Hivechess Tournament S10 Round 6: @sawko won in a heartbeat race

Dear chess fans,

the sixth round of S10 was a 5+0 arena with 31 players of an average rating of 1838.
You can watch here a nice report with some highlights plus a stream about the event by @vjap55. Or this one from @giacomone (covering one game only).

At the end @sawko again could succeed and win the tournament, but during the hour the lead was several times changing and close to the end @jaki01 was leading, until in the last 2 minutes or so @sawko grabbed back the top spot from him. Third was @tungphong (blackswan21), followed by @eniolw who was the only played staying undefeated, but unlike the Top3 he didn´t berserk all his games and thus had less games and less points. The still excellent 5^th place went to @jesusmgl1995 in his very first appearance on Hivechess - what a kickstart! Congratulations to All!

The only game between @sawko (White) and @jaki01 (Black) ended in a Rook endgame with multiple blunders on both sides, and as such it reminded me on the first Rapid tie-break between Nakamura and Aronian the day before in Berlin, where Levon had multiple chances to draw, but in time pressure made the final mistake. Check out that match e.g. at GothamChess´s youtube channel where he had made a great analysis about it.

White to play: Find the best move, can White draw at all here? Or even win?

Position: https://lichess.org/BiDsovlp/white#86

In my game (with White) against @tungphong (blackswan21) I had - believe it or not - a completely winning position (+9 or so) until the very end, but here Black didn´t care about my passers and had a sneaky plan with Kh4, hiding behind my pawns and aiming to g3 for a mating net). What a great lesson to learn how to create practical chances in a lost position!

Position: https://lichess.org/xzHooHiK/white#80

I had played here a7??, after which mate is unavoidable (after Kg3 I stupidly had played Rb1 and was mated with Rf2 - very annoying).
What should I have played instead to secure the win?

Result of Round 6:

Link to the tournament: https://lichess.org/tournament/bZvLSWhp

Season 10: 14 Jan to 18 Mar 2022 / Ranking after 6 rounds:

Rank	Hive name	Lichess name	Rating	Rounds played	Points	Performance
1	@sawko	CM sawkito	2398	6	187	2419,8
2(+2)	@jaki01	jaki01	2341	6	165	2276,3
3(-1)	@cocacolaron	cocacolaron	2184	6	163	2184,8
4(+1)	@eniolw	eniolw	2395	6	161	2299
5(-2)	@samostically	ZGM_Samostically	2225	6	161	2239,8
6	@vjap55	vjap55	2109	6	154	2088
7	@tungphong	blackswan21	2402	5	151	2385,2
8	@deadleaf	realdeadleaf	2096	6	140	1972,7
9	@emic	emichessmaster	2123	6	130	2018,2
10	@kintokris	jonbellionfan	2066	5	125	2006,6
11	@stayoutoftherz	stayoutoftherz	2078	6	114	2058,8
12	@franu	Tz995	2168	5	107	1977,2
13	@tony1294	tony1294	2270	4	97	2139,5
14	@rosmarly	rosmarly	2049	5	91	1964
15	@lighteye	lighteye	1753	6	85	1870,7
16(+1)	@schamangerbert	HerbyW	1808	5	83	1853,8
17(-1)	@pereu4ivatel	pereu4uwatch	2137	4	79	2141
18(+2)	@rafaelaquino	ajedrezclub2t	1798	6	66	1804,5
19(-1)	@perzp	WFM perzp	2211	3	63	2040,7
20(+4)	@rodrook	rodrook	1494	6	63	1619,2
21(-2)	@pamboy27	pamboy27	2114	4	60	1786,3
22(+1)	@stranger27	stranger27	1783	5	60	1782,6
23(-2)	@wildthougts	Wildthougts	2254	2	58	2095,5
24(+1)	@agreste	agreste	1733	5	54	1635,6
25(-3)	@kreur	Kreur	2063	3	52	1942,3
26(+1)	@fiona777	fiona777	1484	5	49	1575,4
27(+1)	@bOs	Da_k1ng	1360	4	41	1609,8
28(-2)	@giacomone	KingJames4	1601	4	41	1584,3
29	@zincheck	ZinCheck	2082	3	33	1835,3
30	@petreius	petreius	1978	2	29	1893,5
31(new)	@jesusmgl1995	jesusmgl1995	2123	1	27	2307
32(-1)	@anadello	mandeo	2309	1	26	2369
33(-1)	@sammy00	migmag	1543	2	26	1630
34(-1)	@anomadsoul	anomadsoul	1285	5	26	1411,8
35(-1)	@vasigo	vasigo	1185	5	26	1338,8
36(-1)	@nftland1989	CHeSsdieGOst	1062	5	23	1299,8
37(-1)	@maverieux000	Keylix	2043	1	20	2177
38(+7)	@ropavejero	ropavejero	1903	2	19	2061
39(+1)	@syndmitrij	Syndmitrij83	1344	4	19	1407,5
40(-3)	@levitant	levitant	1917	1	18	2127
41(-3)	@schnitte	Schnittlauchlogge	1587	2	16	1681
42(-3)	@alexmag1988	alexmag1988	1136	3	16	1411,7
43(+5)	@astrolabio	astrolabiochess	1065	2	14	1497
44(-3)	@ibizaki	JasonRoig	2109	1	13	2131
45(-2)	@maciejficek	XM9000	1468	3	13	1383,7
46(-4)	@mrsarri	Freeman21	1690	2	10	1906,5
47(-3)	@thedoc07	TheDoc07	1115	4	10	1296,8
48(-1)	@salomijale	summisimeon	1211	1	5	1565
49(-3)	@vaipraonde	vaipraonde	1322	1	5	1367
50(-1)	@therealflaws	sayhitothecamera	1874	1	1	1520

The rules you can look up in the S10 announcement post.

It seems that @sawko takes it really serious and won´t give away his lead anytime soon! With having won 4 out of 6 rounds so far the crown would be well deserved. But the race for the runner-up is an intense one: 4 players are separeted only by 4 points! Now @jaki01 is it, after his 2^nd place today. But the gap to the leader is already very big.

As of today we have marked 50 participants - a record and great milestone for the Hivechess Friday series! Thanks all for joining, playing, posting, commenting and upvoting!

See you all next week - and keep practicing!

In this round there was a quote from Magnus Carlsen:

"I can’t count the times I have lagged seemingly hopelessly far behind, and nobody except myself thinks I can win. But I have pulled myself in from desperate situations. When you are behind there are two strategies – counter-attack or all men to the defences. I’m good at finding the right balance between those."

May I remind all to join the new Lichess team who has not so far! The old one will be deleted (to get rid of the last, bad tasting reminiscence of Steem):
https://lichess.org/team/the-blockchain-chess-team