Greetings to all Hivers!
I played in the weekly chess tournament, Hivechess Season 1 last night. The tournament was for over an hour with a time control of five minute blitz with an option to go on "berserk". Going berserk will give you half the time (2 minutes and a half instead of 5) but will give you extra points if you win. My games in this tournament were an improvement compared to last week's but I still need to practice more to regain my form. Like my games in #splinterlands, there were memorable wins and painful defeats.
@southgamer continues to punish me in this tournament. We played a lot of berserk games together. While the games were fun, I can't win against him. He's in great form and even took second place.
One of my losses against @southgamer who played White in this game. White to move and mate in 2.
https://lichess.org/EgRHtALx/black
@justfavour continues to impress in the Hivechess tournament. Although he is rated below 2000 Elo, he is playing above his Elo rating as he took seventh place. However, this week I was able to keep my advantage and won my game against him.
In a game where we castled on opposite sides, it was easy to formulate my gameplan, a pawnstorm on the Queenside and attack his King. I pushed my a and b pawns to open his castled King's position and that gave me attacking chances.
ManFromSpain is a very strong player rated over 2300 Elo. We played two games, splitting the results. Here's my win against him where he played berserk but I decided to play the full five minutes. I managed to keep the position balanced and gave him a weakness on the c-file while I have a passed a-pawn.
Inspite of my advantage, he didn't go down easily. He sacrificed the exchange and had a tremendous attack against my King.
Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to see the proper continuation. Nd7 followed by Nf6+ would have been crushing. He made a mistake and allowed me to regain the advantage although it was not easy. Look at this position where he had two pawns about to promote. My rooks had to defend the 8th rank to prevent it.
It was my wildest game in the tournament and I was very happy to have won it.
https://lichess.org/H7BxH1fh/black
Thanks to @sam.chess @samostically for hosting and see you next week!
Link to tournament:
https://lichess.org/tournament/rHLXThRn
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
