Hey guys, in this round of the Saturday Hivechess tournament, I players well and tried my best to get the title. It wasn't easy, I have to be straightforward about that as the 2500 rated International Master played in this round and it was an unbearable run for him. He literally won all his games. As for me, I won almost all my games but lost to samostically and FCastro, with a draw against iamchessguy.
With this performance, I was able to claim the 2nd place position with a total of 41 points. I had some pretty interesting games especially against strong players like Tortyllan and the rest. There was even a game where I gave up a queen but my opponent was super worried about my plan more than how they could respond to it.
This is the game against Fcastrol. My queen was under attack when it was on the square c4, instead of moving to safety, I went ahead to play Qa4 which is a blunder, since it's still within the horizontal range of the black rook. My opponent did not see it so he went for h6 because he was more concerned about the back rank mate from the white Queen if it gets to move to e8. That's why he was blinded by the fact the queen causing the main threat could be taken off the board. I wanted to click on the design button but the moment I told myself to wait for one more move from my opponent before I did that. Luckily I waited and I was able to grab the win.
You can watch the game through this link:
https://lichess.org/6yGCvAnA/white#55
This was the last game that secured my 2nd place finish in the tournament. It was not in much trouble but having to deal with other players on the standing, it was all hands on deck to get as much points as possible without having to worry about whether or not I would get the 2nd place finish. This position was drawn for a long time as we both berserked, just to get more and play fast. I did not stop pressing with every chance I got even when I was down on time is didn't stop me at all. Finally the king move blunder was what sealed the deal for me immediately. My opponent to his king from his pawn I was able to get a passed pawn but he could. From there, it was pre moved all the way, until he flagged.
You can watch the game with this link:
https://lichess.org/2IrMfbjV/black
This has to be one of the best performance aside from when I won one round in last year's edition.
See you all in the next round.