HiveChess: Fighting For the Blockchain Team!

"Chess is the struggle against the error." - Johannes Zukertort

_{Image designed by @schamangerbert}

Hello everyone,

Hivechess Season 20 was completed in the past, and for the next few weeks, we will be competing in the Lichess Liga Team Battle as a team representing the blockchain team. The Lichess Liga Team Battle is a team event, as the name suggests, where players will be competing not only for themselves but for their team as well. For more details about the event, you can check this post announcement post from Hive account@stayoutoftherz. As a member of the Hive Chess Community, I will be representing the Blockchain Chess Team.

My alarm was set, and I was ready for action. Let's bring that win for the team. To my fullest surprise, the event was packed with wolves, in fact, night monsters that will wipe you out and drink your online chess rating as a nice drink to step down a meal. Thanks to our knight in shining armour, more like our Jon Snow at the battle of bastards, in person of Hive account@jaki01, who carried the team head on with 43 points. It was quite shocking to me when I saw him topping the arena, since I know he hasn't been playing chess for quite a while.

With the arena packed with a total of 116 players, Hive account@jaki01 came in at third place, which would have been second place if not for a two-point gap between him and the second-place player. In return, his solid performance and the points from the Blockchain Chess Team members, we were able to finish in 5th place out of ten chess teams competing in the Liga Team Battle.

In addition, I have to give a nice give a shoutout to my other teammate, Hive account@justola1, who brought in 23 points for the team, the exact number of points I brought in for the team as well. I know it was quite tough, and even my berserking tactics to gain more points fast for the team weren't helpful at all. With this, I will be looking at two games in this post, one game played by Hive account@justola1 and the other played by Jaki.

Just_ola (1779) vs serq4 (2178)

This game got my attention because of the rating point difference of 400 points. This shows Justola is not in favour of winning if we have to follow the rating difference. Well, this is chess; nothing is ever as simple as black and white.

Moreover, to Just-ola's favour, his opponent berserked him, meaning they gave up half of their time in exchange for more points if they win the game. From the given position, it is obvious that the opening is quite unorthodox as white has moved their knight twice from g1 to e2 and e2 to g3. More or less, if I were to predict the opening name, it would be Caro-Kahn, but this time without the pawn on d5. Let's see if something exciting comes up later on in the game.

Now this is more exciting, the black pawn is within white's territory, causing a structural concession on the castled white king. Although the light squared bishop is still on board, there might be hopes for so defensive response when the attacks start coming in.

From here, black drops the bishop even though their position isn't looking good anymore. A weak king position and a bad black knight on the edge of the board. I guess the time difference was getting to black, causing them to rush and therefore not see good moves anymore.

And black drops another piece, the black bishop on g7. From here, Just-ola wrapped up clean and brought in the win for the team. Here is the full pgn

[Event "Lichess Liga 5A Team Battle"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/lNC9w70c"]
[Date "2025.06.01"]
[White "Just_ola"]
[Black "serq48"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1779"]
[BlackElo "2178"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "180+0"]
[ECO "B10"]
[Opening "Caro-Kann Defense"]
[Termination "Normal"]

1. e4 c6 2. Nc3 d6 3. Nge2 Nf6 4. Ng3 e5 5. Be2 b5 6. O-O h5 7. d3 h4 8. Nh1 h3 9. g3 Be6 10. f4 exf4 11. Bxf4 Qd7 12. Bg5 Ng4 13. Nf2 Nxf2 14. Rxf2 f6 15. Bf4 g5 16. Be3 Na6 17. d4 O-O-O 18. d5 Kb7 19. dxe6 Qxe6 20. Bg4 Qe8 21. Rxf6 Bg7 22. Re6 Qf7 23. Rxd6 Rxd6 24. Qxd6 Re8 25. Qd7+ Qxd7 26. Bxd7 Re7 27. Bf5 b4 28. Na4 c5 29. Nxc5+ Nxc5 30. Bxc5 Rc7 31. Bd4 Rxc2 32. Bxg7 a5 33. Kf1 Rxh2 34. Re1 Rd2 35. e5 h2 36. Be4+ Kb6 37. Bh1 Rxb2 38. e6 Rxa2 39. e7 b3 40. e8=Q Rc2 41. Qb8+ Kc5 42. Qxb3 Rc1 43. Rxc1+ Kd6 44. Qb6+ Ke7 45. Rc7+ Ke8 46. Qb8# 1-0

Jaki(2321) vs Resurr3ction(2232)

From here, I guess it was a mouse flip as black has black dropped their bishop on the wrong square, d3, free for the capture by white, and trust me, Jaki won't miss a free meal on the board. After dropping the piece, Jaki's opponent resigned, as it was going to be hard to fight with fewer pieces against a stronger opponent. This doesn't need much review, however here is the pgn of the game.

[Event "Lichess Liga 5A Team Battle"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/phEXJjm4"]
[Date "2025.06.01"]
[White "jaki01"]
[Black "Resurr3ction"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2321"]
[BlackElo "2232"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+4"]
[BlackRatingDiff "-4"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "180+0"]
[ECO "A40"]
[Opening "Horwitz Defense"]
[Termination "Normal"]

1. d4 e6 2. Nh3 Nf6 3. Bg5 Be7 4. Nd2 b6 5. e4 d5 6. e5 Nfd7 7. Qh5 h6 8. f4 c5 9. c3 Ba6 10. O-O-O Bd3 11. Bxd3 1-0

That is a wrap

In addition, 30% of the reward earned from this post will go to Hive account@sam.chess to support my onboarding project for chess players on Hive. For more details, check out Onboarding on Hive Through Chess

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Thanks For Reading!