On 18 January, the first leg of the Litho Knights Speed Circuit 2024 was held. This first round took the form of a blitz tournament where both players had only 3 minutes of thinking time available, with 2 seconds increment per move. And with 8 players competing, we held a single round robin competition to omit all forms of chance.
Right from the get-go, there were 2 clear favorites based on rating. But chess is a game with many surprises, so even the doomed victors needed to prove themselves worthy of the top spots. The first two rounds went by without surprises, as the higher rated player took the victory in all the games. There was only 1 exception, where Mahmoud managed to take down Ad in round 2, punching 200 points above his weight.
In round 3, we saw another upset with big potential implications into the standings as Alexis managed to take a win over Joshua, with an estimated rating difference of 150 points. Then, in round 4, I finally managed to get on the board with a victory over Krithik. This left the standings just over halfway through with Eloy and Ralf still at the maximum score, with Joshua trailing by 1 point:
From here on out, it would be a long second half of the leg where every player needed to keep up their form perfectly to stay on top or take it over. In round 5, both of frontrunners dropped a full point, as Ralf was taken down by Ad, and, in a massive turn of events, Eloy lost to Krithik. Joshua managed to pick up his win, bringing the top 3 all back to a tie, and they only needed to face each other still. The last stretch of the tournament saw several more games, with little upsets. In my own game again Mahmoud I did not manage to get a point from a winning position as Mahmoud defended tenaciously and managed to hold the only draw in the whole competition. In the end, the final score of the first leg of the speed chess circuit looked like this, after Joshua managed to beat both of his direct rivals in the final rounds to accumulate a whopping 6 out of 7 points! Congratulations to Joshua for his victory – but don’t get too comfortable as the next blitz round is coming up…
Sadly, due to the nature of the time format, no records of the games itself exist, but I can say there were some beautiful moves and sacrifices played. All in all, the competition was both good fun and competitive, and I would love to see many more people play in the upcoming second leg of the circuit: a 5+2 blitz competition that will happen in 4 weeks!