Round 1 of the Daily Chess Championship almost over.

Hi, how are you? That's great... or sorry to hear that. I'm fine. Today I want to take a look at the first round of the Chess.com Daily Chess Championship 2023 (here). There was a lot going on that I found quite funny, and I would love to talk about that too, but first let's look at a few of my games.

There aren't too many interesting things to say, but after a few weeks since playing the game I do find some of my choices strange. I'm not sure why I played 5...Qa5+ instead of 5...Bb4+. I won't get too deep into it though. So we eventually get the Queens of the board and from there I am in the dominating position. Sadly, my opponent chose to play 51.Kh4 instead of Kh6 which I'd set up a conditional for. I assume they didn't want to prolong a losing game.

Surprisingly, my opponent was banned soon after for a Fair Play violation.

My next win was the one I'm most satisfied with, despite how bad it was looking for a while.

It started off alright, with the Vienna. Moves were played, then I had an interesting idea, so I played 7.d6, blocking any possible Queen and bishop shenanigans and setting up for a move I am still proud of, weeks later. I then play b4. This is mostly a distraction, but it's not a bad move either. I'm not fully sure why I played Be3 next, but I do eventually play my goal, Nh2. A very pretty move, if somewhat useless at first. It opens up the queens diagonal, useless as it may be. I felt like a GM for 10 or so sec. Anyway, we start to trade into an endgame and I make a huge mistake. I play 24.Qxg6. I should've played Rxe5 and I distinctly remember hitting the confirm button and realising my mistake immediately. At this point, I knew I may not win this. However miracles do happen, and this time a miracle did. I traded my last rook and pushed my pawns. And my knight, the very knight I played to feel like a GM, gave me a chance. See, it was in just the right place to protect my pawns as they slowly made their way to promotion. 29.g5, 30.g4, 31.Ne3, 32.h5, 33.Ne5+!!! My opponent threw away a game that was still hard for me to win!

Let's look at one more, this time a draw that was probably my win.

Let's skip to the important part, so after 25.Rg2+ I believe I was completely winning. Unfortunately, through the long attempt to turn it into a win, I grew tired and simply accepted the invitation to draw. In retrospect, I could have played a little longer. Maybe I should have exchanged the rooks next with Rxa2. That game was extremely taxing on me mentally so I don't really regret giving up. I'll just try harder next time.

Now let's talk about the wider CCDCC situation.

This year we reached a record 35 000 registrations for the Championship, with that number possibly reaching higher if not for the registration limit being set at 35 000. Unfortunately we also had a large number of the participants timing out on the first move. People, if you sign up for an event, I would hope that you actually did the minimum in terms of participation. Many people lost out on the chance to play in the CCDCC because they were preempted by those few who didn't even intend to play.

Anyway, another prominent feature of this years CCDCC was a huge discussion on cheating, and alleged malicious game practice. On the malicious practices, there were a few people who believed that their opponents were taking entire days to play moves, despite the fact that they were already in a lost position. It was in an attempt to irritate you enough that you'd just resign. Now, I don't know how true this actually is. Some of these "trolls" might have busy lives.

There were even suggestions for a claim win button, which I argued wouldn't be fair. As I put it back then, what if I was in a winning endgame, let's say king and pawn vs king. I should win this, but I don't know how. But luckily for me I can claim the win without doing the work. That would be unfair to my opponent who might have had a chance to draw the game. I would like to argue, that this is a Daily chess tournament. The set time is 24hrs. If you are playing a daily game without the patience to wait a day, maybe you shouldn't be playing a daily game? Just putting it out there.

Here's a joke puzzle. You're winning, but your opponent has been "maliciously" taking their time with their moves. Your task is to checkmate in the most slow, humiliating way possible as revenge. Good luck.

On the cheating side of things, it gets stranger. Someone (who I won't name) admitted to have reported 20+ players a month for cheating. Now I don't know about you, but to me, that is insane and petty on a whole different level. When I pointed this out, this anonymous person cited one of the players in their grouping (who was banned) as a prime example. She'd reported him for FPV, but rather hilariously, Dietmar pointed out that the player in question was banned for abuse. I wonder if the anonymous person could be banned for abuse under the reasoning that their use of reporting is malicious in nature.

That's it. I unfortunately, did not make it to the next round. I'm still debating whether I should continue posting blogs about the CCDCC despite having nothing more to do with it. Goodbye.