2024 Toronto International Bughouse Tournament + Contest for a Free Trip!

Marc Nassar, GM Awonder Liang, and the Annex Chess Club are delighted to present the 2024 Toronto International Bughouse Tournament! Join the best bughouse players in the world like Awonder Liang, Janak Awatramani (12teen), Jalen Wang (blitzbullet), Dan Yeager (chickencrossroad), and many more.

GM Liang has generously sponsored the $5,000 USD prize fund for this tremendously fun weekend of bughouse chess.

Register here! https://2024-toronto-bughouse.square.site/

This blog post will include a small snippet of who's coming to the world's strongest bughouse tournament in history, and there will also be a bughouse puzzles quiz. The first person to post the correct solutions to all the puzzles will be given free accommodation to the next (so not the current event) international bughouse tournament!

Eligibility criteria: 1) Must be a participant in the event, the 2024 Toronto International Bughouse Tournament. 2) Must post all the solutions by private message to FischyVishy on Lichess. 3) All answers have to be correct.

The Tournament

Detailed information about the tournament can be found here: https://2024-toronto-bughouse.square.site/uploads/b/ceaa4130-578a-11ef-9e0d-77d354500865/Toronto%20Bughouse%20Rules%20and%20Regulations.pdf

The Players

Awonder Liang (rednova1729)

Bughouse world champion: 2021 and 2022
Current world #1

"I started playing bughouse and crazyhouse around 2019, then ramped it up more during COVID. I was first really drawn to the game by the ideas of CrazyAra, which is similar to Leela for crazyhouse, and have stuck around ever since :) I’ve been around the top 2 or 3 in both for a couple years now, and won the bughouse WC in 2021 and 2022 with Jefferyx as well as the zh WC in 2021. What keeps me coming back is the never-ending beauty and depth of the ideas in the game."

Janak Awatramani (Twelveteen / 12teen)

Bughouse world champion: 2020
Highest ever bughouse rating

"Accidentally stumbled across FICS as a junior with my friend (shoutout Jeremy! (Burpcow)) and never looked back"

Jalen Wang (blitzbullet)

Bughouse world champion runner-up
2022 crazyhouse world champion
2023 Crazyhouse world cup champion (de facto world championship)

"I started playing in 2011 and have been big part of the community ever since. I peaked at a rating of 2700 and 3100 on FICS and chesscom respectively and won the Crazyhouse World Championship in both 2022 and 2023. I am currently a National Master rated 2300 USCF. I played bughouse and crazyhouse before really investing my time in chess. I never studied openings in chess but somehow got to NM just from the endless 15k+ bughouse games"

For more info on the other players, like chickencrossroad, littleplotkin, and vjbaker, check out the post on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebughousehub/p/C-m7DwqOfoP/

The Quiz

Remember that these are bughouse puzzles. We won't include the second board position for these puzzles (except for the "two boards" puzzle, puzzle #5), but of course it would be there in a real game. The pieces will remain fixed throughout the duration of the puzzle as this is a bughouse puzzle and not a crazyhouse puzzle!

The credits to these puzzles will be given in a follow-up article.

The contest ends on August 21 (UTC).

Accuracy is more important, so a late 6/7 will be judged better than an early 5/7 (if no perfect score).

Give the full lines and the strongest defenses. Some "obvious" missing lines are fine, but not too much. This will clearly be very subjective.

Puzzle #1 (Black to move)

Puzzle #2 (White to move)

Puzzle #3 (Black to move. Does Black have enough to mate? If not, what extra material is needed for Black to mate? If Black does not have enough to mate, give the least amount of material Black would need to give mate, considering that the piece values in bughouse are P = 1, RNB = 2, Q = 4)

Puzzle #4 (White to move)

Puzzle #5

"For the double board problem here, pretend that you have a partner you are in communication with. It is your team's move on both boards. Using both boards, work out a plan to force a win.

In addition to showing the board positions and pieces in hand, you'll note the double board diagrams have clocks showing the time remaining for each player. These clocks may be a factor in the solution, so be sure to consider them."

Puzzle #6 (White to move. How many moves does White need to force mate? Give the full line)

Puzzle #7

"Imagine bughouse played on a cylinder. The board, instead of flat, is shaped like an oil can, with the h-file adjacent to the a-file. Rook moves can be either straight up and down the cylinder or in circles around the cylinder, while bishops move in helical spirals up and down the cylinder. For example, after 1. b3 e5? White can play 2. Bxd8 -- the bishop moves along the path c1-b2-a3-h4-g5-f6-e7-d8.

If all this cylindrical movement is a little hard to picture, then just print the diagram below, curl the page so that the h-file is alongside the a-file, and, voila, you have a cylindrical chessboard.

White to play and mate"