A Champion is Crowned — The 2021 States Chess Cup
The sophomore season of the States Chess Cup has come to a close and a champion has been crowned.
The exciting online tournament was hosted on lichess this year with commentary scattered around YouTube and Twitch. It pits tightly matched teams of four against one another. Each team represents their state and the team’s average US Chess Federation regular rating cannot exceed 2200.
Some team captains take the approach of placing a grandmaster at board 1 to pocket a nearly guaranteed 4 wins, but must pull the team average down by having a weak board 4, or even diminishing boards 3 and 4.
If you’re thinking you’d place two grandmaster at the top of your team and two Labrador Retrievers at the bottom, think again. Outsmarting the rules this way is not as easy as it may sound. Any rating below 1800 will be counted as 1800 in the team’s average.
The other approach is to have a well-balanced team with something like a 2300 at board 1, two 2200’s in the middle, and an underrated 2000 on board 4.
