Today was the 18th round of the Saturday Hivechess tournament but it was not a good one for me. Started with a bang of two straight wins and then they were all losses from there on. After 3 losses, I pulled out of the tournament because that was it for me. I did not have the zeal to keep pushing. So this left me with finishing in 13th place with 6 points and that's it. From there on, it was just rating performance of 2102 and a 40% win rate on a 100% berserk.
At first I slept off which was sign that I was going to miss it and yet I was quick to remember but it was too late for me, at least there was 50 minutes left when I jumped but I could not make anything out of it.
I got paired against the host of the tournament and the game was a pretty interesting one and should be in the museum for games on opposite side attacks. We both castled to the opposite direction and that was a signal for disaster as both players will be looking for the fastest means to launch an attack on the opposing side's king. Unfortunately the attack that led to fruition was not mine. It was king that got checkmated first. I underestimated the threat of his pieces on my kingside with the mindset that I would get a break on his queenside where he castled his king, sadly it was not the case.
When the rook sacrifice came in, I knew there was serious problem at this point and I should be hopeful if I escape from this one. I could not because after the rook sacrifice, my opponent played more moves that made it hard for my king to survive.
Hey you, checkmate is already close. That was all I could hear from my opponent's black pieces at this point. That was the case and it was checkmate, a couple of moves later on.
Yet another game with a strong player where the position was balanced and all I had to do was hold but no I could not do that. Rather I went for a one move blunder and that was it. Pushing my pawn, thinking I was preventing some checkmate that might arise, not knowing was only making things worse. This time, it was a knight sacrifice on my kingside. I saw more problems than solutions if I took the knight so I just want ahead to resign.
At this point was giving up on playing more games.