Greetings to all chess fans! I played in the round 3 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 three minute blitz with an option to go on "berserk". Going berserk will give you half the time (one and a half minute) but will give you an extra point if you win.
For the first time I made it to the podium, securing 3rd place after a lucky win against tall odds in the last game as time was running out. I didn't play particularly well in this round but got lucky in some games. In some, I played badly and lost even to lower rated players. Overall, I had fun playing and competing against players who I'm already familiar with.
My last game that brought me third place was against jaki01. He played berserk against me and sacrificed a Bishop for two pawns and a King side attack.
My goal was to defend the position by trying to exchange pieces and prevent the b1-h7 diagonal to open. I pushed the pawn to e5 to close the diagonal.
His Knight was joining the attack via the f5 square so I moved back my Bishop to c8 to prevent it but analysis says that Nd5 was the better move.
I was too eager to exchange pieces that I hung my Queen. But my opponent didn't see it.
After that, I was able to bring pieces to the King side and help defend the position.
At this point, I was able to reduce the attacking pieces and still kept the diagonal closed.
Here I'm already winning, threatening a discovered attack on the Queen while also having a mating attack on White's King.
This time, it's White who left his Queen en prise. It's already a decisive advantage for me.
Finally White resigned as there was no way to prevent mate.
It's a rare win against jaki01, a strong player but sometimes I get lucky and pull off a miracle game like this.
Thanks to @sam.chess @samostically for hosting and congratulations to the winners!
Link to tournament: https://lichess.org/tournament/s3fQyauf
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