I played in the weekly chess tournament, Hivechess Season 1 last night. We had an hour and ten minutes to play the whole tournament with a time control of four minute blitz with an option to go on "berserk". Choosing to go berserk will give you half the time (2 minutes instead of 4) but will give you an extra point if you win. This made the tournament exciting and as usual, there were a lot of blunders and tactics involved. To prepare for the tournament, I have been solving puzzles on lichess daily and I've been posting some of them on snaps. This didn't guarantee that I won't blunder though as you can see in the following games.
I'm playing Black in this game and this position is familiar to me having been caught in the same tactical trap so many times but somehow I forgot. In this position the move should have been 9. ...Qc7 or Be7 but I blundered with 9. ...Nbd7
Afterwhich, I was shocked by 10. Nxf7! Kxf7 11. Qxe6 and the game is over. My shortest loss in the tournament so far.
https://lichess.org/OyOurJF0/black
Several games later, I lost another short game against @jaki01 in just seven moves. I just collapsed and forgot to play chess for a while.
Of course, I won some games against high rated players too but it's only because they played berserk against me.
Here's a game I won against ManFromSpain (Elo 2326) who placed third in the tournament. I built an advantage that I maintained throughout the game. In the final position, he couldn't stop my pawns from marching to promotion and he resigned.
https://lichess.org/82iJqr54/black
In this game against Gmdalods-16 (Elo 2250), he caught my Bishop in a trap.
I didn't resign immediately and decided to play on. Several moves later, it was his turn to blunder!
He hung his Queen on g4 in the 25th move. I captured it and he resigned.
https://lichess.org/FiGabyhA/black
It was a fun tournament and I'm grateful for the opportunity to play against strong players. Thanks to @sam.chess for hosting and see you next week!
Link to tournament: https://lichess.org/tournament/hFYsvfVx
Playing chess is fun but let's not forget about physical activities. I recently committed to exercise and to keep me motivated, I joined actifit.io
