"The game of chess is a lake in which a mosquito can bathe and an elephant can drown.”
- Indian proverb
Hi chess friends! The Hive chess season 18 round 6 was played yesterday and it was chess960! Before I do some review of the games I enjoyed, I'd like to quickly announce I'd be doing a series of posts to help Hive chess players from Elo (0-1749) get better. I'd title it chess 101 and give daily tips, or puzzles that would be instructive and simple to understand. Feel free to check my blog or the community daily for these posts.
Chess 960!
@stayoutoftherz loves chess960 and usually put it for us to battle on during the Hive chess season. @dhilan04 won with 9/9 which was totally impressive. I couldn't complete the event as my internet went off during the 4th round. Let's take a look at some of the games.
Game 1 - Stayoutoftherz (1854) vs Zgm_samostically (1755)
With chess 960 the pieces are arranged randomly and it brings out your creative vision to play and win. White had a better opening phase and after the first few moves, white had a better position.
After both side castles, its obvious that white has a better control of the center which is important in chess. The d5! Square is very strong!
In the next few moves, white is winning and can you spot the brilliant move below?
Nf2! Played by white instantly wins a pawn and should win the game as white had a better structure. However, the black player was resilient and played one last trick below
Qf7!
White should easily win or go into a better endgame with the simple Rf1 where trading the rooks is unavoidable and white retains the extra pawn. However white blundered with Qe2 and lost the pawn on d5! And went to an endgame which was slightly better for black.
Should still be a draw with accurate play but difficult to spot the good moves in a blitz game.
Both side played this end game and eventually had a queen each, but black prevailed eventually in this nice instructive game.
White resigned here as black was two pawns up and the perpetual check chances dont look possible because of the position on white king.
You can see the full game here https://lichess.org/g2Y1JKXy/black#130
Game 2 : @dhilan04 vs Migmag
The winner of this tournament played aggressive with his opening setup, an idea to play on the wing and prepare for an onslaught when the opponent castles.
As you can see white already has a pawn on h5! And a bishop on a1 eyeing that diagonal. Black casting short should be walking into a trap.
After black castles, white sacrificed a rook on h6! Was this a good sacrifice? The answer is no even though it won the game. Black couldn't find the best continuation. Let's see if you can find it.
How does black survive in one move?
Black played Nf6 and after g7 lost the game.
The game ended in checkmate, you can check the full game here https://lichess.org/47NqHlpf/white#55
You can also check the summary of this weekend Here
Thanks for reading!
_I am @samostically,I love to talk and write about chess because i benefited alot from playing chess.
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