My most successful swiss tournament on Chess.com !

Or : how I managed to cross the desert of abandonment
to reach the final 48 !

Autumn is the season of transition, and here we are transitioning into a series of blogs about Chess.com tournaments! We will start with the ongoing "Under 1100 Chess.com Tournament", which has started its 3rd round. Starting in January 2023, this has been the longest ongoing tournament I've taken part in, and as you will see, there was a ghost town kind of stretch from which the current players are all escapees.

Round 1 : A brand new hope

Statistics of my round 1 pool

The initial salvo of games were filled with chess, 3 only were aborted before they even left the books. Next week's blog will be a review of the matches that happened during this decisive round.  As you will soon see, this is the hard part : getting through that primordial entry in matters when you register to a tournament! As soon as you get pass that hurdle, you are almost home free!

Round 2: The Desert

Statistics of my round 2 pool

The second round of competitors ended up being quite the disappointment. Instead of making the road bumpier, there was a bunch of tumbleweeds crossing the road and a dominating Donkey Kong ambassador wrecking everybody trying to get across towards round 3... Believe me : if you enter a 3 days per move daily tournament, round 2 is your best bet to get a 100% win rate... Ask my Swedish friend, he got 4 victories in less than 10 moves, and I got 5 wins without having to get out of the opening.

Round 3: The Ongoing Duels

Statistics of my round 3 pool

As we enter this 3rd round, I've been facing only players with a registered ELO higher than mine. Notwithstanding the adversity, I managed to get a win in my first completed match of the round. The rematch is currently not going in my favor, but I shall keep you updated when I write about this round in a future follow-up. As for the other opponents, they are pushing me to take more time for each move. To not get back to my bad habits of playing bullet & blitz speed moves during a daily match!

Part 4 : The ghost town is real!

After looking up my stats in this event for this overview, I was shocked to see how many aborted games there were, I decided to check on the experience of my opponents. Well imagine my shock when I realized this was the case for almost everyone in my bracket. If you made it to round 2, you had most probabilities to face empty chairs before the big 3rd round!  This means that we will be taking the time to dig into the statistics of this tournament to see how this correlates to the ratings of those who choose to vacate their spot. I will persevere and try to reach the next round, even if this takes another year! Be sure to checkback if you enjoyed this little analysis.

DISCLAIMER : no A.I. has ben used in the composition, writing, correction of this blog.
The thumbnail painting is the sole A.I. involvement in this project.

Dall·E 2 credits
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