2024 Daily Chess Championship Round 3

I'd like to share my round 3 experience in the 2024 Daily Chess Championships.

I'm in Group 17, and right off the bat, something amazing happened - everyone showed up to play! In my 5 years playing this tournament, this was the first time I got to experience the full 22 games at once.

Part 1 - The Early Games

I started off Round 2 by missing a Mate in 2. How will I start off Round 3?

Overall, 2 brilliant sacrifices within 3 games was a fantastic start to the round. Moreover, those first two games were "perfect," meaning I didn't have a single inaccuracy, mistake, or blunder.

Looking at the evaluation bar after a daily game is always fun, so here they are:

Part 2 - The Cheater

Three weeks in, a player that had taken an early lead of 8.5 points was banned for cheating. I actually had a lot of fun playing him - My game with the white pieces was definitely one of the most chaotic games I've experienced:

My takeaway: don't put your king on e3 on move 14. The engine really hates it, giving it -4.1. I have no idea how I ever thought it was a good idea.

My other game against the cheater, sadly wasn't as exciting, so I'll skip it.

However, with the cheater out of the way, 5 or 6 people emerged as contenders, having yet to lose. So the games continued.

Part 3 - Advance Caro Kann

When I woke up on the 33rd day, pollacchioneilritorno, our 2100-rated top seed, had resigned 3 games back-to-back-to-back. This is a game I'm proud of, showcasing why the caro-kann is so fun to play.

Although the evaluation was a clean trend upwards, it was far from easy to win.

At this point, I'm very content with my performance. Any other wins in the future are just a bonus.

Part 4 - 2nd Half

I finished the first half of the tournament with 11 wins, but things were about to get harder.

When our 1st seed resigned those 3 games earlier, the other two players that beat him were TowerOf1Dragon and HideousHogg - two players I still had to face.

Thus it makes sense that my first draws would be against these two. Both of my games with the black pieces were pretty uneventful, so I won't show them. The first was a "death draw" in the exchange caro-kann, the evaluation always between -0.5 and 0.5. The second was a hyper-theoretical grunfeld that resulted in an opposite colored bishops ending and a draw by repetition.

On the other hand, my games with the white pieces against these two were a little more exciting (both sicilians!):

I had better positions in both games, and fumbled them down to draws. 

The common mistake in both games was not playing a4 for a space advantage early enough, which let black equalize.

Also, the fortress that TowerOf1Dragon found in the first game is something that I only needed to see once to remember. Endgame fortresses are those things that look really cool in theory, but never actually happen in games. Until they do.

Part 5 - Skill or Luck?

At around the 6th week, TowerOf1Dragon had taken a lead, beating pollacchioneilritorno in their 2nd game and beating HideousHogg in both games as well. Judging from his 3 remaining games, I expected him to end with 18.5 points, and right now, I had 15 points, with 5 games remaining.

I'm down two clean pawns in one of them, so therefore 3 of the games were must-wins. To make matters worse, many of my positions were questionable.

In this position, my pieces are in ideal spots, but black has four defenders on the e6 pawn, more than I have attackers. How do I continue?

This was the full game:

The middlegame was full of inaccuracies on both sides, which is what led to this hard-to-play position. In a parallel universe, I might've tried something different - gone done a dead end path that leads to a draw.

 Instead, luck was on my side, and I only needed 1.5 more points to advance.

Part 6 - Three Advance Caro Kanns

My 3 remaining games were amusingly all advanced caro kanns.

Meanwhile, TowerOf1Dragon's final game is fittingly against T-Dragonmaster-XII. It was a queen + pawn endgame that looked like a draw - that is, until TowerOf1Dragon managed to win a pawn. After a long grind, TowerOf1Dragon won, bringing the bar to advance up to 19 points.

So now, instead of needing 1.5/3, I needed to get 2/3 points. Only problem is, my positions in 2 of the games had deteriorated significantly since before, and the other one was borderline drawn.

The borderline drawn game turned into an actually drawn game, until a crucial mistake that let me win. But still - if there were 1 fewer pair of pawns on the board, it is likely a draw. If my rook pawn was on the other side, it's also a draw.

This win was clutch for another reason - I hit 2000 rating! 

Now I only needed 1 point out of the other 2 games, but I was on track to get 0.

I was being very passive for pretty much the whole game, which is a recipe for disaster. 

Wow. The lower half of the evaluation chart has looked suspiciously empty until now.

Last game! (for both me and Group 17 as a whole). The goal is to draw.

The Tal variation is probably the best way to play the Advance Caro Kann. For the entire game, I was stuck responding to my opponent's moves, and always had the inferior position. 

Ironically, I was playing the most offense at the end of the game. At the end, even though he was still up a pawn, the extra b-pawn was useless and controlled by my a and c pawns.

The chart is complete!

Results

After 840 moves, 16 wins, 6 draws, 5 advance caro-kanns, and exactly 2 months, I am pleased to say that I've made it to Round 4.

I got really lucky with 7/11 opponents playing e4, and had a lot of sicilians and caro-kanns specifically. But also, I made way fewer blunders than I normally do, and had more saves at the end than should be allowed.