Antichess World Championship 2022

Background

This is the fifth time the championship has been held on Lichess. There have been other prestigious tournaments before, but only one of them was called the World Championship — back in 2001. Unfortunately, the medalists of the first world championship haven’t played antichess for a long time. Many tried to contact them and convince them to come back and take part in the next championships. However, life flows, everything changes, including plans and priorities...

Since 2018, the championships have been held on Lichess. In the first two years, 32 and 56 players participated, respectively. In those years, Vladica Andrejić and Emirhan Oğul dominated. Then in 2020 they both no longer participated, and the top 3 were Caleb Nezol, Artyom Andreev, and Florentin Olteanu with a total of 50 participants. In the previous year, 75 people participated, and the top 3 of them were Florentin Olteanu, Adrián Valo, and TheUnknownGuyReborn.

Thus, at the moment, we have 4 champions in 5 championships: Tim Remmel, Vladica Andrejić (twice), Caleb Nezol, and Florentin Olteanu.

The start of the ACWC 2022

This year the championship began a little later than usual. The rules are almost unchanged. All the usual 2+5 time control, rounds are held weekly, and the championship consists of three stages: Qualification, Candidates, and Finals for 1st and 3rd place.

A record 106 players registered this year. Not everyone was able to pass the screening. Those who broke some Lichess rules were not allowed to participate in the championship. Many were nervous because once players submit their applications, they don’t know if they have been approved. All they saw on the website day after day was a “pending” status. Why isn’t my application approved even though it’s been a full week? Maybe I broke some rules and don’t know about it? On November 8, many people breathed a sigh of relief when the full list of participants was made public.

This year’s lineup is quite strong. Last year’s top 3 ChangeOpening, SirKex, TheUnknownGuyReborn, and the following players from the Candidates are participating in the 2022 Championship: devansh2008, GrohochetGrom, Bertfighter, asvy, and RealNP. Many strong players who didn’t participate in past years decided to join this year after all. Here are some new names at the top of the list: sudenurk2, Tetiksh1Agrawal, B72061390VALENTINO, IiTheAruNiI, Peeyush_Sonkar, pf2000, IntogloryRide, bwmtone, KidCh3ss, mental_suicide.

Several strong players have also returned after some time off: ACWC 2020 champion PepsiNGaming, ACWC 2020 Qualification runner-up (in terms of performance) Schizophrenic_Energy, and ACWC 2018 3rd place winner SupWitches. In recent years, the strongest FICS players have started coming to Lichess. This year, we’ll even get to watch the runner-up of the legendary 0+1 bullet tournament back in 2001 bwmtone play.

Unfortunately, we won’t see some of the strongest players from previous years’ tournaments in this championship: arimakat, Ogul1, yourself101010, townes-paycheck, firebatprime, SmashTimeFools, agaliana, and lo-ol.

Expectations vs Reality

The first two rounds are always the wildest. Despite the fact that everyone must agree to have read the rules when they apply, let’s be honest, most haven’t even scrolled through the rules until the middle. And now they’re in for some nasty surprises:

Expectation: “The championship is like a regular arena where the winner will be decided in 3 hours, isn’t it? Will it be possible to zerk?”
Reality: “WTH!? I have to negotiate matches with my opponents?”

Yes, a lot of people don’t know that this is a multi-week tournament. On Wednesday morning, you get to know your opponent. Until Friday night, you have to offer three times when you can play. It will come as a surprise to many that even though they lost in the first match, they still have to keep playing all 8 rounds.

Typical situations:

Situation 1: You are waiting for your opponent to contact you. However, your opponent is offline the whole time. “Okay, if they’re offline, does that mean I get an automatic win?”
Outcome: You don’t get a win. You should have offered three times, even though your opponent was offline.

Situation 2: You write, “Hey, I can play on Saturday from 12 to 15 or 21 to 23. Does that work for you?” Your opponent replies: “Depends on the situation, I’ll get back to you later.” And not one more message from them all week. “I offered times, but my opponent didn’t respond, so I get an automatic win?”
Outcome: You don’t get a win. You should have offered three times no closer than 3 hours to each other and no more than two on a single date.

Situation 3: After not being scored a victory in Situation 2, you won the next five rounds, but unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, you could not play in Round 7. “I’ll be able to play in the next round since I have a pretty good chance of getting to the Candidates, despite the two losses?"
Outcome: No, you will be eliminated from the tournament because you forfeited in two different matches.

Situation 4: You have offered three different times. As of Friday 23:59 UTC, your opponent only offers one time, which does not suit you. Then your opponent tries to contact you but after the deadline. You refuse to play and claim a win because your opponent should have offered three times before the weekend.
Outcome: You don’t get a win. Since your opponent didn’t offer enough times, you should have unilaterally announced on the forum the time of the match. You didn’t do that, so you’re both at fault.

Situation 5: You have agreed on a match time. Your opponent was offline at the agreed time. You report it on the forum and declare yourself the winner.
Outcome: You don’t get a win. After the start of the match, you should have contacted the tournament directors and informed them that your opponent didn't show up. Then you should have waited for your opponent for 10 minutes, after which you should again inform one of the tournament directors that your opponent never bothered to show up. Only then could you expect to win.

Situation 6: Your opponent said that they were taking a 10-minute break when the score was 5–4 in your favor. 10 minutes later, you continued to play and ended up with a score of 5.5–4.5. Did you win the match?
Outcome: Nope. You played the ninth game with black. After the break, Lichess somehow made you play with black pieces again. As a result, you played 4 white and 6 black, not 5&5 as the rules state.

Situation 7: You and your opponent have played six games. You have won all games. Did you win the match?
Outcome: Nope. You played casual games, while you should have played rated games.

Situation 8: You and your opponent have played six rated games. You’ve won all of them. Did you win the match?
Outcome: Nope. Before the match, one of you should have posted the start time of your match on the forum. Your opponent stated that it was a warm-up match and you did not play any official games. The tournament directors are forced to give you a draw.

Situation 9: You and your opponent agreed on the time of the match. You published information about the match on the forum in advance. Then you played against each other, and you won 6–2. Did you win the match?
Outcome: Nope. Neither of you posted the result of the match on the forum along with a link to one of the games.

Well, okay, maybe in some situations the tournament directors won’t be so harsh. But it’s still better to follow the rules, isn’t it?

Round 1

In the first round, players from the top half of the list play against players from the bottom half. The list consisting of 104 players (last year's finalists will start in the Candidates) is sorted by ranking. That means the first seed plays against the 53rd seed, the second against the 54th, and so on up to 52nd against the 104th. It is logical to expect the higher-rated players to beat their opponents. This is usually what happens. However, surprises always happen. Last year in the first round, both favorites ChangeOpening and Ogul1 drew against their lower-rated opponents (nevertheless, that didn’t stop them from advancing to the Candidates later on).

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This year’s first round didn’t seem to bring much sensation. Many failed to agree on match times and ended up forfeiting their matches, notably IntogloryRide and yakupdeger from the top of the list. One player was disqualified as they violated the Lichess Terms of Service. In addition, one player withdrew from the tournament. The toughest match of the round was apparently Tata190 vs hall03, which ended in a 5–5 draw, although many expected Aleks Sokolovski to win.

Round 2

In Round 2, the winners of the first round play each other. Those who drew or forfeited their matches play each other. And those who were defeated in the first round play each other. Thus, the matches become more intense.

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The following matches of high-rated players turned out to be very difficult and ended in a draw 5–5: Tetiksh1Agrawal vs basschess_1989, GrohochetGrom vs ODMWND, Peeyush_Sonkar vs BlueMeeple13, KidCh3ss vs UglySwede. Also in this round two very strong players Bertfighter and ChessDemon989 had to play against each other. Luck was on the side of the player from the UK — ChessDemon989 won 6–4. The sensation of the round should probably be called a confident victory of JackDanielsHoney over UltimateSuperPlayer. The player from Argentina was the favorite in this match. Of course, a possible loss was not out of the question, but I don’t think anyone expected 0–6, not even Paul.

Many players repeated what they had failed to do in the first round, namely, they again failed to negotiate a match with their opponents. As a result, 14 players were disqualified after the second round. With only 90 players left in the tournament, we should probably congratulate them all on making the top 100!

Round 3

Only 18 players were able to win both matches of the previous two rounds and show a 100% score. In this round, they are playing against each other, which means that there will be no more than 9 players with a 100% score in the next round.

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Surprisingly, in this round, the higher seeded players mostly scored solid wins over their strong opponents. Among the players who had not lost points in previous matches, there were only two exceptions at the end of Round 3, namely JackDanielsHoney beat cFlour 6–4 in a hard-fought battle, and UglySwede unexpectedly outplayed GrohochetGrom 5.5–3.5.

An interesting match was played between TheUnknownGuyReborn and bwmtone, in which the Canadian player confidently outplayed his US opponent 6–0. However, the score should not mislead anyone. In all but the last of those games, bwmtone had a forced win of less than 20 moves, but 2+5 is a tricky time control. The last game, by the way, was a draw for a long time, but when you have a few seconds left and your opponent has more than 3 minutes, the result is most often a foregone conclusion. Here’s one of the positions:

Do you see the only winning move here?

At the end of the third round, 7 players were eliminated from the tournament, mainly because they repeatedly forfeited their matches. Thus, 81 players will continue to fight in Round 4 of the Qualification, and two will still be waiting for their opponents in the Candidates round.

Round 4

I think that by the fourth round, all first-time ACWC players should have adjusted to the unfamiliar time control. Bullet players should have realized by now that their tricks don’t work most of the time, and that K vs K or B vs K is a draw after all. With 2+5, it’s hard to bring the game down to a losing but difficult endgame and hope your opponent gets flagged. In bullet, you may not know how to play KKK vs K, KR vs K, P vs N, or RP vs K. With an increment of 5 seconds, you may pay for that ignorance.

Also, I think a lot of people have already figured out that you shouldn’t judge players by their rating. Some players don’t play at full strength in regular games, but once the championship starts, they start playing at full strength. Many can be much stronger at 2+5 than their opponents would expect. Conversely, some may play in sub-optimal conditions and perform poorly.

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Many interesting games were played in this round. Games between players who have not yet lost points were no exception. TheUnknownGuyReborn and sudenurk2 confidently beat Schizophrenic_Energy and pf2000, respectively. B72061390VALENTINO unexpectedly very easily outplayed JackDanielsHoney. The tensest match was devansh2008 vs PepsiNGaming. After 7 games, PepsiNGaming was leading 5–2, he had to draw or win one of the remaining three games. Caleb was very close to it, but devansh2008 didn’t let it happen. The match ended with a score of 5–5. The tensest game was the last one, in which the 2020 champion was unable to find a forced win in limited time. This is the position:

To be fair, it’s worth noting that finding the winning sequence is quite difficult with limited time. Can you find it?

Round 5

This is the first round before which no one was disqualified. Only four players were able to approach this round with the maximum number of points. This means that they are forced to play against each other. For those at the top of the table, there are no easy matches to be had. Do you think anyone can make it through all eight rounds of qualification without losing points? In previous years, no one was able to do that.

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The fifth round was full of interesting matches. After TheUnknownGuyReborn defeated sudenurk2 by 5.5–3.5, and B72061390VALENTINO beat IiTheAruNiI by the same score, we are down to two players who have not lost a point so far. This means that in the next round there will be a crucial battle between the players from Canada and Peru for the chance to go through the Qualification round without losing any points.

PepsiNGaming seemed to feel pretty confident in the openings that KidCh3ss offered him. Since the player from Egypt apparently had no plan B and no reserve openings, this led to a convincing 6–0 victory for the 2020 champion. A tense match was between devansh2008 and basschess_1989, in which the player from Chile won 6–4.

Funny match took place between players with extravagant usernames — Schizophrenic_Energy vs SupWitches. In the first three games, Schizophrenic_Energy played 1.e3 and SupWitches responded with 1...e6 followed by 15 theory moves from Watkins' solution. However, every time Black played a move after which the player from Russia was confused and could not find a winning sequence in the limited time. In the end, the player from Turkey won all three games. At one moment, SupWitches was so happy with the situation that he quickly made his first move — this time it was 1.e4. This shocked all the spectators of the match. I guess not only them, but also SupWitches. The audience quickly agreed that it was a misclick. Needless to say, the Russian player won the game. After three losses against Modern Defence, Schizophrenic_Energy decided to change his opening and played 1.c4. In just the first three moves, he had a forced win in 18 moves. He thought for more than half a minute, but could not find it. Meanwhile, in the spectator room, the experts of this opening not only unmistakably recognized the forced win, but also demonstrated the sequence of moves leading to the victory. The match ended with a score of 6–2 in favor of the player from Turkey. In one of the games of this match, the following position emerged:

Out of the two minutes left, SupWitches thought for over a minute and a half, but he could not find the winning sequence. In the spectator room, ChessDemon989 called the position a “sick puzzle.”
Not being in the match conditions and knowing in advance that there is a forced win in 10 moves here, I think you can solve this “sick puzzle” faster, can’t you?

Round 6

There are only three rounds left until the end of Qualification. The very sad news was that bwmtone had to withdraw from the ACWC due to a family tragedy, for which we are all very sorry to him. There are only 74 players left in the Qualification round. No one is guaranteed to be a candidate yet. If the battle between TheUnknownGuyReborn and B72061390VALENTINO doesn’t end in a draw, the winner of that match practically guarantees himself a spot in the Candidates round.

Last year a +4 was enough to proceed to the next stage. This means that only 38 players who have at least one more win than losses by this round can qualify for the Candidates. Moreover, those who now have +1 must win all of their remaining matches. It is possible that one or two players with +3 at the end of the eight rounds will also make it to the Candidates, but this is rather a matter of luck, which is hard to count on. The rest have only to fight for higher places in the final table. Theoretically, they could also get into the Candidates, but to do so would require disqualification of a large number of players who are currently in the top 20.

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Both matches between players who had at least +4 at the start of this round ended with the same score of 5.5–1.5. TheUnknownGuyReborn outplayed B72061390VALENTINO, and PepsiNGaming beat basschess_1989. This means that in the next round, players from Canada and the U.S. will face off against each other. TheUnknownGuyReborn is already guaranteed to qualify for the Candidates round, while PepsiNGaming must win or at least draw one of the upcoming two matches.

A very dramatic match took place between cFlour and UltimateSuperPlayer. There was a lot at stake since whoever lost that match would almost completely lose all chances of advancing to the next stage. Oddly enough, the first nine games ended in a Black victory. In the last game, the player from India played Black. By the middle of this game, the following position was on the board:

cFlour quickly made a move that intuitively seemed to win, but, as is often the case in antichess, the first impression was misleading. Do you see the only move resulting in a 10-move victory in this position?

Not having found a forced win, the player from India decided to bring the game into a complex endgame, in which he had to promote his pawn to a bishop to guarantee a draw. Promoting to a king was objectively losing with White’s accurate play. However, given the lack of time, it is quite possible that Black could nevertheless have won. In any case, the promotion to a bishop or king led to a very interesting endgame, in which Black would have a high chance of winning. Unfortunately, there was a misclick and the pawn was promoted to a queen, which ruined all chances to win. The match ended in a 6–4 victory for the player from Argentina.

Round 7

This is the penultimate round of Qualification. The sole leader at the moment is TheUnknownGuyReborn with a +6. In the last two rounds, he can even afford to lose if he doesn’t really care which group he ends up in in the Candidates round. On the heels of the Canadian player comes PepsiNGaming, who has a +5. To make it into the Candidates, the player from the United States only needs to win or draw (the latter will almost certainly be enough, too) against at least one opponent in the remaining two matches. These two are the only ones so far who have not lost a match in this championship.

Next up are B72061390VALENTINO, sudenurk2, SupWitches, and JackDanielsHoney. They all have a current score of +4. A win in one match and at least a draw in the other one will ensure their advancement to the next stage with a 100% probability. It’s likely that they can even win one and lose the second match or draw both upcoming matches. pf2000, basschess_1989, devansh2008, ChessDemon989, UltimateSuperPlayer, Erwin-schrodinger, ODMWND, and GrohochetGrom have a +3 score, which means they have to win both of their subsequent matches to get into the Candidates. If they win one match and draw the other, they are still highly likely to qualify for the Candidates. The 10 players who currently have a score of +2 must win both of their remaining matches to compete for a spot in the next stage.

Thus, at the beginning of the seventh round, one player has almost guaranteed himself a spot in the Candidates round, and 23 more players will fight for the remaining 9 spots. It’s 90% up to them to proceed to the Candidates round. The remaining 10% is in case one or two players with a +4 score fall short of a spot in this year’s Candidates round. For now, it’s hard to say definitively whether a +4 will be enough to qualify. It depends on the number of disqualifications and the number of draws. In addition to the aforementioned players, there are also 11 players with a +1 score. They, too, have a small chance of qualifying. They need to win rounds 7 and 8 and hope that their opponents from all eight rounds rank higher and thus provide them with a higher Buchholz score.

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Round 7 was full of interesting matches. In the match between the two leaders TheUnknownGuyReborn vs PepsiNGaming, eight games were played, and in six of them, both opponents had more time on the clock at the end of those games than they had at the beginning. One game ended when both players had about a minute and a half on their clocks. In another game, only one player used 19 seconds of the initial time. In other words, the North American players could play with only a 5-second increment. In the openings of these de facto 0+5 games, they tried to get away from the main theoretical lines, and therefore very often they got forced wins right out of the opening. But for the most part, none of them noticed those blunders, which is not surprising with such time management. The match ended in a 6–2 victory for PepsiNGaming. Thus, they both qualify for the Candidates round regardless of the results of the last round of Qualification.

In the matches B72061390VALENTINO vs SupWitches and sudenurk2 vs JackDanielsHoney, the players from Turkey celebrated victory. They, too, practically guaranteed themselves a spot in the Candidates round.

Round 8

Four players have already secured their passage to the next stage. PepsiNGaming, TheUnknownGuyReborn, sudenurk2, and SupWitches will only determine the pool in which they play in the Candidates round. There is a very small (near-zero) chance that any of the latter three mentioned above might not make it to the next stage if they lose in the eighth round. However, that is very unlikely.

Next up are devansh2008, UltimateSuperPlayer, Erwin-schrodinger, and GrohochetGrom, who have a current score of +4. They will get into the Candidates if they win this round or with a 90% chance if they draw. With luck, even a loss might be enough, but that depends on the results of the other games in this round, as well as the tiebreakers.

Five more players have +3, which means B72061390VALENTINO, IiTheAruNiI, aleksschtin, mental_suicide, and KOJEKUDE need a win to proceed to the next round with a 90% chance. With a low probability, a draw might be enough for some of them.

Two things add to the uncertainty before the eighth round. The first is Erwin-schrodinger's forum post:

Some are trying to convince Erwin-schrodinger to continue in the Candidates round (if Erwin-schrodinger gets in), but it’s not yet clear if they will succeed.

The second thing is the disqualification of one player for violating the Lichess Terms of Service. The rules of the ACWC provide two possible scenarios in this case. In the first scenario, the results of the previous rounds are not overridden, and in the second scenario, all opponents of the disqualified player are awarded a victory in their matches. So far, there has been no official statement from the tournament directors. If this is the second case, three players will be directly affected:

1. UltimateSuperPlayer gets +6, which means the player from Argentina will proceed to the next round regardless of the result of the last match.
2. aleksschtin gets +5 instead of the current +3 and significantly increases his chances of getting into the Candidates because a draw will be enough for the player from Russia in this case. Maybe even a loss will allow aleksschtin to get to the next stage.
3. asvy gets +3, which means that in case of victory in the eighth round, one more player from Russia qualifies for the Candidates.

So, the 13 (or 14 if asvy gets extra points) players mentioned above will determine which of them will continue to play in the next stage. A slim chance remains for one or two players with a +2 score if they win and if the other Round 8 matches go well for them. Of course, additional disqualifications could make a big difference. But let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

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The matches of the leaders turned out to be very tense. PepsiNGaming and sudenurk2 drew 5–5. Interestingly, in this match only the one with less time left was the one to lose in each game. Many of the final round games were played on or one day after New Year’s Day. Proximity to the holiday affected the quality of play. In the match TheUnknownGuyReborn against SupWitches the player from Canada got this position after a series of exchanges:

The player from Turkey had only one last capture to make, but TheUnknownGuyReborn saw that 10...Rxh2 11.Rxh2 would be followed by 11...Qh8, and his rook would end up on the last rank. After a brief pondering for about one second, he realized the hopelessness of his position and resigned without waiting for the opponent’s move. The funny thing is that 11...Qh8 would have lost the game because Black’s bishop or rook could not leave the last rank in one move. There were no other good moves, so TheUnknownGuyReborn gave up the position with a clear advantage. In the next game, the blunder show continued. SupWitches got a winning endgame, but he blundered "mate" in two. The fatal mistakes didn’t end there, and in one game TheUnknownGuyReborn slipped his mouse, which resulted in a queen promotion. This led to an immediate loss. The match ended in a victory for the Turkish player, who made one less mistake. If you remember that much more time has passed since the New Year’s Day in Turkey than from the New Year’s Day in Canada, such a result does not seem illogical.

Thus, the following players qualify for the Candidates round:

Peeyush_Sonkar, UltimateSuperPlayer, Erwin-schrodinger, and Somebody_4AM also got +3, but their Buchholz scores were below 29.5, so they finished 11th through 14th.

After the announcement of the official results, we can only praise the 70 people who made it to the end of Qualification and congratulate the top 10 who made it to the next round. Unfortunately, the pairings didn’t let us witness the most awaited match of the championship, I mean Plane_380 vs Plane_350. But that’s okay, maybe we’ll be able to spectate this match next year ;-)

Candidates

The Candidates round consists of two groups of six players. Each player plays 10 games against each other. The top two players from each group proceed to the semifinals, where they will face opponents from the other group.

In this stage, it is difficult to fight without preparation. Players usually prepare for their opponents by studying their openings and typical mistakes. If you always play the same opening lines, you might get into trouble.

Round C1

Last year’s champion and runner-up joined the 10 players selected through the Qualification. The first round in the Candidates had some surprises right away. Reigning champion ChangeOpening and ChessDemon989 played first. Unexpectedly for many, the player from the UK quite confidently defeated last year’s champion with a score of 8–2. A big role in this victory was played by ChessDemon989’s opening novelty. He usually plays 1.c4 or 1.e3 with White. In this match, he preferred 1.e3 in four games out of five. When playing Black, the Romanian player most often responds to this move with 1...e6 or 1...c5, and in games against ChessDemon989 he has recently invariably preferred the Polish Defence. After 1.e3 c5 2.Ba6, ChangeOpening always plays 2...Nxa6 because 2...bxa6 leads to a complicated position, which is much easier for White. After the first two moves, the player from Great Britain used his opening preparation — 3.Nf3. This continuation is very rare. Lichess shows only 12 most popular continuations, and 3.Nf3 is not among them.

In contrast to more popular variations, which lead to positions that require very accurate play for many moves to neutralize White’s opening advantage, 3.Nf3 allows Black to neutralize White’s advantage in just a few moves. The main continuation in this position is 3...e5 4.Nxe5 c4! The problem with ACWC matches is that players have only two minutes of initial time. You can spend more than a minute to figure out how to play in a position you don’t know. Nevertheless, even if you can find the best possible continuation, you will then be forced to play in a mode where your opponent has a significant time advantage and you only have 5 seconds to play each move. Obviously, it’s very hard to avoid blunders in this mode.

Not only that, due to the lack of breaks between games, you don’t have time to analyze unknown positions with Stockfish. Each player can take a break of up to 10 minutes once per match, and in principle, the rules do not forbid players to use this break to analyze previous games. However, the break can only be taken once per match.

In the end, ChessDemon989 won all the games with White and generally played very strongly, which allowed him to get a confident victory.

The other games of the first round were also very tense. In the SirKex vs Schizophrenic_Energy match, the Russian player won the first two games, but then last year’s runner-up was able to reverse the unpleasant situation and won the next 5 games. The match ended with a score of 6.5–3.5.

SupWitches and B72061390VALENTINO already played each other in the penultimate round of Qualification. The Turkish player won with a margin of 5.5–4.5 back then. They repeated that result once again in this round.

The match devansh2008 against GrohochetGrom was equally tense and ended with the same score of 5.5–4.5. In this match, everything was decided in the last game, where both players had forced wins, but the player from India was luckier.

sudenurk2 and TheUnknownGuyReborn already played each other in the fifth round of Qualification. The player from Canada was the strongest back then. The re-match between these players took place while 48 hours had not yet passed since the end of the 24-hour tournament on Lichess where the player from Canada had played the full 24 hours. It wasn’t clear whether exhaustion from playing in this grueling tournament or competitive practice would prevail. It seemed to be the latter as TheUnknownGuyReborn won by 7–3.

Another player who played a full 24 hours in that tournament (and even won there) was PepsiNGaming. He also played the first round of the Candidates when less than two days after the end of that grueling tournament. IiTheAruNiI used unusual and rather rare opening lines in this match. His opening novelties were 1.e3 b6 2.Bb5 e5 for Black and 1.c4 Nh6 2.b4 for White. Before this match, IiTheAruNiI had never played 1.e3 b6 2.Bb5 e5. Although 2...e5 is one of the best responses according to Stockfish, it is quite rarely played in this position. Perhaps this will change soon? 2.b4 after 1.c4 Nh6 is also a very rare move. Objectively this move is not strong, but can be confusing. Unfortunately for the debutant of the Candidates round and the championship in general, this move did not embarrass the 2020 champion in any way. Caleb quickly won this game, and as a result, we never saw this opening again in this match.

After nine games, the score was tied and everything was decided in the last game. In the decisive game, PepsiNGaming chose to play his favorite Raven Defence 1.e3 Nh6. IiTheAruNiI was ready for this opening and responded 2.Be2. This is a very, very rare continuation. It was probably first played by TheUnknownGuyReborn in three 1+0 games against PepsiNGaming a year and a half ago. In all of those games, Caleb responded differently, but each time he got a bad position. This time, he responded in a new way, but still soon got a forced loss. Unfortunately for IiTheAruNiI, he could not find the strongest continuation in the limited time, and, as a result, after a few moves the players swapped roles — PepsiNGaming had a forced win but could not find it either. The only difference was that PepsiNGaming did not lose any time and still had more than two minutes, while IiTheAruNiI basically used only his incremental time.

The only thing that helped IiTheAruNiI was that most of the time he had the advantage, so it was easier for him to play. The endgame was very interesting. The players created threats to each other, in which they both had to make the right decisions all the time. The quality of the game was top-notch:

Watch preferably with the engine off. This ending can be used to show why an increment of 5 seconds per move is so important. Without the increment, the game would be completely different. I think this game can be instructive for those who also want to play at the Candidates level but haven’t reached that level yet. Every move makes deep sense. In such positions, beginners are constantly making mistakes or choosing the wrong way to continue. Many moves may even seem strange to them. Even strong players who play only fast time controls would probably mess up in this endgame. Of course, if time control had been longer, we could have seen 39.Kf5!! or 40...Kd3!! These two positions can be seen as puzzles with one correct move. However, given the time trouble, it’s hard to see why only these moves win.

As a result, the last game, and thus the match, ended in a draw.

Round C2

Surprisingly, all of the second-round matches were played on the same day. Many of them were played in parallel. The match devansh2008 vs ChessDemon989 turned out to be tense. Players often got difficult double-edged positions, in which they simply didn’t have enough time to calculate all the possible continuations. They had to rely on their intuition. In this match, the Indian player’s intuition did not fail more often, which allowed him to win 6–4.

The match IiTheAruNiI vs ChangeOpening ended with the same score. This time the player from the USA decided to surprise his opponent as early as on the second move by playing 1.e3 e6 2.Nh3. Before that IiTheAruNiI had never played this opening. In this match, he won all three times the Romanian player used Modern Defence. Twice with Black, IiTheAruNiI played 5...g6 after 1.e3 b6 2.Ba6 Nxa6 3.Qh5 c5 4.Qxc5 bxc5 5.a4, which is also an opening novelty. These two games brought the player from the USA two wins and played a weighty role in winning the match.

The match sudenurk2 vs Schizophrenic_Energy was also tense. In the first game, Turkish player responded to 1.e3 with 1...Nc6. If you had to prepare against her, it would shock you because it would be the last move you would expect from her. Of the more than 30,000 games played on Lichess before this match, we can only find one game in the database where she used the Balkan Defence. It worked, she won that game. In the next game, the players switched roles. The player from Russia decided to respond to 1.e3 with 1...g5. He had not used this opening before this match. sudenurk2 decided not to test the fate in the main opening lines and answered 2.Ne2, which made Schizophrenic_Energy think for 20 seconds in this early stage. He managed to win that game and continued to use that opening in subsequent games. It seems that the players in this match tried to avoid opening lines that their opponents could prepare for as much as possible. The match was very interesting, and its outcome was decided in the last game, where the fate was in favour of the player from Turkey, who managed to win with a score of 5.5–4.5.

In the match SupWitches vs TheUnknownGuyReborn after seven games the score was equal. However, it seems that the player from Turkey had more energy left for the end. He played very strongly and managed to eventually win with a score of 6.5–3.5.

In the first half of SirKex vs B72061390VALENTINO, both players played 1.e3 c5. The player from Slovakia felt more confident in difficult positions of this opening. Then the players started to use other openings, but it didn’t change the situation. SirKex confidently won with a score of 8–2.

The last players to play this round were PepsiNGaming and GrohochetGrom. The player from the US decided to vary the opening lines with both Black and White. Only his favourite Raven Defence 1.e3 Nh6 he played three times. The other opening lines were not repeated more than twice. One of the opening novelties was 1.e3 e6 2.b4 Bxb4 3.Ba6 Nxa6 4.Nf3 Bxd2 5.Nbxd2, which he came up with an hour or so before the start of this match. PepsiNGaming and I wondered out of the blue what could be an alternative to Watkins’s line in the Modern Defence. Is there any other continuation potentially leading to a White victory? PepsiNGaming suggested the above line. A quick analysis showed that Black could most likely neutralize White’s advantage by playing 5...e5. Nevertheless, it seems that Caleb liked the line he came up with. He played it twice in this match. The player from Russia never responded with 5...e5 and lost twice as a result. The match ended with a score of 7–3.

Last year, a +3 was enough to reach the semifinals. A +2 also allowed players to advance to the next stage, but not all, only those with the best tiebreakers. This, of course, does not mean it will be the same this year. However, it does allow us to understand who can rely only on their results, and who already needs to hope for favourable results in other players’ matches. With only three rounds left, players can get a maximum of 3 points. Which means that ChangeOpening, GrohochetGrom, B72061390VALENTINO, and Schizophrenic_Energy only have to hope for a miracle. ChessDemon989, sudenurk2, and TheUnknownGuyReborn should win all their remaining matches. Although one draw leaves them with some chances. PepsiNGaming and IiTheAruNiI can afford one draw or maybe even a loss in one of their remaining matches. devansh2008, SirKex, and SupWitches are in a better position. Even one loss in the next three matches will not prevent them from advancing to the next stage.

That means we have even more intense matches ahead of us. May the strongest win!

Round C3

Pool A

In the first half of the ChangeOpening vs GrohochetGrom match, the players used their standard openings. It seems that the player from Romania was better prepared for his opponent. This allowed him to confidently win several games without spending much time thinking. After the score was 4–1 in favour of last year’s champion, the player from Russia decided to move away from using the main opening lines. This helped to turn the tide a bit. The second half ended 3–2 and the match ended 7–3 in favour of ChangeOpening.

The second match of Pool A was IiTheAruNiI vs ChessDemon989. This time the players decided to use the opening lines, which they have played before, including in this tournament. After five games the score was 4–1 in favour of the player from Great Britain. After a short break, ChessDemon989 won one more game and thus secured at least a draw in this match. The player from the USA tried to save the draw and won the next two games but ChessDemon989 didn’t let the comeback happen. The match ended in a 7–3 victory for the player from the UK.

The last match of this round in Pool A was PepsiNGaming against devansh2008. This match also didn’t abound with any opening novelties. A funny moment occurred in the middle of the match when the players agreed to a draw because they had opposite-colored bishops in the endgame. The spectators also thought it was a draw. However, black could win.

Do you see a winning plan for Black?

The players already played against each other in the fourth round of Qualification. That match ended in a draw. The second encounter in the championship ended with a 7–3 victory for the player from the United States.

Two rounds before the semifinals, the situation in Pool A is as follows. Regardless of the results of all subsequent matches, GrohochetGrom will not advance to the next stage. The only thing he can fight for is a higher place in the group. That said, the results of his matches may have a big impact on the tournament situation for other players.

ChangeOpening still has a chance of making it to the next stage. In order to do so, he needs to win all the following matches, and the other matches in the group must end with a favourable result for him. There is even one theoretical possibility that a player from Romania could finish first in the group if GrohochetGrom wins all of his next matches and the other matches end in a way that is optimal for ChangeOpening. In another theoretical scenario, last year’s champion could even finish second in the group if he draws with PepsiNGaming in the next round. But again, all the stars have to align for that to happen. In any case, unfortunately for the Romanian player, not everything depends only on his matches.

The only one guaranteed to advance to the next stage if he wins both of his next matches is PepsiNGaming. ChessDemon989 and devansh2008 will also almost certainly make it to the next stage if they win both of their remaining matches. Still, there’s one scenario in which that might not be enough for either of them. IiTheAruNiI also has a good chance of reaching the next stage. Not everything will depend on him but the odds remain relatively good if he wins both of the next matches.

Pool B

In Pool B, B72061390VALENTINO and Schizophrenic_Energy played first. The player from Russia often in this match in his trademark style wasted too much time in the 6...7 move when the opening went to an unfamiliar position. As a result, the Peruvian player gained a significant time advantage, which largely determined the result of this match. Perhaps Schizophrenic_Energy should have trusted his intuition more as it’s very difficult to play when the opening isn’t over yet and you’ve already used up a minute and a half or more of the initial two minutes. The record for this match was 1:40 for the sixth move.

SupWitches and sudenurk2 already played in the third round of Qualification. That time sudenurk2 was the winner. At the beginning of this match, Valentino asked the spectators for their predictions. The first to respond was Peanutbutter12345, who predicted a 7–3 result in favour of sudenurk2. That prediction turned out to be prophetic. The derby was very interesting. Players varied their openings, leading to sharp positions rich in tactics. It seems that sudenurk2 felt more confident in this situation, forcing her opponent to make mistakes under time pressure.

The match between SirKex and TheUnknownGuyReborn unfortunately did not take place because the player from Canada slept in. This means that the player from Slovakia took the lead in Pool B. All he has to do to advance to the next stage is win one of his two remaining matches or finish both of those matches in a draw. SupWitches and sudenurk2 are also in control of the group so far. They need to win their remaining matches to make it to the next stage and not depend on the results of other matches. TheUnknownGuyReborn and B72061390VALENTINO also have a non-zero chance of reaching the semifinal stage, but they not only need to win the upcoming matches, but also hope for favourable results in the matches of other players in their group. Schizophrenic_Energy has lost his theoretical chances of qualifying for the next stage, assuming no one is disqualified, which is highly unlikely.

Round C4

It seems that many players were already pretty tired by this round. This affected their preparation for matches, their blunder rates, and their results.

Pool A

The match between IiTheAruNiI and GrohochetGrom, unfortunately, did not take place as the player from Russia was offline at the agreed time. This is the second such case in the current championship in the Candidates round. It is unprecedented for this to happen between the strongest players in the post-qualification stage. In 2018, several matches were not played, but the finalists were already known, so the remaining matches had no tournament significance. In 2021, one match was not played in the final round before the semifinals, but then that match had no effect on tournament standing either. This year, both forfeited matches occurred early on, when their results were very important and affected the standings in both groups.

It remains unclear about the score in forfeited matches. The rules do not shed any light on this issue. Apparently, failed matches are considered finished with a score of 10–0. Zero points for the player who did not show up for the match does not cause anyone any questions. However, how many points should be given to the player who wins? This question is very important because the points are used as a tiebreaker and therefore have a strong impact on the tournament standing. Not only for the two players, but also for the other players in the group. It is very unlikely that anyone can win all 10 games at this stage. Therefore, winning with 10 points gives a significant boost to the player whose opponent did not show up. Of course, this is not conducive to wanting to reschedule the match. This is not really fair to the other players in the group. Another approach would be to give the winning player as many points as their opponent lost in matches against other players in the pool. But that’s not really fair either since the winning player could still score more points.

There is, unfortunately, no perfect solution. Perhaps next year the organisers will have to give up the number of games won as a tiebreaker. Of course, it may turn out that a virtual score of forfeited games will have no effect on the final places. But it should not be forgotten that it has already affected many players. Before the final games, players calculate their chances and understand what scores they need in certain scenarios. Which means it can determine how aggressively they should play, whether they should go for draws or whether they should, even in tied positions, take a risk and convert the game into a losing position, but with the hope of winning.

At the start of the ChangeOpening vs devansh2008 match, the Indian player was more confident. In the second half, the Romanian player took the lead. The outcome of the match was decided in the last game. At the time, the last year’s champion had already guaranteed himself at least a draw, but he needed a win in order not to lose his chances of advancing to the next stage one round before the end of the group stage. And he managed to win. The final score was 6–4.

The first half of the match between PepsiNGaming and ChessDemon989 ended with a score of 2.5–2.5. In the second half, the tournament fatigue must have affected and the player from the UK started to make mistakes more often. The player from the US was merciless about these mistakes and convincingly converted them into five wins in a row. The match ended with a score of 7.5–2.5 in favour of the 2020 champion.

The standings before the final round in Pool A are still a little tricky. Regardless of the results of the remaining matches, PepsiNGaming is in 1st place in Pool A, even if he loses 0–10. GrohochetGrom lost all chances back in the last round. However, he still has an impact on the tournament standings in the group. On the one hand, he can try to win his next match to avoid finishing the Candidates round with a null score. On the other hand, he could forfeit the next round, as this match has no significance for him. In the latter case, an interesting situation would arise when the tournament directors would have to decide either to give the UK player a 10–0 win or to disqualify the Russian player and thereby disregard all his five matches and recalculate the game points for all players in Pool A.

IiTheAruNiI, ChangeOpening, ChessDemon989, and devansh2008 continue to fight for second place in Pool A. If IiTheAruNiI beats devansh2008, he advances to the next stage. If this match ends in a draw, it all depends on ChessDemon989 vs GrohochetGrom and ChangeOpening vs PepsiNGaming. In some scenarios, IiTheAruNiI still retains some chances. If devansh2008 wins, ChangeOpening and ChessDemon989 can compete if they also win their matches. In this case, everything will be determined by the mutual scores in the matches between these three players. Potentially in a better situation is ChessDemon989, thanks to his 8–2 win against ChangeOpening. Either way, interesting matches await us, as four players are fighting for a single spot.

Pool B

The match between SirKex and sudenurk2 was spectacular. The players varied their openings. The games were sharp. More often than not, they ended up blundering in difficult positions. sudenurk2 had one more fatal blunder. That decided the outcome of the match, which ended with a score of 5.5–4.5 in favour of the Slovakian player.

The match TheUnknownGuyReborn vs B72061390VALENTINO started very badly for the Canadian player. He often made unusual mistakes, which resulted in the first half of the match ending 4–1 in favour of the South American player. In the second half, it was as if the players switched places. This time it was B72061390VALENTINO who made the unusual mistakes. The match ended in a 6–4 victory for the North American player.

The match between semifinal candidate SupWitches and Schizophrenic_Energy, who lost all his chances of advancing to the next stage, ended in a 7–3 victory for the Turkish player.

In Pool B, the picture is clearer than in Pool A. Schizophrenic_Energy and B72061390VALENTINO can only be saved by disqualifications of other players. If nothing extraordinary happens, they will not advance to the next stage. If the player from Slovakia does not lose in the match SirKex vs SupWitches, he takes over first place in Pool A. If that match ends in a draw, SupWitches takes second place. If SupWitches wins, he takes first place and SirKex second.

sudenurk2 and TheUnknownGuyReborn can only compete for second place if SupWitches loses. In that case, if sudenurk2 wins her match and TheUnknownGuyReborn loses or draws his match, then sudenurk2 takes second place. If sudenurk2 loses or draws her match, second place goes to SupWitches.

TheUnknownGuyReborn can only advance to the next stage if he and sudenurk2 win and SupWitches loses. In this case, TheUnknownGuyReborn advances to the semifinals as he has the best second tiebreaker (mutual game score). The points in the remaining matches do not matter, only the result. If in the TheUnknownGuyReborn vs sudenurk2 match, the player from Canada had lost one game instead of a draw, the points in all games would have to be taken into account. The kind of situation where half a point in one match could make a dramatic difference.

Round C5

Pool A

ChessDemon989 and GrohochetGrom were the first to play in this group. The match ended with a convincing 7.5–2.5 victory for the player from Russia despite the fact that the match had no tournament significance for GrohochetGrom. This means that this was the last match of these two players in the current tournament. The elimination of ChessDemon989 simplifies the tournament situation. If IiTheAruNiI beats devansh2008 or if their match ends in a draw, both players from the USA advance from Pool A to the next stage. If IiTheAruNiI loses, ChangeOpening advances to the semifinals if the last year’s champion wins the match against PepsiNGaming, otherwise (if the match against PepsiNGaming ends in a draw or the player from Romania loses) the player from India advances to the next stage.

A few days later, devansh2008 and IiTheAruNiI played. For the first nine games, they both played 1.e3 e6. In the difficult positions of this opening, the player from India made fewer mistakes. By winning the ninth game, he secured victory in the match. Only in the last game, the player from the United States chose 1.e3 b6. The match ended with a score of 5.5–4.5 in favour of devansh2008, who should now await the result of the match between PepsiNGaming and ChangeOpening. If the Romanian player wins, he advances to the semifinals. If the match ends in a draw or the US player wins, devansh2008 advances to the semifinals.

One day later, there was a thrilling match between PepsiNGaming and ChangeOpening. The Romanian player won the first four games. Moreover, in the fourth game, he showed a masterclass, winning the RBN vs K endgame. Then the US player was able to reverse the unpleasant situation and scored 4.5 points in the next five games. The last game of the match decided the semifinalists. Last year’s champion played black. Already after the 13th move, PepsiNGaming had a forced win in 17 moves, but the position was too complicated to find this win in a very limited time. The Romanian player then seized the initiative. On the 25th move, he had a win in 6, but he did not see an intermediate leading to the victory. After the 30th move, PepsiNGaming had a forced win again, but by that time players had less than 30 seconds left each, so it was very difficult to find 30.Rc1! The game then moved into a draw phase with both players playing very strongly. Everything was decided on the 49th move, where the player from the US made a mistake by not calculating one variation, and the player from Romania very quickly found a saving bishop promotion. The match ended with a score of 5.5–4.5 in favour of ChangeOpening. This means that the Romanian player was able to make a mind-blowing comeback and despite two losses in the first two Candidates round matches, he was able to make it to the semifinals.

Pool B

The first to play in Pool B was sudenurk2 and B72061390VALENTINO. The player from Turkey tried to use a variety of openings, but it didn’t seem to create much difficulty for the player from Peru, who often got the advantage in the opening phase and then slowly brought the games to victory, trying not to make mistakes in winning positions. In the second game, B72061390VALENTINO had three connected kings against one king from sudenurk2. However, he wasted many moves as he tried to figure out how to win the completely winning endgame. The spectators wondered if he could do it in less than 50 moves without capturing pieces. Under time pressure, he could even lose on move 56, but both players did not notice the 2-move win because they were both concentrating on the 50-move rule. The Turkish player wanted to make things so difficult that B72061390VALENTINO could not manage to finish the game in 50 moves, while the Peruvian player wanted to corner his opponent’s king as fast as possible. In the 80th move, B72061390VALENTINO blundered, and sudenurk2 could draw the game, but again, nobody noticed his mistake. As a result, the move counter was inexorably approaching 50. sudenurk2 could force a draw several times, but lack of time did not allow her to choose the best moves. In the end, the player from Turkey was one move away from the 50-move rule to end the game in a draw.

The match ended in a 7–3 win for the player from Peru, which means that SirKex and SupWitches will advance to the semifinal stage regardless of the results of the remaining two matches. The match between SirKex and SupWitches will only determine which of them will finish first in the group and which will finish second.

The match between the Pool B leaders turned out to be an exciting one and ended in a 5–5 draw. A funny moment occurred in the sixth game, where SupWitches had a win in two moves in this position:

Without spending much time calculating, he quickly made three moves, after which both players found themselves in a stalemate position. However, it was the Slovakian player’s turn, so he was declared the winner. This miscalculation may have cost the Turkish player the match victory.

The final match of the Candidates round TheUnknownGuyReborn vs Schizophrenic_Energy also turned out to be interesting. In this match, we were able to see countless Q vs Q or Q vs R races as well as unusual openings like 1.a3 c5 2.a4 or 1.e3 e6 2.a3. The Russian player won this match with a minimum advantage of 5.5–4.5. This is his first victory in the Candidates round.

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Results:

All games, starting with the Candidates round, are available here.
Information on the players' performance can be found here.

The Candidates round determined the following potential semifinal matches:

1. PepsiNGaming vs SupWitches
2. SirKex vs ChangeOpening.

Final places:

Semifinals

Do you remember that at the very beginning of this blog I promised you sensations? Well, the time for the biggest scoop of the tournament has now come. At a moment when no one expected it... But then again, it wouldn’t have been a sensation if anyone had expected it, would it? So, when the public was expecting PepsiNGaming vs SupWitches as well as a replay of last year’s SirKex vs ChangeOpening final but at an earlier stage, the following message from PepsiNGaming appeared out of the blue on the forum:

One of the main contenders for the ACWC 2022 is withdrawn from the tournament. For those who have never competed in the championship or have competed but never made it out of qualification, this may seem strange. However, those who have competed for high places are well aware of how gruelling the matches against the strongest players are. It’s not just the matches themselves, but also the preparation for them, negotiating match times, changing your schedule to adjust to your opponents, etc. All this is stressful and takes up a lot of time and energy. We should also not forget that this is the fourth month of the tournament for those who started from the Qualification stage. Every next match every other week doesn’t get any easier! Add to that the lack of motivation since PepsiNGaming was already champion and everything is falling into place. I think we can draw parallels here with the world chess champion, who also could have played this year against the same opponent as last year, but who also decided not to do so, despite the substantial financial component. So all we have to do is thank PepsiNGaming for the great matches and outstanding play throughout the championship. I think everyone will agree with me that his matches in this championship were super entertaining.

As for the semifinal matches, the following two matches will take place this week:

1. ChangeOpening vs SupWitches
2. SirKex vs devansh2008

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SirKex vs devansh2008

First to play in the semifinals was SirKex vs devansh2008. The first game, like most games of this match, started with 1.e3 e6. Last year’s runner-up played White. After the fifth move, he already had a forced win in 13 moves, but at some point, he made a mistake and eventually lost the first game. The Indian player started all games of this match with 1.e3, while the Slovakian player was almost always playing 1...e6. The second game of the match was not an exception. In the endgame, SirKex had a forced winning in 10 moves, but the 15 seconds he had for calculations were not enough to analyse all continuations. As a result, this game ended in a draw. The next seven games in a row were won by whoever played White. devansh2008 didn’t vary his openings much. SirKex played 1.c4 or 1.e3 with White, and once played 1...b6 with Black for a change.

Before the tenth game the score was 4.5–4.5, but devansh2008, who had won 4 games with White in a row, played White. At the end of the tenth game, SirKex had a forced win in 8 moves, but blundered and ended up with a rook against two kings on the 8th rank. He tried to create some difficult positions for his opponent, but devansh2008 had no problem finding the only moves and held an easy draw without any problems. As a result, the match ended with a score of 5–5 and an armageddon game was to decide the finalist.

Armageddon game is a very rare phenomenon. This rule did not exist during the first championships. Before this match, an armageddon game only happened once — last year in the semifinal SirKex vs yourself101010. Back then, SirKex played Black and he managed to win. This time he too opted to play with Black. Unlike the standard 2+5 championship time control, the armageddon game has no increment and Black gets 3 minutes. Whoever secretly offers less time for White plays White. SirKex offered much more than 3 minutes, and devansh2008 offered 2 minutes.

It seems that the player from India was unable to adapt quickly to the game with no increment. With only 2 minutes of time for the entire game, devansh2008 spent 29 seconds thinking over the eighth move, 48 seconds for the ninth move, and 27 seconds for the twelfth move. This decided the outcome of the match as, minus these three moves, the Indian player had only 16 seconds for all other moves in the deciding game of the semifinal...

ChangeOpening vs SupWitches

The first semifinal was an ode to the Modern Defence (1.e3 e6). The second semifinal turned out to be an ode to the Polish Defence (1.e3 c5). Both players mainly played this opening. In the first game of this match, the reigning champion, who is renowned for his excellent knowledge of opening theory, played White. SupWitches was unable to surprise his opponent with unexpected moves. ChangeOpening repeatedly played this exact line until almost the last move, so the Romanian player didn’t even waste time on moves. Thanks to the increment, at the end of this game he had two-thirds more time than at the beginning of the game.

The next game was tenser. At one point, ChangeOpening had a forced win in 9 moves, but was unable to make it happen, and eventually the second game ended in a draw. In the next four games, as in the first two, the players used the Polish Defence. Three of these games ended in a White victory, and the fourth, which was played with White by SupWitches, ended in a draw. In one of these games, the spectators were even able to watch an interesting multi-pawn endgame:

The semifinalists played quite strongly throughout the match, showing their skill and deep understanding of the game. Personally, I like games like this much better than those played in 1+0 time control tournaments. Before the seventh game, the score was 4–2 in favour of last year’s champion. Since the player from Turkey had lost all the previous games with Black, he decided to surprise his opponent with an unexpected 1.e3 f6?! The problem is that it is very difficult to surprise the Romanian player in the opening. So this game predictably ended with a victory for ChangeOpening. There were three games left in which all SupWitches had to win in order to play an armageddon game. In the first game of those three, he was able to win despite a forced 17-move win for his opponent in the middle of the game.

In the ninth game, the Turkish player played Black. This time he decided to use the Modern Defence. However, the queen race, which this game came down to, did not cause any problems for ChangeOpening. The tenth game was no longer of any tournament significance. For a change, SupWitches played 1.c4. The game ended in a draw, and the final score of the match was 6.5–3.5 in favour of the reigning champion.

White did not lose a single game in this match. ChangeOpening won all games in which he played White. SupWitches won two games with White and finished three more games in a draw. It seems that in games at the highest level, the number of White wins increases every year. Whereas in chess more and more games between the strongest players end in a draw, in antichess the number of White wins is increasing.

Finals

The championship is inexorably approaching its end. We only have two matches left to see. The battle for third place will be fought between SupWitches and devansh2008, while the 2022 champion will be determined in a repeat of last year’s final ChangeOpening vs SirKex.

Unlike previous championship matches, the final matches consist of 12 games. The opponents of both final matches have never played against each other before in this championship, which makes these matches less predictable.

SupWitches vs devansh2008

In the first game of the third-place match, SupWitches played White. To 1.e3 devansh2008 responded with 1...e6 and then they played 8 moves from Watkins’s solution. On the ninth move, the Turkish player played the move recommended by Stockfish instead of the Watkins solution, which was probably his opening preparation. The game quickly turned into a winning endgame for White. In the next five games, the opponents continued to use the same opening. Playing White, devansh2008 preferred not to follow the solution. He quickly brought the game to an equal position, and then the winner was determined by the skill of the middlegame and the endgame. Playing Black, the player from India preferred to use queen races. However, SupWitches was ready for this, and so he was bound to win by playing White. By the middle of the match, the score was 5–1. The player from Turkey needed only two wins to win the match.

Although SupWitches was able to gain a significant advantage in the score by playing 1.e3, he decided to play 1.c4 in the seventh game. At some point in the middle of this game, devansh2008 left two connected rooks on the last rank. The Turkish player instantly noticed this mistake and ended up winning without any problems. After this win, the player from India needed to win all the remaining five games to move the match into an armageddon game. However, devansh2008 didn’t seem to have a plan B in case his standard openings were unsuccessful. In the eighth game, the players again played 1.e3 e6 and, as in previous games, the player from India decided not to take advantage of the White pieces and quickly converted the game to an equal middlegame. This game ended in victory for SupWitches, so the remaining four games were just a formality. The match ended with a score of 9.5–2.5 in favour of the player from Turkey.

This is the second championship for SupWitches. The previous one was back in 2018. Just like 5 years ago, SupWitches was strong and again came in third place, on which we congratulate him!

ChangeOpening vs SirKex

As in the third-place match, this match started with 1.e3 e6. ChangeOpening played seven moves from Watkins’s solution, and on the eighth move played his favourite Qxg8, keeping White’s advantage and resulting in a difficult game for Black. At some point Black made a mistake, and the first game ended in a win for the Romanian player, who had 1.5 times more time on the clock after the last move than he had at the start of the game.

In the second game, SirKex played 1.e3 and ChangeOpening responded with 1...c5. The Romanian player again used the opening line that he had played many times before. This line starts with a queen race, then Black captures the opponent’s queen and continues to use his queen to attack the opponent’s camp. The game turns out to be double-edged. On the 13th move, Black played 13...e5??, which results in their forced loss in 11 moves. The only problem is that if the engine in such positions feels like a fish in water, even the strongest players find it very difficult to calculate all continuations in a limited time. The Slovakian player was still keeping the forced win (though, not the most optimal one) until the 18th move. However, the critical moment was in this position:

Of the three possible moves here, only one leads to a win. Unfortunately for SirKex, he could not find it.

The Modern Defence in the first game and the Polish Defence in the second game were followed by the Liardet Defence in the third game. This game came to an equal position in which both players were risky to advance their pawns further. After a brief shuffling, they agreed to a draw. In the fourth game, ChangeOpening unexpectedly played the Classical Defence. Moreover, he chose not the strongest continuation 1.e3 b5 2.Bxb5 e6 3.Bxd7 Nxd7. After several exchanges, the Romanian player did not notice the threat of the a pawn. When the threat became obvious, there was no defence against it.

Only in the fifth game did the finalists repeat an opening played before. It was the Liardet Defence. This time, ChangeOpening managed to win. In the sixth game, the players repeated the same line they had played in the second game. With an insignificant change in the move order, the players came to the same critical point in which the player from Slovakia needed to see the idea of Qxh7!! This time SirKex allocated more time for this move, but still could not find the only move leading to the victory. As a result, the first half of the match ended with the advantage of the last year’s champion with a score of 4.5–1.5.

In the seventh game, the finalists again played 1.e3 e6. ChangeOpening had two forced wins, but didn’t notice it. So this game ended in a draw. In the eighth game, SirKex played White. He realised that the Romanian player would reply with 1...c5 to his 1.e3, and they would again come to that critical position in which he surely knew that he had a forced win, but after two unsuccessful attempts, could he find it in the third time after all? Not wanting to tempt fate and step on the same rake, SirKex decided to play his favourite 1.c4. It worked, the Slovakian player won confidently.

In the eighth game, the finalists again played 1.e3 e6. This time the Slovakian player decided to change the line and played 12...e5?

How do you think ChangeOpening responded, spending less than two seconds on the move? He played 13.Rg4!!, which surprised many. At first glance, this move looks like a losing one. Some even thought that he had accidentally dropped his piece in the middle of the path from g8 to g3. But nope, this is the strongest move in this position. After spending almost all his time, SirKex could not find a way not to lose this position. Unexpectedly for him, all possible continuations were one worse than another. I don’t think even the strongest players could find 13.Rg4!! in less than 2 seconds. The secret of this move is that ChangeOpening repeatedly got this exact position in other games, and therefore he made all moves of this game faster than the 5 second increment. In other words, all the moves of this game only added to his time.

In the next game, SirKex continued to use his successful 1.c4. The Wizard Attack didn’t let him down this time either. There were three games left to play. ChangeOpening had to win only one of them to defend his title. The player from Slovakia decided to use the Polish Defence. ChangeOpening chose an unfamiliar variation for SirKex and already had a forced win in 15 after the fourth move, but was not able to use it. However, this did not prevent him from winning this game with a strong play in the endgame. The remaining two games were a formality. The final match ended with a score of 7–5 in favour of ChangeOpening. Last year, the same players played in the final and that match ended with an exact same score.

In previous years, players who started directly from the Candidates round without the Qualification often find it very difficult to adapt to the pace of the championship game and its regulations. ChangeOpening started the Candidates round with two consecutive defeats against players ranked in the last two places in the group at the end of Qualification. However, he managed to turn this around and win convincingly, demonstrating the highest level of play. We just have to congratulate Florentin Olteanu on his well-deserved win and the World Title!

Resources

• Final match with commentary by firebatprime and TheUnknownGuyReborn — https://www.youtube.com/live/5rtwv9rYQWI
• The third-place match — https://www.youtube.com/live/XIVr4lfgrYo
• Playlist of other championship matches — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EVhj5RdzLY&list=PLY82OCU1ZU0Qp9y3qkNKIhgwfLZjF5hQ6
• All championship games, starting with the Candidates round, by cFlour — https://lichess.org/broadcast/acwc-2022-candidates-broadcast/YYY5Gf09
• Results of all games of the Qualification round, by Peeyush_Sonkar — https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EedrVaSw9DIBdP5VK1bY6RscIaufaIvUYodbmgvhimA/edit?usp=sharing
• Statistics by arimakat — http://perpetualcheck.com/antichess/lichess.php
• ACWC Rules (2022 edition) — https://acwc.chessvariants.training/rules/2022

Finally, a big thank you to the tournament organisers ODMWND, Shiaxou, and TheUnknownGuyReborn for all their hard work over the months!