2023 Daily Chess Champ: Brilliancies and Blunders
MY PREPARATION FOR THE 2023 DAILY CHESS.COM CHAMPIONSHIP
Daily games is not my favourite time control for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I usually forget my plans, keeping notes would have been a great way to remedy this problem, but for reason not even known to me, I just don't like keeping notes.
Secondly, I have at least 24 hours to make a move in my daily games but I hardly make judicious use of this ample time when making my moves in daily games. I look at the position for a few minutes and make my moves as if it is a rapid games. All this have affected my game play in daily matches. Well, the first way to remedy a problem is to figure out the root of the problem. Prior to the 2023 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship, I usually engage in a lot of daily games and can have up to 100 daily games running at once and this has also contributed to my poor performance in daily games.
Having this at the back of my mind, I intentionally reduce the amount of daily games I will be in before the start of the Championship
This has been an eye opener for me, as playing fewer daily games has helped the quality of my games and I have been gaining ratings since I reduced the number of daily games.
INTRODUCTION
The 2023 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship started on the 1st of January, 2023. 35,000 Players registered for it. I am always excited to join these kind of tournaments. I played in the 2022 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship where I was the third seed. The first seed was about 400 points higher than me in rating and simply steam rolled all of us in the group and was crowned the winner of the group.
This year's Daily Chess Championship was different for me as I was the top seed in my group. I was about 100 rating points higher than the second seed and the rest of the players in the group were significantly lower in rating that the two of us. This simply implies that my biggest challenger is the second seed player and in order for me to be the Magnus Carlsen of the group I will have to win both of my games against him.
SURPRISE GAME PLAY FROM 400
Playing lower rated player or higher rated players have a way of impacting our game play. When I play lower rated players I am just too confident and sometime I am ignorant of the fact that in chess sometimes it takes one good mistakes and the game is over. Well for noob players like me and you I guess it take more than one mistake to end a game.😆😆
On the other hand, when playing a higher rated player I tend to respect their move so much that even when they hang a piece or make a great mistake, I tend to believe their tactics. Here is an example of a game where I believed my higher rated opponent tactics and didn't think much about that sacrifice as I thought he had figured it out before making those piece sacrifice. He played a brilliant bishop sacrifice two moves before this knight blunder.
📷 Respecting Opponent's Blunder
Can you find the move that wins for me, let me know in the comment. This game is not part of my 2023 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship.
Without any further ado, let dive deep into the amazing 400-rated player game.
THE GAMES AGAINST MY BIGGEST CHALLENGER
In daily games losing to players that I am 200 rating points higher than is not unusual for me. I was going to play my best game. I will not let him stop me from making it to Round 2. I was determined to play to the best of my ability. Well, my opponent will have similar determination since I am his major threat.
That was an amazing game from me. I completely dominated that game.
Have you ever played a game where you felt you were completely outplaying your opponent? But after the analysis you realized you didn't actually play very well. In the next game, I thought I was completely outplaying my opponent, I was so comfortable with my position that I went on a pawn grabbing adventure. Let's dive in to the game so you see for yourself.
With this game I can only ask one question, Is there luck in chess? Because I feel I was really lucky to have a win in this game.
AMAZING MOVES FROM MY GAMES
In this section I will be posting pictures of incredible moves from my games.
Amazing Move 1 - Triples my opponents pawn on the c-file
Amazing Move 2 - Bishop captures a pawn and open a discovery attack on the opponent's queen.
Amazing Move 3 - Attacks the queen and threatens to capture the bishop on e2.
Amazing Move 4 - Avoids all kinds of back-rank checkmate.
Check below for the images and let me know in the comment the move that is your favourite.
CONCLUSION
There were a lot of timeouts which is not unusual in this tournament. I was only able to play 9 games from start to end. I came out victorious in round one of the tournament ahead of the second seed by 2.5 Points, it was an amazing round for me filled with amazing games. I can only wish me good fortune continues in Round 2.
What is your take about luck in chess?
Which of the amazing move do you like the most?
Does player rating affects your game play?
Your comments will be well appreciated. Thank you for reading, I will make another blog for round two. Wish me luck if you think luck has a part in the game of chess.
