Round 1: a Petrosian-esque Caro-Kann

The 2022 Chess.com daily chess championship started in the early morning of January 1st, with 33,633 players participating, surely making it one of the largest chess tournaments ever. I was apparently the 188th highest-rated participating player at the time of seeding, since I was the top seed in group 188.

To be honest, I kinda signed up on a whim, partly because of the cash prizes offered. Somehow I didn't quite comprehend that we would be playing 22 games simultaneously. That proved to be a bit stressful. Then again, I'm a long-time correspondence player: if I'm not willing to play in such a tourney, who is? Regardless, I won my group with a perfect score, which is less impressive after you learn that the 2nd rated player in my group was about 600 points below me.

I only had one win from this round worth showing. It's a Petrosian-esque win with the black pieces in the Caro-Kann. I suppose my opponent played the opening inaccurately, but we still reached an interesting middlegame where I got to make several fancy maneuvers. I hope you enjoy it!

It may seem silly to gloat over a victory against a 1400 player, especially when chess.com's post mortem is HIGHLY critical of my moves. (The computer thinks that my 28 ... Kd7?? is a bad blunder, going from -1.10 to +1.10.) Whatever, I'm happy with how I played. I got to do a poor man's impression of my favorite player by creeping across the board amoeba-like. I was able to continually spot new setups, utilizing my space advantage more and more greedily. And although my opponent lost on time before I was able to reach a picturesque endgame position, I was only a couple moves away from achieving dominant centralization.

Anyway, thanks for reading!