Welcome to my very first blog! Today, I’m recapping Round One of the 2026 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship. This is an annual tournament featuring Daily Chess (aka correspondence chess). In Daily Chess, each player gets 24 hours to make each move. This allows players to consult opening books and calculate deeply. This is my fourth year playing in this tournament, and my goal is to make it into the third round.
This year, I started out as the highest seed in my group, and my expectations were high. As in most cases, more than half of my games ended in my opponent timing out. That leaves us with just 8 out of the 22 games to analyze. Rather than go through all of them move by move, I’ve selected the five most interesting games. Make sure you stick around for the last one — you wouldn't want to miss it! Let’s dive into the Top 5 games from Round One!
Game #5 - The Bishop Trap
The following position is from an already winning position. I had won an exchange in a discovered attack and all I had to do was convert. Luckily for me, I was able to end the game with a nice tactic!
The correct move there was Rb2 to get rid of the bishop's two escape squares. After that, you had to play Re7 to attack the trapped bishop. White tried an in-between check with Rd1+, where we simply play Kc6. It is important to keep c5 defended, or else the bishop will take on c5 and escape. White then plays Ra1 to defend the bishop. We just have to play Rbb7, and white can no longer defend the bishop. This shows how it is always dangerous for the bishop to be stuck on the edge. While not the only way to win this game, trapping the bishop on a7 was still a nice way to convert my advantage.
Game #4 - The Queen Trap
We are now moving on trapping bishops to queens! Unlike the last one, this was still in the middlegame. My opponent had played the Giuoco Piano as white, but I had managed to get a small edge. When my opponent's queen got stranded on g3, I was able to unleash a powerful trap. My opponent had to give up a piece to escape, and I eventually won.
You had to play Qd7 to protect the bishop on g4. After Kh1, notice how White's queen has nowhere to go except h4. We take advantage of that by playing Nh5. White must play Qh4, when we reply with g5, fully trapping the queen! Note that after Nxg5 hxg5 Qxg5+, Ng7 is the only move. Kh7 or Kh8 would allow f3. This shows the danger of bringing the queen out too early in closed positions. Despite its immense power, it is not immune to being trapped.
Game #3 - A Crazy Opening
In this game we started out with a Vienna. However, things got crazy when my opponent decided to enter the Frankenstein-Dracula variation. As black, I had no idea how to deal with the onslaught on my king. Luckily, this was Daily Chess; I had access to the opening database. I managed to survive the attack and white had to resign on move 13. Here is the full game:
Despite being just 13 moves, this game was pretty interesting. Make sure to go through my annotations for all the variations! Again, the opening explorer really helped me navigate this opening. If only it covered every single position...
Game #2 - An Endgame
While opening databases are fair game in Daily Chess, chess.com prohibits the use of endgame tablebases. Therefore, we are left on our own to deal with these positions. As I was playing against lower rated players, most games were finished very early on. However, this singular game managed to reach the endgame.
I was a pawn up in the endgame, but didn't know how exactly to continue. But, my opponent presented me a golden opportunity with Nf7. After simplifying into a pawn endgame, my task became so much easier. This is an important lesson: In the endgame always know which exchanges favor you and which don't. If white had foresaw that the pawn endgame would have been lost for him, then white could have avoided Nf7.
Now that we have looked at this endgame lesson, let's move on the Game #1, the game we have all been waiting for!
Game #1 - The Brilliancy
With 2 brilliancies and a 96.5% accuracy, this may as well be the best game I have ever played. I have fully annotated it for you to look at. Let's look at the game first, before I say anything more.
The game started out with a very interesting opening: The Dubov Gambit. This gambit was pioneered by GM Daniil Dubov. He is known for being very good at blitz and playing very creative chess. In 2020, he played this gambit against Sergey Karjakin and won in a brilliant fashion. The fact that Dubov defeated one of the world's best players with this gambit made this gambit very famous. Here is the game; I encourage you to check it out: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2015531.
Going back to the game, we see how dangerous the Dubov Gambit can be. After 12... d6, I was able to unleash 13. Bxf7+!!. After that, I got a lethal attack on black's king. The fact that black's knight was stuck on e7 played a huge role. It stopped black from getting his king to safety. The game was essentially over by move 18, but I was able to finish it off with another brilliancy: 22. Rxf5+!!
The fact that this was a daily game definitely played a role into this. I probably wouldn’t have calculated Bxf7 in a rapid or blitz game. I was able to continue the attack on move 15 with Qh5+ instead of cashing out with Qxd8+. I am very happy that I got the chance to play a game like this. Hopefully, this inspires you to try out the Dubov Gambit too.
I hope you liked this game as much as I did. If you would like a deeper view into the game, please feel free to check out my video here: https://youtu.be/fk3tSaeAaBw
Conclusion
That's all for now. I managed to win all 22 games and secure my position in round 2! Round One was a success, but the real challenge begins now. The competition will only get tougher from here, and I’ll need to bring my best preparation and creativity into Round Two. Stay tuned!
The Final Standing of R1
Please feel free to ask questions or give me constructive feedback down in the comments. I would really appreciate your feedback! Have a good day and thank you for reading my blog. I'll see you in round 2!
