An Early End.... Or Is It? | 2024 Daily Chess Championship

The Daily Chess Championship is a tournament hosted by Chess.com every time the New Year rolls around. Thousands flock to play, and in the 2024 Daily Chess Championship, a record-breaking 63,352 entered to try to take home the victory. Now obviously, being an avid blogger, this was the perfect opportunity to capitalize on this tournament for free content! 

This is my fourth year playing in this tournament. In 2021, I forgot that I entered, and timed out all my games while out of state. In 2022, I won all my games, but a person banned for cheating beat me, and so I did not move on because the next round started right before they got banned. Luckily, in 2023. I was back at home when I realized I had registered. I was more fortunate in 2023, tying for first in my group with a 1600-rated player, only to come up short in the second round. 

But this is 2024, and as they say, "New Year, New Me!" So you better believe I will be working my butt off to make it past the first round, especially given the rating of one of my opponents. Oh yes, this reminds me, here is my group:

@The_turtlepro (Me!): 1234 Rated

@Pulserated: 2217 Rated

@Tanfas: 1233 Rated

@Demis2014: 100 Rated

@TURBOoO7: 800 Rated*

@Jai0087hind: 400 Rated*

@BruderBence123: 800 Rated*

@IntoDespair: 1000 Rated*

@archisathavale: 1000 Rated*

@LostSidd: 400 Rated*

@ElapiYahir00: 400 Rated*

@Kristan-3: 400 Rated*

                                                                 * Timed Out

This could be a difficult tournament with these opponents. While I was confident I could handle the 100-rated player, the other two I was less certain about. While @Tanfas is only 1233 rated (one point below me!), they are over 1600 rated in rapid at the time of writing.

But the most difficult challenge would be beating @Pulserated. They are a whopping 2217 rated and are the 16th highest rated in the WHOLE tournament. Mind you, that is out of 60,000 participants! This would be tough, but without further ado, let us look at the games!

Opponent 1: Demis2014

My first victi- I mean opponent was @Demis2014. I only had the opportunity to play him once, as he timed out almost all his games before realizing and making his moves. Therefore, this was the only game that I played him:

Now, this was a pretty easy start for the tournament, as I beat my opponent in only 8 moves. In the end, one misplay of my opponent trying to develop their pieces caused their demise. But this is definitely not the most action-packed game of the tournament, especially with who my next opponent was.

Opponent 2: Tanfas

My second opponent was a player by the name of @Tanfas. Tanfas was only 1 rating point below me, clocking in at 1233, but his other ratings said otherwise about his skill. At about 1600 rated in rapid time control, it looked like this would be a difficult opponent. 

This game was equal, until Tanfas made a few mistakes, and I made a few good moves. Some key moves were:

• 5. f4: My opponent already puts themselves at a minor disadvantage, with this opening move. 
• 12... Bxc3: This capture meant that if the queen or pawn took back, I would fork the two pieces.
• 13... Ne4+: My plan worked out.

Now, this first win against Tanfas got me pretty hyped up. I knew that I could potentially win the second game, as I was playing as white in this next game. However, I also knew that at any moment, I could play a massive blunder, and go 1-1 against Tanfas. But, for the first time in my life, it appeared luck was on my side, and this is how the game went:

And there it is, 2-0 against @Tanfas! This really caught me off-guard, as I thought that I would lose at least one of my games against him. This game seemed to be mostly flawless, with not a lot of mistakes on my part. Later, he even beat @pulserated, showing how strong he can play, and how fortunate I was to win both games.

This left me with only one other opponent, @Pulserated. But I felt that maybe, with a little luck, I could perhaps pull out a victory, but I knew the chances were very low.

Opponent 3: Pulserated

This was it, if I could win just one game against @Pulserated, I would move on. But as we already know, Pulserated is rated 2217, and is one of the highest rated in the whole tournament, making them a threat to potentially make it very far. But I would definitely try to give them a run for their money, but this game does not show it.

Ouch. That game was horrendous. I made many mistakes in the game, especially at the end. Can you see what the best move would have been in this position?

I was not off to a great start against Pulserated. That game did not last very long, with less than 20 moves, but it was enough to make a few bad mistakes. But I knew that I could not let this stop me too much, I still had another game to play.

The second game I was playing as Black, already putting me at a disadvantage. But when you look at my win rate as black, I win more games as black than as white. So maybe, just maybe, a miracle could happen, and I could move on to the next round. With my hopes up, I played this game:

And that was it. Pulserated had managed to do the expected and beat me for a second time. I knew this would likely be the scenario, but it still hurt a little. But as I sat there, I realized this tournament, while short, went well for me. I gained a good amount of ratings, and this would make for some good content to make for my monthly blog post. 

As time went by, the tournament slipped from my mind a little more every day. I started looking for new tournaments to compete in, but I still occasionally looked at the tournament to see the remaining games in my round, knowing I was still eliminated.

Or was I?

It was just a normal day at school. I was in my 7th period and would be dismissed in 15 minutes. I had finished all my work, so I decided to check Chess.com,  and what I saw surprised me greatly.  I looked at the tournament, and saw this sight to behold:

@Pulserated had been banned for cheating, and this meant that I would move on to the next round. I am not celebrating about the incident, but I knew that I had nothing to do with it, and that it is not my business what happened. Pulserated genuinely seemed like a nice guy when I was talking to him, but I trust Chess.com's fair play team. All I know, is that I have another shot, and will be back for round 2!

Conclusion:

Thank you for making it to the end of this blog! I worked really hard on it, especially the game analysis, so I appreciate you for reading it. And this is not the end of the tournament recaps, I will be back after round 2 to cover what happens then. Seeya next time!