FM Dan Yeager, Justin Tan Win Crazyhouse Championship
Chess.com's first-ever crazyhouse (crazyhouse rules here! 
) championship featured 83 of the very best crazyhouse players in the world. Nearly every major crazyhouse player was present.
Two of the favorites, FM Dan Yeager (chickencrossroad) and Justin Tan (JannLeeCrazyhouse), dominated the elite field with 13.0/15 apiece. For victory, each collected $450.
Entering the event, Tan was the favorite of many, thanks partly to his popular crazyhouse streams, and his long history of dominance in crazyhouse, holding the humber-one rating on many sites.
Tan started with a perfect 7.0/7 and could have moved to 8.0/8 against IM Andrew Tang had he been able to finish with checkmate in a wicked time scramble. Can you find a winning move here?
Black to Play: Black holds 
Highlight to see solution: N@h3+! mates with Q@g2 or Q@g1 coming!
IM Andrew Tang had interesting games against the two winners. | Photo: US Chess League.
Tan did come out ahead in a hilarious time scramble earlier when he was getting mated against Janak Awatramani, who had just played ...Rfb8+ with 3.4 seconds on the clock.
Tan discarded pawns with P@b7, P@b6, and P@b5. Each was captured by the black rook, but then Tan played Ka3! Black, having anticipated P@b4, played ...P@a4! As this was no longer check, Tan had time to play Q@c7#!
Yeager had a different road to first place, he lost in round three to the Chess.com user "12teen," who nearly defeated Tan in our last example, and he lost to Tan in round nine. After that, he was otherwise undefeated, winning many games in a sharp and sacrificial, attacking style. Can you find his accurate finishing move against Tang who just blundered with 19...Kh8?
White to Play: White holds a 
Highlight to see solution: White plays 20.Qxe6! (or 20.Qxd7!) intending B@g7+ and N@h6#
A highlight of the event was seeing strong grandmasters tackling crazyhouse. GM Federico Ponsa had the best finish, sharing fifth place while GMs Conrad Holt, and Georg Meier acquitted themselves well, but were not as strong as the elite crazyhouse players.
The GMs were strong, but they couldn't top the field.
Chess.com was excited to host this event, and we look forward to making it even bigger and better next year! In the meantime, check out our crazyhouse club, and look for the crazyhouse leaderboard, coming soon!
Final Standings (Top 10 Places) | Chess.com Crazyhouse Championship
| Place | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Score | Prize |
| 1 | 14 | FM | chickencrossroad | Dan Yeager | 13 | $450 | |
| 1 | 4 | JannLeeCrazyhouse | Justin Tan | 13 | $450 | ||
| 3 | 28 | mastertanCrazyhouse | 11 | $250 | |||
| 3 | 10 | xuanetcrazyhouse | Joan Miquel | 11 | $250 | ||
| 5 | 11 | IM | penguingm1 | Andrew Tang | 10 | $117 | |
| 5 | 15 | GM | Genghis_K | Federico Perez Ponsa | 10 | $117 | |
| 5 | 25 | MJB223 | Mathew Buchanan | 10 | $117 | ||
| 8 | 13 | Sorsi | Sorsi Spring | 9.5 | $100 | ||
| 8 | 16 | NM | happytoad | Todd Freitag | 9.5 | $100 | |
| 10 | 5 | 12teen | Janak Awatramani | 9 | $5 | ||
| 10 | 6 | eekarf | Ian Mark | 9 | $5 | ||
| 10 | 3 | FM | veniveniveni | Steph Bressac | 9 | $5 | |
| 10 | 8 | Zyxon | 9 | $5 | |||
| 10 | 26 | chriswsh | 9 | $5 | |||
| 10 | 17 | FM | Caminator2000 | Cameron Wheeler | 9 | $5 | |
| 10 | 9 | GM | dretch | Conrad Holt | 9 | $5 | |
| 10 | 21 | joeykelly86 | 9 | $5 | |||
| 10 | 67 | khiggins89 | 9 | $5 | |||
| 10 | 20 | AtrophiedCrazyhouse | Nikolas Theiss | 9 | $5 | ||
| 10 | 43 | FM | FlySooHigh | 9 | $5 | ||
| 10 | 52 | Crossonline | Jonathan Cearley | 9 | $5 |
Find the full crosstable and list of games available here.
Commentary was provided on Chess.com/tv by the always fun and personable: IMs Danny Rensch and Aman Hambleton. You can replay the full stream here.
I'm the Head of Community for Chess.com. I earned the National Master title in 2012, and in 2014, I returned to my home state of South Carolina to start Strategery: Chess and Games. In late 2015, I began working for Chess.com and haven't looked back since.
You can find my personal content on Twitch , Twitter , and YouTube where I further indulge my love of chess.
