GOAT OF THE GROUP: 2022 Daily Chess Championship

Hello, my fellow Daily Chess Addicts.

The annual Daily Chess Championship started January 1st, taking over the boards and server capacity of chess.com. In spite of, or perhaps because of the UNSPECIFIED VIRUS OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN a record 33,633 players entered this year, making it in all likelihood the largest chess tournament in the history of the World...I haven't bothered to look this up, but its a pretty big event.

The tournament does not consist of live games (no they aren't dead), but rather "Daily" or correspondence games of 24 hours, meaning that your opponent has a full day to reply once you have made a move. Players are divided into groups of 12, with only the top participant going through. The time control can have some interesting side effects, for instance, a player who is constantly getting flagged at Blitz/Bullet might find that they play much better with Book moves and 24 hours to think; others will find they enjoy playing as slowly as possible, attempting to bore their opponent to death...and others, God bless them, discover that they would like to Cheat and enlist the help of an Engine.

It was the Cheaters that kept me out of this tournament in the past; something about these big tourneys draws the cheaters like flies to you know what...$%#!. Yet, a decided to enter, and to my surprise found that with a rating of 1731, I was seeded at the top of my group, with my opponents averaging somewhere in the 1000s I felt that there was a very good chance I would win every game. It is said that in the 1st round of the Daily Championship you feel like Morphy, in the 2nd you feel like NN. I intended to enjoy my time as the Goat of the Group, but it proved harder than I thought...

After seven days I was down to my last game, and this one was a real battle; for the first time in the tournament I found myself in a losing position. Technically, I had already qualified as my record was 21 wins no losses, meaning that I could not be surpassed and in the worst case would go through tied for 1st...but you cannot be the Goat of the Group when you are tied for 1st...

And that was it, that was the 1st round of the 2022 Daily Chess Championship. It was fun, but I was a bit disappointed by the number of timeouts, out of 12 players only 5 actually competed; and some of those players were pretty inexperienced. Chess has a way of evening the score, in round two, I think I am going to find out how my opponents felt, but until then I will enjoy my time as Goat of the Group.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to share these puzzles and games with your friends down at the Library or Bar.

Cheers, SheldonOfOsaka.