One Week Left in Death Match 25 Qualification
April is the qualification month for Death Match 25, and with only about one week remaining, below are some names who have good chances to get an invitation.
A refresher of the full rules can be read here. One reminder is that rules for this month are different than during our first qualification peiod - namely that you need to play only 75 blitz games to be eligible (to qualify under bullet, you still need to play 100).
Players that have not been active this month (or have very limited activity) or have played in a previous Death Match are not listed. Previous participants could only qualify if other top players decline.
Also note that World Blitz Champion GM Le Quang Liem (LiemLe on Chess.com) would be at the top of both categories, but he is playing in Death Match 24 on May 3 against GM Dmitry Andreikin!
There's another player on this list who used to be number one in the world in blitz! Scroll down to see who it is.
Bullet - Not counting a few anonymous accounts (which have to verify their identity to be eligible), there is an FM leading the standings. After Tuesday's Death Match 23, FMs are now two out of three in Death Matches!
Of players that have met the minimum 100 games, here are the usernames, real names, games played since 4/1/14 and bullet rating*:
FM Boryboy, identity not public** (plays under French flag), 183 games, 2650
NM Penguingm1, Andrew Tang, 114 games, 2599
Of players who have high ratings and are somewhat active this month in bullet, we have:
IM Brute4ever, Siddharth Ravichandran, 4 games, 3004!
FM Kulinarist, Andrey Kalinichev, 9 games, 2705
mary_cc, identity not public**, 8 games, 2702
Nouki, identity not public**, 57 games, 2656
IM Traxx, identity not public**, 20 games, 2632
GM Jark, Mark Paragua, 27 games, 2627
NM ChessNetwork, identity not public**, 98 games, 2578
Blitz - This race is again much less coveted. Only one player with a rating above 2500 has reached the minimum games threshold.
Meeting the minimum 75 games:
GM Contora, Boris Avrukh, 158 games, 2507
Notable players with some activity:
FM Kulinarist, Andrey Kalinichev, 5 games, 2707
NM TheTruth, identity not public, 3 games, 2571
IM TigerLilov, Valeri Lilov, 4 games, 2548
NM Matetricks, Andrew Ng, 4 games, 2536
IM Kacparov, Kacper Drozdowski, 32 games, 2456
GM Vovcoach, Yuri Vovk, 60 games, 2455
GM Dlugy, Maxim Dlugy, 9 games, 2452 (from 1988-1993, Dlugy was ranked #1 by the World Blitz Chess Association)
All players have until 12:00 a.m. Pacific (Los Angeles time) May 1, 2014 to attempt to qualify. The highest-rated in each category who has fulfilled the games requirement will get the first invitation!
*All ratings and games played are as of Wednesday evening, April 23, 2014.
**Players must make their identity public to play in the Death Match.
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Mike Klein began playing chess at the age of four in Charlotte, NC. In 1986, he lost to Josh Waitzkin at the National Championship featured in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer." A year later, Mike became the youngest member of the very first All-America Chess Team, and was on the team a total of eight times. In 1988, he won the K-3 National Championship, and eventually became North Carolina's youngest-ever master. In 1996, he won clear first for under-2250 players in the top section of the World Open. Mike has taught chess full-time for a dozen years in New York City and Charlotte, with his students and teams winning many national championships. He now works at Chess.com as a Senior Journalist and at ChessKid.com as the Chief Chess Officer. In 2012, 2015, and 2018, he was awarded Chess Journalist of the Year by the Chess Journalists of America. He has also previously won other awards from the CJA such as Best Tournament Report, and also several writing awards for mainstream newspapers. His chess writing and personal travels have now brought him to more than 85 countries.
