By CM Junior Tay
Chess Against Covid held the 2nd Fight Night Tuesday: Chess 960 event earlier today, and it was a thrilling showdown!💪🏼
65 players participated, and the main contenders were FM Jarred Neubronner, Singapore’s first ever Chess960 champion, FM Daniel Chan, our 2010 National Champion, FM Timothy Chan, our 2011 National Champion and FM Andrey Terekhov, all of whom possess IM norms. We also had FM Ashvin Sivakumar and CMs Goh Zi Han and Advait Bagri to make life difficult for the trio.
It was Daniel Chan who sprinted to the top of the table right from the start, collecting two berserk wins before the rest completed even 1 game. And he just kept going with 10 wins in a row within 1/2 an hour before he was forced into an opposite coloured bishop endgame draw against Andrey. By then, only 4 players could barely keep pace with him, the unknown Myozz and Timothy Chan, Terekhov and Sivakumar, all of whom lurked more than 15 points behind.
Jarred was soon to join the leading pack, but Daniel and Myozz kept their winning ways, way into the 1 hour mark. Tan Meng Wei and Advait threatened to muscle in at this point at the halfway mark, and three young juniors also figured in the top 10, CM Goh Zi Han, Cristal Lee and Lim Kai Jun!
10 minutes later, Daniel had extended his lead to 16 points but it was then he suffered his first loss to Bagri. With two more losses in the next 3 games, Jarred and Myozz soon got within striking distance of Daniel but at this point, Myozz hit a purple patch with 5 consecutive wins, inclusive of 2 over Bagri. Daniel however could not shake off Jarred and in fact, the long protracted game between them allowed Myozz to propel pass them, towards the 90 minute mark.
Daniel’s 3 wins over Myozz was overridden by the latter’s ultra fast wins with an incredible 26 games played (5 more than Dan or Jarred). Daniel noted that his strategy of ‘berserking’ every single game (which meant he only had 1.5 min per game) probably worked against him as he started to get flagged often in the last third of the event.
After the event, we were beset by many calls on the identity of mysterious winner Myozz. Our money is on GM Daniel Fernandez (for a variety of reasons) but we have not received confirmation on this from our GM Masterclass lecturer yet 😊.
Final result
🏆: 1st the mysterious Myozz,
🥇2nd: FM Daniel Chan,
3rd: FM Jarred Neubronner,
4th: FM Timothy Chan,
5th: CM Advait Bagri.
6th: PickledKnights
7th: Cai Mingzhe
8th: Tan Meng Wei
9th: FM Ashvin Sivakumar
10th: Tang Yiheng.
Congrats to all players😊
Final scoretable and games: https://lichess.org/tournament/uzINIYGm