On Friday, October 3, 2025, I won the 21st round of Hivechess Round 2 Arena hosted by @ stayoutoftherz. I was in a winning mode, and I went all out with my berserk. I played a total of 14 games, all with Berserk, and I won 79% of those games. In this post, we will look at at least two impressive games I played during the tournament.
Game 1
tortyllan (0) vs ZGM_Samostically (1)
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. O-O d6
The Italian Game, also known as Giuoco Pianissimo, is the name of the opening move. The Italian game is one of my favourite openings to play, and I have even done a Hivechess lecture on the opening on my blog. The idea in this opening is simply to develop your pieces as fast as possible and then castle your king.
10. Ne7
After developing my minor officers and castling my king, the next thing on my agenda was to regroup my pieces to the king's side because that is where a major focus of my attack was going to take place. So I brought my knight back to e7 and am planning to move to g6 next.
17. b4
After regrouping my knight to the kingside, I use the principle of double weaknesses, which says that when your opponent has one weakness on a single side, create more on another side. But this time it was counterplays. I created one play on the kingside, and now I am creating another one on the other side, that is the queenside.
34. Rxb4??
It took a couple of more moves, but the advantage came in for me when white made a blunder by playing Rook captures b4. This allows my queen to come in once I play Qxf2. Strengthening my attack on the white king and making it hard for the white to defend accurately, since most of his pieces are on the queenside. With that, I was able to grab the win in this game.
Here is the game link:
Game Link
And here is the game PGN
[Event "Hivechess S21 Round 2 Arena"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/DUt5JkiE"]
[Date "2025.10.03"]
[Round "-"]
[White "tortyllan"]
[Black "ZGM_Samostically"]
[Result "0-1"]
[UTCDate "2025.10.03"]
[UTCTime "20:04:23"]
[WhiteElo "2023"]
[BlackElo "2188"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "-4"]
[BlackRatingDiff "+3"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "180+2"]
[ECO "C50"]
[Opening "Italian Game: Giuoco Pianissimo, Normal"]
[Termination "Normal"]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. O-O d6 6. h3 O-O 7. Be3 Bb6
8. c3 Be6 9. Bb5 a6 10. Ba4 Ne7 11. Bc2 Ng6 12. d4 Re8 13. d5 Bd7 14. Bxb6 cxb6
15. Nbd2 b5 16. Re1 a5 17. Nf1 b4 18. Ng3 Qb6 19. c4 Rac8 20. b3 a4 21. h4 Nf4
22. Ne2 Ng4 23. Rf1 axb3 24. axb3 Ra8 25. Nxf4 exf4 26. Nd4 Rxa1 27. Qxa1 h6
28. Qb2 Ra8 29. Bd1 Nf6 30. Bf3 Ra3 31. Nc2 Ra8 32. Ra1 Re8 33. Ra4 Nxe4
34. Rxb4 Qxf2+ 35. Kh2 Qg3+ 36. Kg1 Qf2+ 37. Kh2 Qxh4+ 38. Kg1 Ng3 39. Ne3 Rxe3
40. Qd2 Qh1+ 41. Kf2 Qf1# 0-1
Game 2
ZGM_Samostically(1) vs Mixzy(0)
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 h6 4. d4 exd4 5. O-O Bc5 6. c3 dxc3
This is another game that I played, the Italian Game, but this one was the fried liver variation. I offered both d4, c3, and, to an extent, b2-pawn as well for rapid development. This will allow me the develop my piece rapidly in exchange for the pawns, and once I complete my development, I can go ahead to launch an attack on the king.
7. Bxf7
I moved a step further to sacrifice a bishop for the f7 pawn, and so the king can be misplaced and denied access to the castle in the game. Due to the Berserk, I was in all attack mode just to get the win and as fast as possible, as well, time was not on my side.
21. Ke8??
The king's move blunder from white allows a checkmate in 5 moves after I play Nxf6+. I did not fail to find the checkmate combination since I was on a witch hunt for points.
It is over here as the checkmate is clearly visible, and it will be coming on the next move.
Here is the game link:
Game Link
And here is the game PGN
[Event "Hivechess S21 Round 2 Arena"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/DwnHLFBC"]
[Date "2025.10.03"]
[Round "-"]
[White "ZGM_Samostically"]
[Black "MixzyRagnal"]
[Result "1-0"]
[UTCDate "2025.10.03"]
[UTCTime "19:17:10"]
[WhiteElo "2180"]
[BlackElo "1748"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+1"]
[BlackRatingDiff "-12"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "180+2"]
[ECO "C50"]
[Opening "Italian Game: Anti-Fried Liver Defense"]
[Termination "Normal"]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 h6 4. d4 exd4 5. O-O Bc5 6. c3 dxc3
7. Bxf7+ Kf8 8. Nxc3 Nf6 9. Bb3 d6 10. Bf4 Bg4 11. h3 Bh5
12. g4 Bf7 13. e5 dxe5 14. Nxe5 Qxd1 15. Raxd1 Bxb3 16. axb3 a6
17. Nxc6 bxc6 18. Be5 Bb6 19. Bxf6 gxf6 20. Rd7 Ra7 21. Ne4 Ke8
22. Nxf6+ Kf8 23. Re1 h5 24. Ree7 Ra8 25. Rf7# 1-0
See you all at the next Hivechess tournament.
I am 
♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟
Thanks For Reading!
“This post is part of my entry to the #Hive14Challenge with 