Untitled Tuesday and Saturday recaps - June 5th and 9th

The June report was written by @dpnorman

A year ago, with its June 2017 tournament, Untitled Tuesday was kicked off on chess.com. A year later, we've had many events, expanded to two events per month, and seen all sorts of drama, triumph, and heartbreak. We had another first this time around, with a player taking clear first place in both events, and looking quite impressive along the way. Here's to a year of Untitled Tuesdays (and Saturdays)!

Untitled Tuesday: June 5, 2018

The Tuesday portion of the Untitled selection for June 2018 was a closely-contested affair between three players: freude34, ChessZone9937, and Carpe_noctum. At any given point in the tournament, one of these players had either clear first or a share of first, and they would all finish within half a point in the final standings, all two points ahead of the next closest player. Yet, there would be a clear winner.

The early leader was freude34. While others had hot starts, he was the only player on 5/5 through the first half of the tournament. Along the way, he defeated a number of the other higher seeds, including chessrunner49, despite being reduced to little more than the increment at times. 

In the fifth round, freude34 took on Carpe_noctum with the white pieces, and what followed would make Marc Esserman proud!

Through five, one player stood in clear first.

But freude34's run as sole leader would come to an end in the sixth round, when he flagged in a drawn ending against Everyfishknows, a player familiar to the Untitled Tuesday scene. The latter might have made a serious run at first himself, but instead lost to the second of our "big three" in the very next round. 

In fact ChessZone9937 would lose only a single game the entire tournament, and this came early, in the second round. His opponent was Carpe_noctum, a 2000-rated blitz player who only had a "good" 3.5/5 to start, but who slowly crept up the standings as the tournament wore on. Along the way he defeated Everyfishknows with active piece play, then took out Marignon in a short but rich game.

If it's any consolation to Marignon, in the recent Chess.com Speed Chess Championships, another reasonably strong player blundered in very similar fashion!

Heading into the final round ChessZone9937 and Carpe_noctum were tied on 7.5/9 with freude34 half a point behind. The results of the leaders' games would determine the winner of the tournament. First the game of Carpe_noctum, who achieved Alekhine's Gun earlier, but found himself down an exchange late.

ChessZone9937's game against SmyslovFan, on the other hand, was a topsy-turvy affair with mutual time pressure and a difficult rook ending which turned into a completely winning rook-vs-pawns ending for black. We'll take it from the following position:

Despite saving the game after his possible mouseslip, ChessZone9937 still came out a half-point behind, tied with freude34 for second. The final standings of the tournament can be found here:

https://www.chess.com/tournament/live/untitled-tuesday---june-967108

Untitled Saturday: June 9, 2018

If Carpe_noctum had a bit of a slow start (at least by the standards of players who end up at clear first in the tournament!) in the Tuesday event, he certainly did rather the opposite to start the Saturday event. His first five games were wins and he was in clear first or had a share of first for the entirety of the tournament.

From the very first game he sought to improve from his previous tournament-winning performance, as he met his opponent's Morra Gambit with a7-a6 at the right moment, stopping the dangerous Nb5 he allowed earlier and going on to win the game. His next few wins were quite convincing:

Against Shachmasteo, the position was rich until it suddenly wasn't!

While he did draw one very quick game against tevdore2, the only player to defeat Carpe_noctum was the same player who did so in the other event this month, freude34, in a complicated game decided by tactics and time pressure in the eighth round. Prior to this, freude34 had himself been building up a bit of a win streak, although not all the wins were as clean as I'm sure he would have liked them to be!

Another player with a chance to catch Carpe_noctum was tevdore2, who enjoys 1. b3 with the white pieces. One of his more entertaining victories came against Lllionking:

In the final round, a win by Carpe_noctum would ensure a win in the tournament, as he was half a point ahead of freude34 and a full point ahead of tevdore2. What followed was a crazy game against a familiar opponent, featuring some fascinating possibilities:

Thus Carpe_noctum went two for two, winning each tournament by half a point. freude34 again placed in second (this time by himself) and third place belonged to tevdore2.

The detailed results of the Saturday event can be found here:

https://www.chess.com/tournament/live/saturday-event---june-2018-968045