The Friday Hivechess tournament kicked off last Friday and today's round was different for me. The playing format has been splitted into masters section for those with a rating of 1800 and above and the challengers section for those with a rating below 1800.
This means that every opponent I will get to play in the masters section are strong and they can give a good beating over the board. At the start of today's round, I was the last person on the standing with my rating at the beginning of the game.
At the start of the tournament it was challenging for me when I lost three games in row. The first game, I lost to stayoutoftheredz who outplayed me in the opening when I played very passive.
The position is from Grunfeld opening, where I tried my best to look for any form of activity I could get. Then things started getting scary for me after my opponent created a passed pawn at the center of the board. This made me to panic, which is the reason why I did not see the best move as the computer recommends. Once the passed pawn was created, that was when my several of bad moves began to surface.
By move 3, my opponent missed a mate in 3 moves which followed up first with Qa8. When he missed it, I made a sound of relief which afyer words i waa able to escape and grab the passed pawn. Even with the pawn grab, I could not win the endgame. I still blundered the endgame and lost the game.
In this game against Pavarotti, I decided not to berserk back since I knew I was on the rating disadvantage and thankfully I did not. I ended up blundering by giving away a free queen but it was too late for him to see it since he was low on time. Thankfully he could not capitalize on the blunder, if not I would have lost the game.
My fortune shined in the last rounds of the tournament which got me more points on the standings to finish in 3rd place. This i what happened, I did not berserk back in certain games and my opponent did not make a move in a game. This boosted my chances and at the end I got a quick win to climb the standing. 3rd place is not bad for a fish in a Shark Pond.