Untitled Tuesday and Saturday recaps - September

 

Meanwhile, multiple strong players joined a few rounds into the tournament, taking advantage of the late-join feature on chess.com. The highest-rated player to do so was also the highest-rated in the entire field, as MangoMankey made his presence known with a convincing first game victory against manritogelaga.

 

When MangoMankey took on the leader of the tournament with the black pieces two rounds later, he turned in a similarly convincing effort and established himself among the tournament favorites in spite of his two round late-join.

 

In addition to MangoMankey, Chessking_original, cjxchess17, and the aforementioned account which has since been closed for Fair Play violations, another player who turned heads in Untitled Tuesday was sedore. After losing in the second round, sedore won four games in a row in the middle of the event, including this win as black in the Benko against SmyslovFan.

 

As the tournament wore on, MangoMankey and sedore continued to rack up wins, including several attacking gems:

 

In the last round, with each on six points total, MangoMankey and sedore had a chance to clinch a share of what then appeared to be second place behind the since-banned user who finished first. Both took care of business. First MangoMankey, who won a miniature over SmyslovFan in the Classical Caro-Kann:

 

Detailed results at https://www.chess.com/tournament/live/untitled-tuesday---september-1099100?&players=1

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Untitled Saturday: September 7, 2019

Perhaps due to the different timing of the events, the day of the week, or just random chance, the Untitled Saturday events have tended to be less top-heavy, with a clearer path to potential victory for players rated under 2100 or so. In September this was not the case, as MangoMankey, CheeseBreadFuzzyHead, cjxchess17, MikeChesser, and wrtlbrmft all competed with ratings over 2100, and a number of other players in the 2000-2100 range participated as well. 

Despite this, multiple players in the above list, as well as in the 2000-2100 range, were defeated in the first round. Our tournament does a way of humbling the favorites, and this happened to several big names in the Untitled Saturday tournament in September 2019.

 

 

Additionally, MangoMankey, who joined this tournament right from the start rather than late-joining, was defeated in the first round as well, although his defeat came at the hands of a player whose account has since been closed for violating Chess.com's Fair Play policy. 

One favorite who managed to avoid any early scares was CheeseBreadFuzzyHead, who in rounds three and four established himself as the long perfect score in the field:

 

In the fourth game, he defeated SmyslovFan with a cute tactical sequence. There may have been other good alternatives, but everything was best:

 

 

Meanwhile, MangoMankey climbed back up the ranks with an endgame win, receiving a bit of help from his opponent:

 

In the next round, MangoMankey faced wrtlbrmft, and despite a decent rating difference, it was the lower-rated wrtlbrmft who would emerge victorious after white hung a pawn early in the game. Little else happened, as the underdog converted with no difficulty.

 

There were moments in the tournament when it appeared possible that wrtlbrmft could conceivably challenge for first, but two losses late in the tournament prevented him from closing the gap. Seven points and clear second place was still a performance to be proud of, even if the home stretch was a bit shaky at times.

 

As for CheeseBreadFuzzyHead, he lost in the last round to stop his unbeaten streak at nine, but given the losses by wrtlbrmft and others, he had already clinched clear first anyhow. Throughout the event, he tended to win very slow, positional games in which he played quickly, kept up the pressure, and pounced on his opponent's errors. 

 

In the final standings it was CheeseBreadFuzzyHead at 8.5/10, with a draw to MangoMankey and a last-round loss to Miss_Tical, who shared third with SmyslovFan, Nyameba, and CrackLionIX. Seven points and clear second place went to wrtlbmft. 

 

Detailed results at https://www.chess.com/tournament/live/saturday-event---september-1098647?&players=1