NM Janak Awatramani beat GM Guillermo Vazquez 3-0 in the Grand Final to win the 2026 Crazyhouse Championship, following up on his victory in 2024. Crazyhouse, as commentator GM Yasser Seirawan mentioned,  is often called "Bughouse for one player," so it's perhaps no surprise that Awatramani has won the last two Bughouse championships as well. He did that together with NM Isaac Chiu, who took the Crazyhouse title in 2025, but this time Awatramani won their Winners Final clash 3-1.

The next Chess.com Community Championship, on December 17-18, is the 2026 Fog Of War Championship.

Final Bracket

What Is Crazyhouse?

Crazyhouse follows the same pattern as Bughouse that captured pieces can return to the board, but it's a game for two players instead of four. Rather than passing a piece to your partner, you can choose to place it on the board yourself instead of moving another piece. Here are the rules that differ from normal chess. 

• When you capture an opponent's piece, it is placed in your "pool" of pieces, and you can "drop" it on an empty square on your turn.
• Pieces may only be dropped on empty squares.
• You may drop a piece to give check or checkmate.
• Pawns may not be dropped on the first or eighth ranks.

It follows that you can get unusual piece arrangements, such as a four-bishop defensive setup!

The value of the initiative is huge, since an attack fuels itself as you capture and re-add pieces. There are essentially no endgames—since pieces return to the board—and draws are rare, but they can be amusing when they do occur! (this one was from 2025) 

Draws are rare in Crazyhouse, but Yasser explains how you make them! pic.twitter.com/g5VDTo7LuT

— chess24 ( @chess24com) November 7, 2025

The Chess.com Crazyhouse Championship featured eight arena qualifiers followed by an eight-player final tournament. 

Qualifiers: Awonder Liang Drops Out

Thursday saw eight qualifiers, which players of all levels could register for. They were 75-minute arenas with a 3+0 time control and produced the following eight qualifiers, including three Canadians.

The highest winning score was 123 points for IM Mark Plotkin, who at one point went on a 19-game winning streak. The lowest winning score was 60 points, for Justin Tan, but that was also one of the most welcome qualifications. "JannLee" is a Crazyhouse legend who has won previous Chesscom Championships and is often considered the "first world champion" of the game.

Some top players missed out, including GM Jeffery Xiong, who was second to Chiu in the first qualifier, and Seirawan, who twice finished fifth. That loss was the audience's gain, since he once again teamed up with GM Benjamin Bok to provide commentary. 

The one disappointment was that GM Awonder Liang, the winner of the preceding Seirawan Chess Championship, qualified as the winner of the fourth arena but then was unable to play in the Finals. His spot would have gone to second-placed Vazquez, but as the Paraguayan GM won the next arena, it went to third-placed Brendan Cater instead. 

Knockout: Awatramani Storms To Title

Three players won 3-0 in the opening matches of the Quarterfinals, but the remaining match was a thriller. Tan got off to a powerful start, taking a 2-0 lead against Chiu. The defending champion fought back, however, winning the next two games.

The second of those saw him dominate on the clock, but also finish off with checkmate on the board. There was only one good way to react to a pawn being dropped on h2, and Tan didn't find it. 

Defending Crazyhouse Champion Isaac Chiu fights back from 2-0 down to force a decider! https://t.co/pjuZb8MBxM https://t.co/zVQ2fChGvM

— chess24 ( @chess24com) November 6, 2026

Chiu went on to win the bullet decider convincingly, but Tan got to fight on in the Losers bracket. 

He beat Cater 3-0 and then was only stopped 3-2 by FM Roee Aroesti (Crazy_Eight) in the Losers Quarterfinals. That finished in dramatic fashion, as Tan was down on time in the bullet decider but had mate-in-two on the board.

Aroesti is the player who gave the eventual winner his toughest match, with Awatramani losing the first game of the Winners Semifinals from a completely winning position. He had to put a piece on f3—preventing Black doing the same—and when he grabbed a rook on c8 instead disaster followed. It's amazing how fast things can turn around in Crazyhouse. 

Awatramani hit back to win the next two games, then lost again, but won in bullet with the white pieces.

That set up a Winners Final against his Bughouse partner Chiu, with Awatramani scoring an impressive 3-1 victory, though Chiu's win was perhaps the most memorable game of the match. Black's four rooks should have been more than enough to win, but one mistake led to a nice smothered mate. 

So Awatramani was in the Grand Final, but who would he face? In the end that came down to a hard-fought battle between Chiu and Vazquez. Vazquez took the lead twice, the second time in the most dramatic fashion possible—Chiu had mate-in-five in the final position, but didn't manage to make a move in 0.9 seconds against his opponent's single second. 

Chiu hit back both times, however, and only lost in the bullet decider.

That meant a potentially thrilling final battle between the one grandmaster in the field, Vazquez, and Awatramani. In the end, however, it was anticlimactic—Awatramani blew his opponent away in 19 moves in game one, then was on top for almost all of game two before delivering mate-in-four. 

The final must-win game for Vazquez had some swings, but Awatramani had the advantage for most of the encounter and finished things off nicely in a demonstration of how the material that's on the board in Crazyhouse can be very deceptive.

Congratulations to Canadian NM Janak Awatramani on clinching victory in the Crazyhouse Championship with a 3-0 win in the Grand Final! 🏆 https://t.co/tCpUQzXk82

— chess24 ( @chess24com) November 6, 2026

Awatramani picked up the $750 top prize, with the top three also gifted a special set of 3D-printed Crazyhouse pieces (flip them to change their color) from our very own NM Sam Copeland.  

There's now just one Community Championship left before the end of the year—the 2026 Fog Of War Championship on December 17-18. Once again, it's open to everyone, so don't miss out!  

The 2026 Crazyhouse Chess Championship is the 11th event of the 2026 Chess.com Community Championship series. Winners of eight qualifiers (each was a 75-minute arena with a 3+0 time control) entered the Final on November 6, which was an eight-player double-elimination bracket. The time control was 3+0, and matches were best-of-four. The total prize fund was $2,500.