Greetings to all chess fans and the Midnight Letters community! I just played in the 16th round of the Hivechess Season 1 a few minutes ago and I'm writing this report just after the tournament ended. The Hivechess tournament is a weekly chess Arena blitz tournament which ran for over an hour. It starts at eleven pm our time and ends at midnight. The time control for this round was five minute blitz with an option to go on "berserk". Going berserk will give you half the time (2.5 minutes) but will give you an extra point if you win.
I placed 15th in this tournament. I didn't feel that the field was as tough as last week's, I just played badly this time. I had a lot of losses against lower rated opponents that could have been won if I was in shape. To be honest, I did not practice that much this week and got distracted by other things.
In one of my losses, I blundered by exchanging my Bishop for two pawns.
I mistakenly thought that the continuation axb5 Qxb5 Qd7 Ne5 was winning. After Nxe5 I'm already losing.
In the position above, Rxd4 Qxd4 Nf3+ leads to a brilliant tactical win. I missed the tactic and moved Nf3+ instead. I still had the advantage but it would be difficult to convert to a win.
The tournament time control was five minutes so there were fewer games compared to last week where the time control was three minutes blitz. I wasn't able to recover and only placed near the bottom. It was still a great event and I had fun playing. I'm looking forward to next week's tournament and hopefully I will play better.
Thanks to @sam.chess @samostically for hosting and congratulations to the winners!
Link to tournament: https://lichess.org/tournament/JAZPUFsL
Playing chess is great for the mind but let's not forget about physical activities. I recently committed to exercise and to keep me motivated, I joined actifit.io
!LOL