2022 Daily Chess Championship - Round 1: My Takeaways
The Daily Chess Championship conducted by chess.com is always a fun tournament with many opportunities to learn, and the 2022 edition is no different. Round 1 is about to come to a close at the time of writing. This is my 2nd year of playing the event, and after finishing 3rd in the previous year's tournament, I was determined to at least reach the 2nd round this year. I started this year as the top seed of my group, so the pressure was already on. Decisive games against @philipIvers and @troxology, and a draw in this game ensured my qualification to the next round within a fortnight of the tournament starting. I finished with a score of 21/22, which is an increase of 2.5 points from 2021. In this post, I have analysed two games, and solved tactics from my games to share everything I've learnt from this 1st round.
Tactics
"Chess is 99% tactics" - Richard Teichmann
Here is a collection of puzzles of varying difficulty from my games. If there is more than one solution, play all the lines as I could only set one solution. Try and solve them all!
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Treat yourself with some checkmates!
Game Analysis
I have analysed and annotated two of my games (white against @philipIvers and black against @matillyrose) which I thought have the most to learn from.
This game is my only loss of the first round, and showcases the importance of passed pawns and building up pressure on a pawn/square. It also has an instructive B v P endgame.
The second game is the only game I had a chance to launch an attack on the opponent's king. It is also the game I had the most fun playing, and even though it doesn't have much to learn from, it is fun to study a sharp attack.
Lessons
Here are some things I've learnt from playing this round of the daily championship that I think will be useful for your games as well.
1. Time Management
In daily games, time management can get tricky, as you have to login to the site once everyday (especially in non-vacation tournaments like this one). For me, the problem was the opposite, as some hasty moves proved to be costly in a few games. Patience is key as always, but setting at least two reminders a day is essential for playing in daily tournaments.
2. Play Less Aggressively
As players have more time to analyse positions in daily games, it is significantly harder to launch a game-ending attacks when compared to other time controls. Although this doesn't mean that a complete change in a player's style of play for daily chess, it is relatively easier to defend tough positions in these tournaments.
3. Endgames
As we have seen in my game against @philipIvers, matches can be lost easily due to blunders, even in daily chess. Even though the position seemed to be saved, the idea of the black king entering the kingside was completely missed by me. Hence, endgames require a lot of analysis and calculation, even in positions where the board is relatively silent.
That is all I have to share from my experience from playing my 1st round games of the 2022 Daily Chess Championship, and I hope you have learnt something from this. There are about 200 games left for round 1 to end at the time of writing, and I hope I do well in the subsequent rounds. Thanks for reading!
