Hivechess S19 Round 7 Review

Yesterday, the school chess team, which I am a big part of, held a chess session. Typically, we have these sessions every day of the week. We gather in a very cool space, equipped with boards, and focus on our practice. Sometimes we solve chess puzzles and other times, we compete in face-offs. There are quite a few strong players with high-ratings on Lichess. We are also proud to have female chess players, although just one of them is a slightly strong chess player. After getting the notification from the host, Stayoutoftherz, on Wednesday and realizing that we would be playing the chess960 variation, I wanted my school’s chess team to practice Chess 960. So, yesterday, I introduced it to them. Unfortunately, some of them didn't like it. Not only did they not like the complexity, they also didn't like the rules attached to it. For example, they found it difficult to grasp the castling rule.

They gave up on Chess960 before they got deep into it. I understood them and just let them play the regular variation. I remember the first time I played chess960, I also didn't like it until I played more games. I remember when we, the Hive chess brothers, played Round 4. Although I lost some of the games, I performed fairly well. Yesterday’s tournament didn't go really well. I faced so many difficulties. Truthfully, I didn't expect to perform so well because I knew all odds were against me. In my last posts in this community, I complained about how I am stuck in a hell-hole where the network is pretty poor. Hate to break it to you, but I'm still stuck there and will be stuck till the end of this season’s tournament. I lost a few games because my network went totally off. I turned on airplane mode, and before I could get back to the game, I had already lost. “Black didn't move. White is victorious. White didn't move, Black is Victorious.”

As usual, I’ll review my games, leaving out the ones I lost because my network went off and I didn't move.

MY GAME AGAINST JUSTOLA

I think this player is also new to chess 960 because he made so many blunders. I did too. My network was slightly laggy, but I managed to play good moves. One thing I noticed about him is that he plays more offensive than defensive. I was forced to go defensive when he started attacking with full force. Unfortunately, I blundered my Bishop and he also blundered his Knight. The game ended in a draw.

MY GAME AGAINST MASTERSWATCH

Unlike me, masterswatch performed pretty well. He managed to bag a good number of points. I had my first win of the night against him. He is obviously not new to the variation, but I guess I played better. He was on fire yesterday, but surprisingly, he made so many blunders when he played against me. After I captured his Rook, he was forced to resign.

I played with Tortyllan and I was brutally whipped. Oh! Yeah, I was surprised to see that Samostically joined yesterday’s round. I would've loved to play with me after a very long time, but sadly, we did not get paired.

All images in this post are mine.

Thanks for reading.