Saturday HiveChess - 3rd Place!

Greetings to all chess fans! I played in the round 7 of Hivechess Season 2. It's a weekly chess Arena blitz tournament which run for over an hour. It starts at eleven pm our time and ends at midnight. The time control for this round was five minute blitz with an option to go on "berserk". Going berserk will give you half the time (two and a half minute) but will give you an extra point if you win.

I made it to 3rd place again. It's not that I played well, I just got lucky in the pairings. I didn't play against strong players like IM Odnoobraz and jaki01 in the tournament. I mostly played against lower rated players and I even lost a couple of those. Overall, it's a fun tournament playing and competing.

In one game, I was playing against a much lower rated player when this familiar pattern was reached.

If I could place a Bishop on h5 then it's mate. The continuation was easy to find. Nxe5 wins a piece and opens up the diagonal. It's my easiest win in the tournament.

My strategy was to play solid but took risks against much lower rated opponents. This worked especially against players who went berserk against me. In the last game, I thought I had it under control against @samostically but I panicked in the end and lost on time.

I played twice against stranger27. He's performance belies his low rating so I made sure to be careful and not take chances against him.

In the game, I was saddled with a backward, weak c pawn. I had to push it and get rid of the weakness.

I invited him to exchange his d pawn for my e pawn and he obliged.

Afterwhich, I was able to push my c pawn, eliminating my weakness and activating my Bishop on b7.

My opponent allowed to push my c pawn further and now it turned to a strong passed pawn. I felt that I already had the advantage at this point. After a few more moves, I was able to win the game.

Thanks to @sam.chess @samostically for hosting and congratulations to the winners!

Link to tournament: https://lichess.org/tournament/0gvSTYDp

Playing chess is great for the mind but let's not forget about physical activities. I recently committed to exercise and to keep me motivated, I joined actifit.io

https://actifit.io/signup?referrer=chessguy-actifit