Saturday HiveChess S2R12 - 8th Place!

Greetings to all chess fans! I played in the round 12 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 minutes) but will give you an extra point if you win.

A quick detour to the Candidates Tournament. It looks like young Javokhir Sindarov is on the way to winning the tournament with 8.5 points, 2 points higher than his closest pursuer. Meanwhile, the world champion Gukesh is struggling in the Menorca tournament. If things don't change then Sindarov will be a favorite to win the title.

Back to Hivechess, I played badly again in this tournament, losing more games than I won. I lost two games then won two. After that I had five consecutive losses. I had to pause for a while since I was getting tilted and got back after a few minutes. It was a good decision to pause since I won three games out of four after I returned.

This is my favorite game in the tournament. It's not perfect but I like the puzzle like ending.

The game started with 1. e4 c6 2. f4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nf3 e6 5. d4 h5 6. c3 Nh6 7. Bd3 g6 8. O-O Be7

Black has already equalized. I had control over light squares and d8-h4 diagonal. White has no attack on the King side. The usual plan is to castle then launch an attack on the Queenside. 9. Ng5 Nd7 10. a3 Qb6 11. b4 O-O-O

Castles King side followed by a5 pawn break was better. Now I walked to White's pawnstorm 12. a4 Bxd3 13. Qxd3 Bxg5 14. fxg5 Nf5 15. a5 Qc7 16. b5 c5

White's attack is dangerous. 17. b6 axb6 18. axb6 Nxb6 19. dxc5 Qxc5+ 20. Kh1 h4 21. Ba3

Black's Queen is under attack but I saw a familiar mating pattern. 21. ...Ng3+

White has to give up his Queen to avoid mate. Losing the Queen will just prolong the game so my opponent graciously allowed the mate. 22. hxg3 hxg3# { Black wins by checkmate. } 0-1

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

Tournament link: https://lichess.org/tournament/AMwLQ5H2