Chess.com's Daily Chess Championship

Chess.com's Daily Chess Championship

     Here we are in January of 2020 already, which means a new list of resolutions, new Trump tweets, 10 more feet of snow, and a new Daily Chess Championship. The Daily Chess Championship is a correspondence tournament held once a year on chess.com since 2018. It provides a high number of entrants and a busy schedule, with 22 simultaneous games at 1 day per move.

     Now in it's third year, the action has become more exciting then ever. If the sheer amount of players and demanding schedule isn't enough, they've thrown in $1000 of prizes to top things off! This money will be awarded for best games, blogs, and video analysis.

     After a little digging around I got together some basic statistics from the three Championships thus far. I was also able to connect with the top 3 players from 2018 & 2019, and with a huge thanks to them for their help, have compiled a collection of 4 beautiful games (the first being a must see masterpiece) and 2 tactic puzzles accompanied by 1 great story. Enjoy!

Tournament Statistics

2018 Championship Stats

1st place: NM @Jbd735 64W/0L/6D - Final Round 7.5/8
2nd place: NM @Robking 62W/5L/3D - Final Round 6.5/8
3rd place: @ozimov13 58W/7L/5D - Final Round 4/8

-Tournament Lasted: 8 Months & 3 Days
-Players Registered: 7,344
-Games Played*: 87,192
-Average Rating: 1362

2019 Championship Stats

1st place: FM @hornsounder 68W/11L/5D - Final Round 18.5/20
2nd place: NM @Jbd735 72W/4L/10D - Final Round 16/20
3rd place: GM @daanbrandenburg 56W/8L/20D - Final Round 15.5/20

-Tournament Lasted: 10 Months & 22 Days
-Players Registered: 11,609
-Games Played*: 140,536
-Average Rating: 1326

2020 Championship Stats

First round in progress. To be determined.

-Players Registered: 16,831 (over twice the original tournament in 2018!)
-Average Rating: 1249

*Games played includes time outs

2019 Featured Games

    This first game is a thing of beauty. When messaging players involved about memorable games, both replied with this game right away. White ignores the loss of 2 pawns, offers a bishop sac, later sacs the bishop, sacs a rook, then delivers a mate!

     GM daanbrandenburg gets his revenge in this next game, with a beautifully timed knight sac. He lets the e-pawn fall, sacs the knight opening up the king, and takes over the resulting position quickly.

     Another game that shows a tough fight against the GM. White again takes advantage of an exposed king in this game, and delivers a nice mate to finish it off.

2018 Featured Game & Puzzles

     Our only game from 2018 shows a unique fight. Neither player castles, but rather the kings hang out on d2 & d7 for half the game, while all the major pieces remain. 

     Finally for the puzzles. These are both taken from a great, funny story ozimov13 shared with me. As we all know, there is no time for taking a break during this tournament. In round 3 of 4, ozimov13 was on a kayaking trip in deep Russian countryside and could not get a proper mobile connection. Without being able to see positions clearly, he made 2 blunders on the same day, against the same opponent, in 2 different games! Lucky for him, one blunder was missed with a draw being the result. He was not so lucky in the other.

     See if you can take advantage of a poor internet connection.  I couldn't figure out how to include hidden moves and analysis, so I will post correct moves at end of blog. Don't scroll too far! First puzzle is black to move, second is white to move.