VCT 3 - Matchday 1

By Bikash Sherpa

Hello Guys

Welcome to VCT3: Thug Chess Round by Round report. 

Brief Introduction:

After successful completion of VCT 2: Thug Chess, where Sandy aka buhu_s was the champion (hence booked his name in VCT Hall of Fame), our hardworking committee members, which mainly comprise of Jongs, Matcho and Avik (I chipped in with few ideas), decided to take the tournament to new heights and include 8 more players totaling 24 players. The tournament format and other details can be found in  https://vctchess.blogspot.com/2020/06/vct-3-structure.html. I personally liked what they have done with the concept of 'Fighters' and the prizes allotted for them.

Below are the new players who joined in VCT 3:

1. Abhishek (chicsan)                                    -1390
2. Souvik (nitrozz)                                         -1223
3. Shibu (secretbook)                                     - 906
4. Akash (aqi87)                                             - 446
5. Sudipta (sudiptadebnath2020)                   -1516
6. Shouvik (shouvik86)                                  -1183
7. Sayak (sayak23)                                         -1542
8. Sayantan (sayantanduttagupta)                  - 961
9. Prateek (prateekmagarde)                          - 460

Below are the players who also participated in VCT 2 along with the rating difference between the 2 VCTs:

1. Irfan (Irfan_raza6)                             -1445 (+36)
2. Bikash (BIKASHSHERPA)              -1199 (+82)
3. Pablo (changpablo)                            -1046 (+2)
4. Neha (bheegibasanti)                         - 812 (-43)
5. Dzl (mirmadan)                                  - 712 (-50)
6. Sandy (buhu_s)                                  -1598 (+74)
7. Match (hopelessindian)                      -1148 (+129)
8. Avik (champ2w)                                 -1232 (+38)
9. Aneek (aneek_roy)                             - 934 (-11)
10. Arka  (arkathelogan)                           -1034 (+131)
11. Nandita (nandy111)                            - 688 (-223)
12. Anustup (anustupsikdar)                    - 833 (+150)
13. Jongs (shayon62)                                -1038 (+24)
14. Maddy (maddy1847)                          -1069 (+133)
15. Masid (masidhere)                              - 797 (-58)

As we can see some of the players has improved a lot with rating gain of more than 100 points (e.g. Matcho, Arka etc) while some players need to work hard to gain lost points (e.g. Nandy, Masid, Dzl).

Matchday 1:

With 12 matches being played in the 1^st round, we got to see lot of exciting stuffs along with many upsets. I won’t be able to put all the matches here but will try my level best to include as much as possible:

 

Match #1:     Matcho (hopelessindian) V Avik (champ2w)

Result:          Match drawn

This was a match between two committee members which resulted in a draw but the game itself was full of chaos. Avik fought back from the brink of a loss (chess.com engine showed mate in 4) helped by a Matcho blunder (Matcho with white pieces and Avik with black pieces). Definitely a contender for Best Comeback.

Then suddenly:

                                                                          

 

Match #2:     Arka (arkathelogan) V Sudipta (sudiptadebnath2020)

Winner:        Arka

Arka took on the yellow group top seed Sudipta and won the match comfortably via checkmate (which I personally thought was remote). Not only because of the rating difference between the two players (which was of around 480 points) but also because of the way he kept his composure and dominated the match after any early piece blunder by Sudipta,  I would say that this win by Arka is comfortably a top contender for upset win of the tournament.

The match was finished by a nice checkmate (contender for Best Checkmate of the tournament):

Match #3:     Sandy (buhu_s) V Shibu (secretbook)

Winner:        Shibu

Similar to the previous match, this match also turned out to be a big upset with Shibu (initial rating 906) beating VCT 2 champion buhu_s (rating 1598). Considering Shibu is listed as a fighter makes it even more bigger win for him. I am not sure which upset win will be selected as the prize winner (as compared with the above match) but one thing is sure that Shibu is definitely one of the top fighter.

Also it is hard to find any flaw in Sandy’s game (specially with white pieces), may be some inaccuracies, but this was definitely a good technical win for Shibu over the champion. Definitely Game of the Round.

 

Match #4:     Nandita (nandy111) V Anustup (anustupsikdar):

Winner:         Nandita

As I mentioned in VCT 2 that nandy111 is player to watch in VCT3, she kept my words true with some vicious attack (with white pieces) and checkmating the black king. The below stats speaks on itself (only 1 inaccuracy):                  

During VCT 2, I pointed out not to weaken f7 square (for black pieces) and Anustup exactly did that as pointed below:                                                                          

Which resulted in puzzle like tactical attack where both white Queen and knight landed in the enemy’s neck. As shown below black’s rook is doomed.

This was one of the most attacking game of the round.

My apologies to guys whose games could not be covered here, I will try to cover more on later rounds. The 1^st round results can be found in the link: https://vctchess.blogspot.com/2020/07/vct3-scores.html

Highlights of Matchday 1:

Game of the round:     Shibu V Sandy

Player of the round:     Arka,Shibu

Best checkmate:          Arka

Giant Slayer:                Arka, Shibu

Best comeback:           Avik (actually it is for comeback win but I thought to draw from mate in 4 is as good as win)

Special note:

The tournament has started on a great note with all the players showing lots of enthusiasm, lets continue the trend going and games going. Yellow group has gone upside down with all upset wins and blue group has spiced up as well with Matcho and Avik’s drawn game.

 

#Happypracticing.