, I was not expecting that one of our games would last 36 moves. For some reason I was never able to checkmate my opponent, even though I had a 15 point lead in piece points. Even at the end of the game when the 300 rated player resigned, I still could not see a way to find checkmate.

Can you find the mate in four that I quite bluntly could not find?

Missed Wins

I have been reading the various other submissions for the grand $100 blogging prize, and in most of them, the blogger came out victorious with a perfect 22/22 score.                                                                                                                                                                                               
Well not me.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
I drew two completely winning games, one of them against an 1100, who ended up coming in third, and once against the 1400 with an 1800 rapid who I destroyed so badly in our first that I decided not to show it because it would have just been boring.                                                       
I could have very easily came out with a 22/22 score, but these two games held me back.
I guess that's what I get for playing a queens gambit, one of the most solid openings ever,  against an opponent stronger then me, in the longest time control offered on chess.com. 
Who would have thought. 

 Sweet Miniature

Despite my two disappointing draws, I actually had a very nice 95% accuracy game that started out with a misplayed line in the Vienna, where my opponent blundered a knight and mate in two moves.

Was this a good game because I am a great player, or because my opponent just did not play well, I will let you decide.

And there you have it. after all of my poorly played battles, I came out victorious... by half a point. If I came this close to being eliminated in the first round, I doubt I will advance to round three, but who knows, maybe I could get paired with more 300 rated players....

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