THINK Chess Blog #10

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Liga

Most recent Liga

In our most recent Liga, we got promoted from the Liga 10C here: Liga 10C. THINK got 3rd place, earning promotion! We missed out on 1st place by a whopping 48 points, and only missed out on 2nd by 4 points, but we were 17 points clear of 4th place, and at the end of the day, a promotion is a promotion. I will provide a bit of commentary on what I think is our top scorer on the night (FM @royalblue04)'s best game.
https://lichess.org/C5MptkMQ

Only 20 ACPL (average centipawn loss) against a 2500+ player is what made me choose this game. No mistakes or blunders from @royalblue04.
The game begins as an Open Sicilian. After some piece exchanges, royal gets an advantage. Royal's pawns continued to advance, and it became too much for their opponent, and they resigned. Great job to all who participated! I myself could only get three points, and couldn't play for too long as I had COVID-19, but I am recovered now. Best birthday present I could ask for, right?
Make sure to show up on May 19th for the Liga 9B, troops!

All-time Liga scores

This topic was suggested to me by @Rankrotten, one of our leaders. @LoLLLLLLLLLLL (forgive me if I got the number of L's wrong) requested that we calculate the all-time Liga scores for each individual player, and @Rankrotten managed to add all the scores together since THINK's inception (though sadly we have no records from the LRCL days. For those of you who don't know, the LRCL- Low Rated Chess League- was THINK's first team.). Here is the forum: https://lichess.org/forum/team-think/think-liga-players-all-time-points-totals

As of May 15th, 2022, those are the all-time Liga scores. @J3742 is in rank 1 with a whopping 3236 points in the Liga all-time for THINK. FM @royalblue04 is second, with 1181 points in the Liga. In third is @JeremyIsFishing, with 993 points. However, not far behind Jeremy is @I_Am_Not_Me_Maybe with 986. So many points for just a few people is mind-boggling, especially in comparison to my points total with only 71. That's kinda lower than I thought, thought I'd be at at least 100 points. Oh well. Play in our upcoming Ligas so you can get a lot of points and not end up like me with just 71!

Masters

To check on the overall progress of the Masters, click here.

Crazyhouse Masters

As promised in the last blog, the winner of the Crazyhouse Masters is shown in this blog. It is... drumroll please... FM @royalblue04. However, it wasn't a very exciting game, as @Diego-Alexander, the runner-up, could not make the date set.
To view the bracket, go here.
I crashed out of the Crazyhouse Masters against @Diego-Alexander, who completely steamrolled me. Here is the game:
https://lichess.org/bdfWEIUq9vSr

I have no comments other than: I got completely and utterly smashed in this game.
Another game from the Crazyhouse Masters:
[@Dark-Bi5hop vs @Kempere: 1-0](

I chose this game for the many blunders. (No offense to the players, I just think the blunders made it much more fun to see.)
I was looking at the game and around move 20 I was like "What in the world is happening." And that's the best thing about crazyhouse, anything can happen!
Congratulations to FM @royalblue04 and great job to everyone in the tournament!

Atomic Masters

We have entered the playing phase for the Atomic Masters! To follow its progress, go here. To see the bracket, go here. I will give odds for the bracket: (please feel free to clown these all you want, and don't get discouraged if you don't have good odds. If you're discouraged, I have 4 words for you: Corner. Taken. Quickly. Origi. Bonus points if you know what that is!)

Qualifying Round

#1 @TheUsualDumbKid (65%) vs @I_Am_Not_Me_Maybe (35%)
#2 @skybreaker42 (45%) vs @SpandanSaha0205 (55%)

2nd Round

@LoLLLLLLLLLLL (60%) vs Winner of #1 (40%)
@Diego-Alexander (55%) vs @PearlStairs (45%)
@MenacingFierceTiger (50%) vs @chessmessi14 (50%)
Match ended 1-3 to @chessmessi14
@royalblue04 (70%) vs @Kempere (30%)
@Winddemon248 (50%) vs Winner of #2 (50%)
@Bosburp (70%) vs @pUrpLegReeNniNga (30%)
@RubiksCuber23 (40%) vs @Dark-Bi5hop (60%)
@ScrappyHo-oh (50%) vs @George6W-obs (50%)
Lots of interesting matchups.
The only games at the time of writing are the 4 I played with my opponent, @MenacingFierceTiger, and I won three of them, which puts me into the quarterfinals, where I will get obliterated 3-0. I will, however, show the game that I actually lost, because I think it is the best one.
https://lichess.org/xhUAdpfK
This was a very tight game, and I had an extra bishop, which should have won me the game, but on move 42, I should have played bishop g5, which would have blown up the pawn promotion. I didn't and lost. At this point I was 2-0 up, having won the first 2 games. This game made the match 2-1, but I won the next match, which got me to the minimum 3 points needed to get to the quarterfinals.
I hope to announce the winner of the Atomic Masters in my next blog, which should be in mid-to-late June.

UltraBullet Masters

This competition has not started yet! However, if you're interested, and would like to participate, please click here. (You must first be a member of THINK Chess to participate, join here.)

Outro

Any suggestions for future blogs welcome! For suggestions and/or feedback, message me @chessmessi14.
Thanks for reading, and I will see you all in future blogs!