QTCinderella Breaks Records, xQc Makes No Mistakes

Before the match started, there was no way for any of the players to go to the Winner’s Bracket. Still, Wirtual played his best chess to defeat Daily Dose of Internet and guarantee a better seed and likely a less challenging opponent in the knockout.

A clean first game made everyone wonder if this was still, in fact, PogChamps. Though both players are new to chess, they played well and had a mostly balanced game. 

The game entered an endgame where Wirtual had an extra pawn, but it was still far from winning. Eventually, Wirtual blundered his rook for a knight, but a fortress prevented Daily Dose from winning, despite the extra material. 

Wirtual and Daily Dose played out the positionally drawn game until a threefold repetition ended the game. This is for all the people in the comments section who apparently miss super-grandmaster draws that much. 

The second game was going smoothly for Wirtual after Daily Dose blundered an important pawn on his kingside. Daily Dose’s position was miserable, dealing with a naked king and pinned pieces. Wirtual went astray, though, losing most of his advantage but entering an endgame with a pawn up once more.

Daily Dose was defending well, but his position was still grim. The situation pushed Daily Dose to make his worst mistake yet. While yesterday a real blunder helped a player win the match, today, it was a fake blunder that made a player lose. Daily Dose thought he had lost his rook and resigned, confusing everyone—including his opponent. 

In his post-match interview, Wirtual shared that his prep for today was a bit different. “I realized we’re not going to the top bracket, and that’s ok, but what can we do? We can have fun with the game of chess!”

Daily Dose, on the other hand, was surprised that both Wirtual and he were going to the Consolation Bracket: “Wait, so this was basically like a meaningless game, neither of us could advance, we’re also both losers?”

A beautiful sentiment, indeed.

In the battle between Pog veterans Papapplate and Fuslie, the German streamer came out on top after winning two games.

Papaplatte showed he was ready to go and found a tactic to win a pawn in the opening. Though he later blundered the pawn back, his moves were more purposeful than Fuslie’s, who chased one-move threats and delayed castling. 

Fuslie eventually blundered a rook, which launched her in a downward spiral. Papaplatte took advantage of his opponent’s bad moment to deliver checkmate. 

In her PogChamps 5 debut, QTCinderella did not disappoint. No, she did not win her match. But she still gave us some fine content and exquisite clips as she lost her match to I did a thing.

What happens when QTCinderella can’t play the Stonewall? She plays the Stonewall anyway. QT had a great position right out of the opening and got an even better position when I did a thing blundered his rook. 

QT then traded queens to simplify the game. With an unsurmountable advantage, the path to victory was clear. Naturally, she won the first game, right? 

Well…

After her endgame fiasco, QT still had the unconditional and shameless support of commentators Danny and Andrea. At one point, Danny pointed out that he believed QT was one of the favorites to win PogChamps 5.

As experienced as he is, Danny is clearly unfamiliar with the “commentator’s curse” phenomenon. Here’s what happened in game two:

In a quest to prove he’s the best player in the field, xQc spared no bings and left no booms unturned to win his match against Jinnity.

The PogChamps veteran won a juicer and another juicer (a pawn and a queen) right out of the gate in their first game. It was clear that all his chess training paid off—even his thought process was incredibly advanced:

Using nothing but his queen, xQc created chaos on the board and ate up most of Jinny’s pieces. He later brought in one of his rooks to the game to deliver the final blow.

Upon checking his performance with Game Review, xQc himself was amazed:

The second game was not any easier for Jinny. Despite playing much better, she was still not good enough for xQc. Finding all the tactics, xQc first got a considerable material advantage and then found checkmate—which he did not even play, as Jinny’s time ran out.

xQc, who played so well he felt he had to put on a suit for his interview, shared his thoughts: “I’ve improved in the shadows and I’m ready to take on the whole thing. And you said today that I was undefeated, right? (…) I’m not only undefeated, I haven’t made a single mistake yet.”

I’ve improved in the shadows and I’m ready to take on the whole thing.
— xQc

About his upcoming match against League of Legends player and currently the second top-scorer in his group, Tyler1, xQc did not hold his tongue: 

After the last match of the day, it’s clear that QTCinderella’s biggest enemy is herself. Despite her unparalleled ability to throw, QT still won her match against Fuslie, keeping her hope to make it to the Champion’s Bracket alive. 

Now, if you’ve ever wondered if there’s a healthy limit to how much you should obsess over an opening, look no further than the first game of this match. Between winning a piece and playing the Stonewall, QT didn’t hesitate. She let Fuslie’s knight hang for four moves before she finally captured it—only after getting her Stonewall setup, of course.

Again, QT did everything right. She created threats, found tactics, and got into a super-winning endgame with two queens, a bishop, and multiple pawns against Fuslie’s naked king. Once more, it was all a matter of putting her opponent down. And once more…

In preparation for the next game, please take a moment to appreciate the hypnotic back-and-forth dance of the eval bar:

How did that happen, one might wonder? Honestly, it’s hard to describe. Fuslie could’ve trapped QT’s queen during much of the game but missed her opportunities. Then, Fuslie blundered all her pieces, and QT had the simple task of checkmating her opponent with a gazillion extra pieces.

You could see the fear in the commentators’ eyes as QT started gobbling all of Fuslie’s pieces in the second game. A desolated Danny started mumbling words of hope to a hangry Andrea.

And there was hope, after all, as QT was extra careful this time and turned off the auto-queen setting to avoid a stalemate. But you have to reload the page before the settings save, don’t you? Well, guess what happened:

While she did fail to win the game, she does have reason to celebrate. With his performance today, QT broke the record for the most stalemates in a single day of PogChamps.

This second stalemate in the match meant that things would have to be resolved in the tiebreaks. Not used to blitz, Fuslie blundered her bishop, then a knight, and then another bishop. At this point, any sensible human being longing for dinner had to be worried about the prospect of another draw. Especially when QT walked her king to g3, Fuslie started checking her, and the possibility of a threefold draw began to haunt us all.

Gladly, QT went wrong and gave Fuslie a chance to put the game away quickly. But it couldn’t be that simple:

Now with a huge material advantage, everyone’s fate was in QT’s hands. And, after a long day of PogChamps, she finally did it:

All Games: Day 6

PogChamps 5 is Chess.com’s most popular chess event for creators. Featuring 16 players and a $100,000 prize fund, the event starts on July 26, 2023, and ends August 18, 2023, with live in-person finals happening in Los Angeles, United States. Creators are divided into groups of four and play a single round-robin before moving on to either a Championship or Consolation bracket.

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