WFM Anna Cramling: 2200 or Blonde Challenge

Monday, 11 January 2021 was a special day for the people of Earth. For several reasons. One chess reason based in Stockholm, Sweden, in particular...

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has crossed 90 million worldwide. The United States House of Representatives just laid down the second motion for impeachment of Donald Trump. In the chess world, IM Hans Niemann has crossed the live rating of 2500 and was expecting a Grandmaster Title confirmation letter; meanwhile, in Netherlands, last preparations were made for the 83rd annual Wijk aan Zee tournament. Last but not least - this Tweet dropped:

Nothing special? Perhaps. More demanding challenges have already been completed in the realm of Twitch chess. Some people sang national anthems in languages unknown to them. Other people twerked and then deleted any trace of butt wiggling ever taking place. Even Anna Cramling herself made a bet to reach 2100 in chess.com rating or paint her hair pink.

Still - despite this challenge being somewhat mild (especially for a Swedish native), viewers from twitch.tv/annacramling were split.

The believers would point out that Anna has climbed above 2150 once - and that happened a while ago already, in August last year. Their hopes were additionally reinforced by the Titled Tuesday on 19th of January, where their favorite has defeated two IMs.

At the same time, the doubters counted only 20 days until the challenge's deadline which, combined with various distractions like bullet, unrated subscriber games and scheduled chess lessons with Kris “Toph” Aldenderfer, made a 2200 climb unlikely.

And then, there were the conspiracy theorists: people convinced that the final surge for the new rating landmark will be completed with the aid of suspicious individuals blundering their games away to carry Cramling past the glass ceiling.

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The Highlights

Here and there, The Believers' Party was getting spoon-fed with hope...

Titled Tuesday on January 12th has proved what Brunette Cramling is capable of. Having drawn against another Women FIDE Master and lost to two International Masters and one Candidate Master, Anna entered the following game, against WGM Maryana Huda of Ukraine (2214):

Rather than making the best move (13...Nb6) or a logical move (13...h6), Huda went 13...f6??. "Oh wait, that looks bad. That looks extremely bad." - said the Swedish protagonist, immediately going for 14. Qh5+ g6 15. Bxg6+ hxg6 16. Qxg6+ Kd8 17. Nf7+ Kc7 12. Nxh8. Despite taking the game to a mutual time trouble, Black never got it going and flagged by move 40. still in a losing position.

The subsequent Titled Tuesday (19th January) has been terrible for Cramling, who'd only manage to get a single point from the first eight games. Fortunes turned around near the finish - partly due to this game, won against the Ukrainian IM, Andrii Shankovskyi (2260):

"I have to be very careful" - she repeated several times, having wrestled a better endgame against the dreaded Smith-Morra Gambit. Then, the International Master went 28. Bc7? and after 28...Rc8 29. Bd6+ Ke8, it turned out that the c-pawn was falling, as 27. Ba3 Rxc3 comes with tempo and 27. Bb4 a5 28. Bd6 Rxc3 cannot be met by 29. Rxb6 due to White's back-rank weakness. Play continued: 30. Rb3 Kd7? (30...Bxd4 with more back-rank motives) 31. Bg3?? (31. Bf4 would unpin his c-pawn by guarding the mating c1 square) 31...Bxd4 (finally!) and White were effectively done. Anna delivered checkmate by move 55.

After three straight wins at the end of that tournament, it was time to play against some of the viewers. One of the most reputable ones, AkJett (2133) tried the following:

"WHOOOA... AkJett, are you doing a rated Bongcloud? Are you doing a rated Bongcloud? AkJett is actually doing a rated Bongcloud!" (Anna giggled). The disrespect was not unpunished:

11...Bxf3 12. Bxc5? Bxg2+ 13. Kxg2 Qd5+ 14. Bf3 Qxc5 left Black a pawn ahead and put the defiant Greek into even more severe time trouble than he was at already. He'd fight hard to equalize but in the end, a Knight fork was one wrong step too many:

Anna would score another memorable win on January 22nd - against the whimsically named Benko Gambit Half-Accepted: Zaitsev, Nescafé Frappe Attack:

Even without the b-pawn - which was just blundered by Black on b3 - Danish player ArthurRimbaud1 (2047) seems to have a decent game. When suddenly: 23...Qb4? 24. Bc4! (cutting off Queen's access to d5 and e4) 24...Rbc8?? (for better or worse, 24...Bd5 was essential) 25. Be1 and Anna trapped the Queen. "HOW ARE YOU DEFENDING YOUR QUEEN - YOU'RE NOT!" she exclaimed. The game lasted many more moves but the result was never in doubt.

A little over an hour later, Brazilian user tomazchess (2053) played a strategical masterclass, leaving the Swedish WFM with a horrendous position. To her full credit, after being at the mercy of her opponent for the whole game, she's managed to rescue herself somehow:

Black just played 20...Bb7, hoping to at least remove one of several enemy blockaders stifling her position. Now, the Brazilian could've sealed the deal with a fabulous 21. Rff3! and if 21...Bxc6 22. Rfg3 Qf8 23. Nxe7 Re8 24. Qxf6 Rxe7 25. Rxg7 overloads Black Queen twice while regaining material with interest. Instead, the game went 21. Bxb7 Rxb7 22. Rff3 Qc8 23. Nxe7??? (exchanging this Knight is a positional heresy!) 23...Rxe7 24. Qxf6 Rxe4 25. Rfg3? (25. Rhg3 retains White's advantage) 25...Qc1+ 26. Kf2 Qd2+ and White resigned.

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The Disasters

Then, there was sweet material for The Doubters' Brigade...

Those who were skeptical about the whole endeavor didn't need to wait too long. Already on the first day of the challenge, Anna had a textbook game to forget, against Georgian user epiclooser (2125):

Black's position looks wonderful: she has an extra pawn, a strong Bishop and solid amount of central control. 22...Qd7 would consolidate those advantages - but while she was responding to the chat, Cramling played 22...Qe6? and 23. Ng5 Qd6 24. Qh4 h6 25. Nxf7 has turned out very sour. Instead of grabbing an Exchange, White contented himself with an h-pawn, traded a ton of pieces and easily won a pawn-up endgame:

Next day, a Titled Tuesday warm-up went a little off the rails. An Indian opponent premsumi1222 (2091) didn't mind, of course:

"If the puzzle is not Bxf7+, I don't know how to solve it - welcome to the club!" - said Anna to the viewer Blue_Barian in chat en route to this position. And then... 17. Bxf7+?? was played. Clearly, down on time, White was desperate to avoid perils like 17...Nxf3, 17...Rxg2+ and / or, 17...e4. But the only way to do so was actually 17. Ne1!, offering an Exchange sac (17...Ba6 is coming) in return for King safety. After 17. Bxf7+ Kxf7 18. Nxe5+ Kf6 19. Ng6 Kxf5 20. Nh4+ Kg5 the game has reached a critical point:

21. g3?? Ne2# "What? Did you guys see that? (...) I really thought I clicked on the resignation button out of mistake for a second!" - echoed through the stream...

Many streams later - and sadly, still far off the rating goal - Anna had the game in the bag against Australian Benoni Defense user, Firegoat7 (2086):

Black has already blundered a piece and his position would've utterly imploded after 28. h5!, undermining the already improvised King shelter. But once White went for 28. d6? Qxd6 29. Rxb7+ Kh8 30. Bxf5 gxf5 31. Qxf5 Rg8+, creating counter-chances:

"Wait - that's, like, not good, is it?" dropped on air at this point. Yes: the only defense is 32. Bg5!, taking advantage of the Bishop's immunity from the pawn capture. It draws after 32...Qc6+ 33. Qf3 Qxf3+ 34. Kxf3 Rgf8+ 35. Ke2 hxg5 36. hxg5+ Kg8 37. Rg6 and White will deliver a perpetual if Black doesn't. But Anna went 32. Kh3 which was met by the stunning 32...Rg3+!! "What sort of move is that?" - she quietly asked in horror: 33. Kh2 Rxe3+ 34. Kg2 Rg8+ 35. Kf1 Qd1#

Final day of the challenge had it's moments too...

The game against vinz12pogi (2148) has only just started and it's hard to imagine that something could go wrong for either side: 15. Qd1 Bb8 16. Bf3 Qd6. Here, Anna paused for a couple of seconds to calculate a Knight sacrifice on b5, rejected it and pushed a pawn instead; the wrong pawn: 17. b4?? "Let's do this! Let's go ahead and do this!" - she said, glancing at the chat and then, at the board again - this time, in terror: 17...Qxh2#

Couple games later, the Swedish WFM been holding a full piece advantage from the move 17:

Polish opponent Ania_2000 (2059) kept on playing down big material, hoping for a miracle that didn't come. Despite being down on time, Black still had 13 seconds at this point; more than enough to checkmate. When suddenly: 66...Kh5?? "NOO! NOOOO! I CAN'T DO THIS GUYS ANYMORE!" - the WFM yelled, as the chat filled with PepeLaugh emojis.

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The Kitchen Sink

20 days and 17 streams after her Twitter announcement, Anna stood with her back against the wall. Well - metaphorically, at least. With 2062 rating to her name, she started 31st January stream as a sixteen-hour long, epic battle for crossing the 2200 mark. And, to her credit, she started it well: crossing 2100 after just two hours. Then came the typical ups and downs - but four and a half hours into the grind, at 3 PM her time, she was 2131 - exactly half way between her morning rating and The Promised Land.

The nightmare started out of the blue. In the next seven games, Cramling suffered six losses, slid back under 2100 mark and tilted quite a bit - resulting, among others, in two games mentioned in "The Disasters" section. Beating Brazilian user UFrezende (2046) 4-0 would allow the Swedish fighter to recover a little bit, but then, tiredness combined with the time pressure caused some more setbacks. Also: Ariel Crawford (acrawford28, 2107) showed up in the playing pool, raising some... questions:

Game continued 4. Nf3?? Nxd1 5. Bc4 and Crawford surrendered. Meanwhile, The Conspirationist Party in the chat was throwing the accusations around, bringing up old stories about an anonymous Irish opponent from the Pink Hair Challenge...

But even with such gift, the challenge was crumbling already. By 7 PM, the streamer lost three more games in a row, sliding from 2130 to 2106. Another brief resurgence didn't last long and the streaming marathon came to an end with six losses and a draw in the final seven games - sending the tragic hero of this story back to the 2000s realm.

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The Summary

In 21 days between her announcement and the end of January, Anna hosted 18 streams. In that time, she played 307 rated blitz games, winning 140, drawing 12 and losing 155. Among the players she defeated were: two Candidate Masters, one Woman Candidate Master, three Woman FIDE Masters, one FIDE Master, one Woman Grandmaster and two International Masters. Her rating peaked at 2142 (January 31) and slumped at 2018 (January 18). With 2122 in the beginning and 2084 at the end, the hectic ride has actually decreased her rating.

Last, but not least: she promised to deliver the blonde goods on February 15th...