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Cheater Meets International Master in Chess.com's Biggest Ever Championship

Cheater Meets International Master in Chess.com's Biggest Ever Championship

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With over 60,000 participants, the Chess.com Daily Chess Championship is the biggest championship in Chess.com history. Welcome to my Round 2 recap with highlights of a cheater story, a titled player, insane blunders and brilliancies and much more. 

Start of Round 2

After eliminating 11 of my opponents in the first round with a perfect 22/22 score, I was on top of the moon. I was quite surprised to see only 4 players getting eliminated on the first day due to timeouts. However, this didn't stop me from dominating the whole field. 

On the morning of March 16, I woke up and without even brushing my teeth or making my bed, I opened the chess.com app on my tablet, as it is always the first thing I do when I wake up. 

And to my great surprise, I had 22 ongoing daily games. "Okay, time for Round 2, " I thought. "22 more games, 11 more opponents, and..."

"...and a titled player. "

This is Kacper Drozdowski. 

Surely this will be the end of my very first daily tournament. There's no way I could beat an International Master, with a peak FIDE rating of 2512 classical. And not to mention that he has a full day to think about how he's going to crush his much lower-rated opponents, which unfortunately, I was one of them. 

"Well, at least the rest of my opponents are beatable, " I tried comforting myself. 

Spoiler alert: I could not have been more wrong. 

A Formidable Foe

There are two types of chess players: 

  1. Cheaters
  2. Other chess players

One of the contestants in my group, who shall not be named, was one of the first type. 

I was devastated after losing these two games. How did I get crushed so easily? One slight inaccuracy and everything just went downhill. The accuracy was almost 95% for both games. I couldn't mentally bring myself back up. 

I checked the other games that the cheater played. After seeing him/her effortlessly beating everybody, including the IM, it was already quite obvious (at least to me) that he/she was cheating. 

It is also interesting that one person did manage to escape the cheater with a draw, but proceeded to close his account for unknown reasons. 


Consequently, the cheater's time on the website "Finnished" as he received a ban fittingly on April 1st. Ratings were refunded and everyone was awarded two points in the event. 

Alarming Americans

My faceoff against American opponents jharbieh and jabr1263 produced some nice games that finished fairly quickly. 

It is quite interesting that both games against jharbieh finished in the exact same fashion. 
A Costly Mistake
Next may I present to you this position against a 700 rated player, nitrox1007. 

Surely any move here is winning, with the exception of hanging a rook in one move. Even if White manages to capture the passed pawn, I can still go for White's defenseless g-pawn. 

With this in mind, I played an absolutely atrocious move. 

39. ...Rg3?

40. Re8+! 

With Black's last move, the White King is stalemated on h5. Now White can employ a technique called "the mad rook", in which the rook continuously delivers check and gives itself up in order to achieve a stalemate. 

However, Black can still try 40. ...Kd3!, not allowing White's idea. White can still hold with perfect play: 

It is not the first mistake that kills you, it's usually the second mistake. 
— Levy Rozman (Gothamchess)

And in this game, I made the second mistake by playing 40. ...Kd5?!, which is basically equivalent to a draw offer. 

With this draw, I was in a bad spot - he was a literal "POLE" in my way. 

It meant that there was only one way to win my division. 

"A draw. This is really bad, " I mumbled to myself as my confidence fell off a cliff then flew back up again. "This is my last chance, so here we go. "
Blunder to Wonder
Chess speaks for itself.
Ever wonder how it feels to beat an IM?
It is my biggest achievement, and truly the best moment I've felt in my 2 years of playing chess. 
(By the way, the lines in the annotated games were my thoughts at the time, they're not necessarily accurate)

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

With this much needed victory, I came out on top of my division. I have managed to snatch no less than 180 rating points, play the BEST game of my life knocking out one of the top seed of event, and most importantly, secure a spot in Round 3 of this event. 
It was a big clash but eventually I scored half a point ahead of my main rival. Here are the final results: 

There were a couple of takeaways for me from this round:

  1. I played my best, and that is what eventually led me to my triumph in this close battle. 
  2. Self-confidence is important. Do not care who your opponent is.
  3. Put more thoughts into my moves and don't rush, especially when winning. Always double check.  

And last but not least, DO NOT CHEAT!

Overall, I would rate my performance a solid 7.5/10. 

Thank you for taking your time to read my blog. Leave a like if you've enjoyed, consider following, and stay tuned for my Round 3 recap of the 2024 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship!