Canadian Masters Plotkin, Awatramani Win Crazyhouse Qualifiers 3 & 4

IM Mark Plotkin and NM Janak Awatramani, both from Canada, respectively won Qualifiers 3 and 4 of the 2024 Crazyhouse Championship, the final event of the Chess.com Community Championship series. Half the seats in the Knockout are taken, and the remaining four will be up for grabs on Wednesday and Thursday. 

Qualifier 5 started on Wednesday, December 4, at 11:00 a.m. ET/17:00 CET/9:30 p.m. IST and Qualifier 6 is at 5:00 p.m. ET/0:00 a.m. CET (on December 5)/4:30 a.m. IST (on December 5). News recaps will be published after every two qualifiers on the next day. 

As time ticks down for players looking to qualify for the Knockout, each tournament gradually gets more competitive. Both qualifiers on Tuesday were decided only in the final games, with several Crazyhouse specialists just missing out a spot in the grand finale on Friday.

• Qualifier 3
• Qualifier 4

Qualifier 3

The third qualifier was the most attended so far by a big margin, with 310 players; the previous two didn't break 200. Plotkin won 44 games with six losses, no draws. Although FM Roee Aroesti (Crazy_Eight) won one more game than him, with an equal number of losses, players earn bonus points for maintaining streaks (games won consecutively). Plotkin had the highest streak of 22, compared to Aroesti's 14, and this was the tiebreak that won Plotkin the tournament.

Qualifier 3 Standings | Top 15

(See full standings here.)

Plotkin and Aroesti had two direct encounters, and they each won one of them. The Israeli master won the first battle with a nasty combination that led to double check and mate. This game was actually the one that stopped Plotkin's streak at 22 wins in a row.

But Plotkin resurged several games later. To be fair, Aroesti again had a winning attack but lost on time; his clock hit zero when Plotkin still had a minute and 53 seconds left, in the following position where White is about to lose his queen. Without increment, we have to remember that the clock is the 33rd piece. 

Chess.com's Hyperbullet Champion GM Andrew Tang came close, but "only" managed to win 43 games—also with six losses, like the other two. He had one run-in with the tournament winner, in the penultimate round. The Canadian IM found a nice queen "sacrifice" on f5; the queen would resurface on the d7-square, followed by a whirlwind of white pieces all arriving on the board with checks that saw to the demise of the black king.

A fun, random fact from this tournament is that of the 1,730 games played, just five of them ended in draws.

Qualifier 4

The next qualifier started six hours later and was attended by 166 players. Awatramani and JetStreamm were miles ahead of the rest of the field, and they were completely tied with 188 points in the final four minutes of the tournament. That's when the Canadian NM shot ahead, while his adversary lost a game and thus lost his streak.

Qualifier 4 Standings | Top 15

(See full standings here.)

Those final four minutes were critical and could have gone either way. Carlos Zurita, with the black pieces, was the showstopper as he found the winning move 33...@h3 against JetStreamm, and the threat of placing another pawn on g2 was impossible to defend. He'd repeat the same idea one more time before Black would resign:

Awatramani, fittingly, beat JetStreamm in his penultimate game of the tournament to crystalize his victory. The game took just 13 moves. It may not look like it in the following position, but the back rank was Black's undoing in this game:

Four more spots remain open. Will Aroesti or Tang claim one of them, or will we see other Crazyhouse pros take the cake?

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:

• National Masters Chiu, Wang Take Crazyhouse Qualifiers 1 & 2
• Insanity Awaits! Get Ready For The Chess.com Crazyhouse Chess Championship