Greetings to all chess fans! I played in the round 11 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 four minute blitz with an option to go on "berserk". Going berserk will give you half the time (two minutes) but will give you an extra point if you win.
I got into seventh place in the tournament. I started strong with three consecutive wins but faded in the latter rounds and suffered several losses. There were games that I was winning that I lost and there were also games where I blundered a piece and immediately resigned. Still, the tournament was fun playing with opponents I meet weekly. I'm looking forward to next week's tournament.
Thanks to 
Tournament link: https://lichess.org/tournament/55WmSAM0
Today's post will be different. In lieu of presenting my games, I'll give an update on two exciting chess tournaments that I'm watching closely. The Candidates and the Grenke Freestyle Open tournament.
Fide Candidates Tournament Update
source: chess.com
A lot of interest in the Candidates tournament. Whoever wins will challenge the world champion Gukesh later in the year. Sindarov is proving to be a strong contender to win. He's leading the tournament with 5.5 points after six games, 1.5 points more than his closest pursuer. If he continues the quality of his play then it's likely that we will see two young grandmasters battle it out for the world championship. Nineteen year old Gukesh has not been performing well lately so if Sindarov continues his momentum then he has a good chance of taking the title.
Grenke Freestyle Open Tournament
source: chess.com
The Grenke Chess Festival is one of the biggest chess events in the world. It’s held every year in Germany and combines elite-level competition with massive open tournaments where anyone can play. There is the Freestyle section, also called as Chess 960 or Fischerandom chess where the starting position is random therefore removing opening preparation and creativity, piece coordination matter more than opening theory. In the Freestyle tournament, more than 2,900 players are participating including the elites like Carlsen, Aronian and Keymer to name a few. They compete with much lower rated opponents giving us exciting games like the one where Aronian was at a disadvantage against a 2,200+ Elo player.
An example of a creative and highly entertaining attacking game that reminded me of the "Immortal Game" between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky during the London 1851 chess tournament.
The game was played between Armin Tabataei and David Faerber and starting position was.
The fireworks started when White sacrificed his central pawn for activity. Normally, you don't give away central pawns.
Black accepted the sacrifice but now White has an ongoing attack on his King.
On move 7 White has two pieces developed and threatening mate on e7.
On move 11, White offers a Knight but taking it will run into checkmate or heavy loss of material after White recaptures with gxf6.
Black declines the Knight but after Nh5 (threatening Qg7) Black still can't take the Knight. gxh5 is followed by Bd5+ with either mate or heavy loss of material.
On move 17, the other Knight joins the attack threatening to fork Black's King and Queen.
On move 18, Black has had enough and resigned.
Game link: https://lichess.org/broadcast/grenke-chess-festival-2026--freestyle-open-a/round-2/RlTODfkY/vAAFRGby
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