Draft:Daily Chess Championship

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Daily Chess Championships is one of the largest online chess tournament. It has been held annually on the Chess.com platform since 2018. The competitions, due to their open formula, have attracted thousands of chess players from the very beginning, and this number grows every year. It was especially visible during the lockdown, when people turned to online chess to occupy their minds.. Another increase in popularity was when the hit series “The Queen’s Gambit” was released by Netflix.
While the first edition of Daily Chess Championships had just over 7,000 players , after 5 years, in 2023, due to the significant interest in the event, the organizer had to limit the number of participants to 35,000 . Due to this turnout success, the organizer decided that in 2024 there will be no limits on the number of participants. This will probably allow to set another record for the number of chess players in one online tournament.

Tournament formula

The tournament always starts on January 1 and, depending on the number of participants, consists of 4 or 5 rounds.. All players are divided into groups (up to 12 people ), and only the winners advance to the next round . Players play in each round a maximum of 22 games simultaneously (with each opponent as White and Black), with a maximum of one day allocated for each move. The winner of the Championships is the player who accumulates the most points in the final round.

Rules

During the Championships, all rules of daily chess are in effect.

• Time control: Players have to complete each move within a strict 24-hour timeframe. This is a "No Vacation" tournament, meaning participants are not allowed to take breaks or extended leaves during the competition. The emphasis on a 24-hour window for each move adds a strategic element to the game, requiring players to carefully plan and execute their moves while considering the extended time frame.
• Groups: All participants are divided into 12-player sections, with only the section winner(s) advancing to the next round. There are no tie breaks. All competitors with the highest number of points advance to the next round.
• Support: The use of engines and endgame tablebases is never permitted, but opening databases and opening books are allowed due to the nature of daily chess. All section winners will be subjected to fair-play analysis to ensure the integrity of the competition.

Winners of Daily Chess Championships

No	Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Number of players
1	2018	Jbd735	USA Rob King	RUS Alexey Zimin	7344
2	2019	GER Sascha Grimm	Jbd735	NED Daan Brandenburg	11609
3	2020	DEN Uffe Vinther-Schou	RUS Andrei Belozerov	TUR Irmak Sipahioglu	16831
4	2021	DEN Uffe Vinther-Schou	RUS Andrei Belozerov	UKR Leonid Starozhilov POL Marcin Szymański	16505
5	2022	USA NefariousNebula	RUS Andrei Belozerov	USA volunteers1998	33633
6	2023	POL Marcin Szymański	RUS DanilinDP	POL Kacper Drozdowski	35000
7	2024	?	?	?	60466
Italic font - only usernames available on the chess.com platform.

Fair Play

Chess games have been conducted by move-carrying messengers since at least the 17th century, but the introduction of low-cost mail service created a small boom for postal chess in the early 19th century. In those days, the only overriding fair play rule was the prohibition of consulting other chess players. Traditional correspondence chess involves thousands of letters containing subsequent moves. With the advent of the Internet, the stamped envelope was initially replaced by emails and then by dedicated platforms for such tournaments. In the 21st century, the vast majority of daily (correspondence) games are played on this type of platforms.
In the 21st century chess engines also appeared and their playing strength soon reached the level of grandmasters. During the Daily Chess Championships chess engines are strongly prohibited. Additionally, all games of group winners undergo computer analysis for fair play The tournament regulations allow only the use of opening books, both in paper form and in the form of opening databases. Such rules are in line with the spirit of traditional correspondence chess but it still raises a lot of controversy. The United States Chess Federation adopts a comparable position, explicitly forbidding the utilization of chess programs in its regulations. However a totally opposite approach is taken by the International Correspondence Chess Federation. It permits not only consulting other chess but also collaboration between humans and computers, even during the official World Correspondence Chess Championship .
Because the Daily Chess Championship places a significant emphasis on independent play, a major challenge for the organizers is the detection and disqualification of players who use chess programs for assistance. For this purpose, artificial intelligence-based programs continuously monitor suspicious games. If it is determined that a player is cheating, they are automatically blocked, and all games played by them in the current round are considered forfeited.