2026 Atomic Yearly
[The Story of Mad Max]
As you may remember, the 2025 trophy went to the infamous NeverOFzero, which means to no human being.
Now, in the year of 2026, who's gonna be the mad human to race for 5 hours through the atomic wilderness and claim the golden cup?
During the 1st hour @ReChesster leads the peloton by a dozen points.
And I manage to draw the biggest Atomic wolf.
'Running from the Wolf' -
At the end of the 2nd hour Re begins to falter as his main pursuer, @maxwellssilvrhaMMer, gains momentum producing nice wins with black against top opponents:
In the meantime Re gets paired with @Wolfram_EP.
'El Clásico' -
For quite a while the two contenders keep taking turns in the lead but, stepping into the final hour, Re is ahead by a dozen points again.
But the strain of a 4-hour run must have had its toll and soon Re descends into a losing streak and then another one, which allows Mr Hammer to equalise.
The last game of these titans becomes almost a formality as @maxwellssilvrhaMMer has already obtained a comfortable point advantage.
'The Last Clash' -
And this concludes the story of Mad Max and how he managed to hammer home the 2026 Atomic Yearly.
This year saw a slight increase in attendance, from 2459 players to 2671. The average rating basically remained the same (1362 - 1360).
I asked the podium to share their most memorable games.
@ReChesster
this one stuck with me a bit because I missed a very obvious winning move (22. Bxf5) (due to tilt) that couldve possibly made me win the entire tourney as it was rather close at the end.
@maxwellssilvrhaMMer
deciding game more or less, obviously i don't zerk to burn clock and just play c6 refutation to his main nh3 d4 spam
one of a few times i beat his nf3 e4 in the final stretch, thought this one was particularly nice.
Overall there are some other interesting things to point out:
- 10/11 of my games vs rechesster i had black
- there were some questionably easy games "gifted" to him, which you can make your own opinions out of lichess.org/ebiP8zwC/white#10 lichess.org/zUsZATX1/black
- the 2 players with the highest performance ratings in the tournament played almost exclusively nf3 nc3 with white and nf3 e5 with black
And lastly a special shout out to @New_Life14 would be great, I think he was my toughest opponent by far, beating me 5-0 over the course of the event.
@RandoomPlayer
I was never really in contention for the top 2 places except some point where I had a very good streak and came within a few points to them, so my memorable games are just some funny scams I had like this one
I was playing very quickly so I hoped he would do the same and voila he played exd4 very quickly. Hope this shows that RenaudMerle can be beat if you play a complicated position :) (I still have a 15-0 record against him lol)
First game of the tourney which calmed my nerves.
Atomic Puzzles (part one and two) -
[Atomic] Puzzles for Beginners -
BEST Games of Top Atomic Players - https://lichess.org/@/ElioTheDog/blog/best-games-of-top-atomic-players/S1B0BAFY
WORST Games of Top Atomic Players - https://lichess.org/@/ElioTheDog/blog/worst-games-of-top-atomic-players/jCQoe0Ao
