The Daily Chess Champs: Flawless Victory

Hello, my fellow daily chess lovers, and welcome to my report on the first round of the Chess.com 2023 Daily Chess Championship.

In the 1st round of the Daily Chess Champs you feel like Paul Morphy, in the 2nd round you feel like NN. ~ SheldonOfOsaka circa 2022.

The 2023 edition of the Chess.com Daily Chess Championship includes 35,000 participants, making it the largest correspondence tournament ever. Participants are divided into groups of 12 and are required to play 22 simultaneous games. Players have 24 hours in which to make one move per game.

I was fortunate enough to be seeded 1st in my group, and with that in mind I had one goal: to win my group with a flawless performance, no draws, no losses, 22 wins.

Mayhaps, the title of this blog is a bit of a spoiler on the result of this endeavor, but there were certainly some interesting tactics that arose. So, without further...

Haters: But, SheldonOfOsaka, are you really gonna make a whole blog bragging about beating a bunch of players whom you outrated by an average of 900 points?...

Five of them didn't even make a single move and timed out...

And one ended up being a chess cheat who was banned shortly after finishing their games...

Me: Well, theoretical Haters, who I made up for the purposes' of this argument...

Yes...yes, I am...

It's not my fault half the group timed out without making a single move, and I can't be held responsible if one of my opponents is a chess cheat.

Most importantly, I can only play who is in front of me. Yes, I outrated the group by quite a lot, but a few of the players put up a good fight, and the tactics I used to beat them are instructive...

So, without further ado, lets get to the Daily Chess.

A Dubious Start

Black has gone with a somewhat dubious line of the Petrov Defense, known as the Damiano Variation. Normally, Black plays Qe2 in order to target the knight and prevent discoveries, but my opponent played Qh4, perhaps envisioning checkmating me on move five. Unfortunately for her this allows a host of tactics.

Can you find the only move that works in this position?

Miniature Mate

My favorite game of the round only lasted 17 moves. The position emerged from the Giuoco Piano, "The Quiet Game", however there was a lot to shout about, as I scored 97% accuracy. An early blunder allowed me to damage Black's pawn structure, before Black made a final mistake stumbling into a mating net.

Can you close this mating net around Black's king?

The Cheat

Chess.com has worked tirelessly to detect and stop cheating on the site, closing tens of thousands of accounts every month for fair play violations. Large tournaments like the Daily Chess Champs seem to draw these cretins like flies to bovine excrement.

Fortunately for me, the chess cheat in my group does not seem to have been cheating in daily chess, rather he must have been cheating in one of the other time controls...

In any case, the Chess Cheat, played quite well in this encounter; and we have entered a very tense endgame. Yet, White has made a critical mistake by pushing their passed pawn, this allows me to cut out all of White's counterplay and effectively end any drawing chances.

Can you find the only move that dominates the position?

Up and at 'Em

The next position is taken from the final game of the round, so with this victory I achieved my goal of attaining a perfect 22/22 score. All my pieces are aimed at the White kingside, that's always a good start. So, as the old saying goes, "Up and at 'em"!

Can you finish the round in style?

Miscalculations

Have you ever finished a game of chess, crushing your opponent in under 25 moves, with an incredible kingside assault; knowing that you played great, that this is a game that even Paul Morphy would be proud of...only to have the Engine tell you that you played like NN?...

Well, join the club...

The next game is notable not for how well I played, but for how many missed wins, blunders and missed mates I was able to pile up.

The old saying goes that you learn more from a game you lose than one you win, but perhaps there is something to be learned from all of my miscalculations.

And that was it, that was round one of the 2023 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship. As the disembodied voice of Shang Tsung would say: "Flawless Victory".

I know I outrated my opponents by quite a lot, but I still take some pride in being able to follow through and get the wins needed for this blog's theme.

I'm looking forward to round two, although the outcome is likely to be less than flawless.

As always, thanks for reading and feel free to share these games with your friends down at the Bar or Daily Chess Tournament.

Cheers, SheldonOfOsaka.