National Masters Chiu, Wang Take Crazyhouse Qualifiers 1 & 2

NM Isaac Chiu and NM Jalen Wang respectively won Qualifiers 1 and 2 of the 2024 Crazyhouse Championship, the final event of the Chess.com Community Championship series. There are six qualifying spots left for the Knockout on Friday.

[Updated on 12/5/2024:] Chiu will not attend the Knockout on Friday. Bartlomiej Zdybowicz, second place in the arena, will replace him.

Qualifier 3 is on Tuesday, December 3, at 1:30 p.m. ET/19:30 CET/12:00 a.m. IST (on December 4) and Qualifier 4 is at 7:30 p.m. ET/1:30 a.m. CET (on December 4)/6:00 a.m. IST (on December 4). News recaps will be published after every two qualifiers on the next day. 

• Qualifier 1
• Qualifier 2

We've saved the craziest for last. The Crazyhouse Championship is the eighth and final event of the yearlong variants series. From beginners to grandmasters, all players are invited to play in the qualifiers, but only eight players will reach the final on Friday. Monday through Thursday, there are eight qualifiers, each a two-hour arena with a 3+0 time control in the Crazyhouse Variant.

Crazyhouse is essentially Bughouse Chess but without teams. It's a one-on-one game, like regular chess, but when you capture a piece you can spend a turn to put that piece on the board (it changes to your color). That means no piece stays captured for long, and attacks can often feature many more sacrifices than we're used to, since pieces can return to the board.

Qualifier 1

The first qualifier was no contest, really. 166 players participated, and Chiu handily won with 52 wins, zero draws, and just four losses. 

Qualifier 1 Standings | Top 15

(See full standings here.)

As we've seen in the other editions of this series, being a grandmaster doesn't necessarily give players an upper hand when it comes to variants. For example, GM Jakhongir Vakhidov was the top-scoring GM. He landed in 18th place, scoring 19 wins and seven losses.

In their first encounter, Chiu defeated the Uzbek grandmaster in just 18 moves. He sacrificed his queen for a knight to double the opponent's pawns, and he took advantage of the ruptured kingside with three knights surrounding the enemy king. By the way, he used 24 seconds for the entire game—and his opponent got down to 16 seconds by the end

As you can predict, games aren't decided in long, maneuvering endgames. Instead, miniatures are quite common, and most games are decided by direct attacks against the king. Chiu defeated Norwegian GM Lars Oskar Hauge, who has participated in previous Community Championships, in just 16 moves. The checkmate with a pawn is the cherry on top.

Qualifier 2

Starting six hours later, the second qualifier with 183 players was much more competitive. In fact, GM Jeffery Xiong led the tournament all the way through to the last minute, when suddenly Wang overtook him by three points in the last minute, finishing with 44 wins and nine losses, with zero draws.

Xiong lost just three games, but he also didn't rack up as many wins, scoring 39. His game against Vakhidov showed again how dangerous having doubled pawns in front of the king can be. 24...R@g2! was a beautiful exploitation of this theme, making the most of the light squares. Ultimately, the f3 and g2-squares were instrumental pivot-points for setting up the checkmate that ended the game:

Knights are particularly deadly pieces in this variant, and they can sometimes be even stronger than queens. Against FM Roee Aroesti, Chiu showed the destructive power three knights can unleash, after sacrificing his queen. This game was just 14 moves long.

Against the same opponent, a few games later, he showed the power of two knights and ended the game with a satisfying smothered checkmate.

Will Xiong win one of the remaining six qualifiers? Who else will join the two winners so far? We'll see two more winners by Tuesday's end.

The Chess.com Crazyhouse Championship is the last event of the Chess.com Community Championships series. The tournament will be decided with an eight-player double-elimination bracket. Each competitor qualified via one of eight, 75-minute arenas with a 3+0 time control. The prize fund is $7,500. 

Previous coverage:

• Insanity Awaits! Get Ready For The Chess.com Crazyhouse Chess Championship