Hat-trick in the Hivechess "Candidates Tournament" - My games and analysis

I designed this thumbnail using the GIMP program

Another Friday full of chess in hive. We continue playing the "Hive Candidate Tournament" organized by our dear friend @stayoutoftherz and today we had to face 4 other strong opponents. Unfortunately I couldn't record my games because I was in the office and it was a bit complicated but I was able to take some time to at least play the 4 games, well @anomadsoul didn't show up so I played just 3 games.

Actually,in this opportunity I can not complain, everything went pretty well and I was able to play quite interesting games. Without further ado, let's get straight to the point and see what happened on the board:

@vasigo vs @vjap55

In the above position we see that white played a somewhat irregular opening but that has a certain logic. They have taken the trouble to play "a3" which is not a mistake as such but the position being of an open character it is better to invest time in development pieces or aiming at the center. Perhaps White was trying to prevent an annoying pin on b4, an ideal place for Black's bishop. In any case the structure is quite reasonable.

But at this moment they made a mistake and got a pair of pawns without any kind of compensation, which tipped the balance in my favor. It was more appropiate to develop the bishop to g5 with the idea of pressing the center which would produce some more or less forced exchanges but in the end we would have a situation with relative equality.

@rodrook vs @vjap55

On this occasion rod has developed a strategy somewhat different from the one he has used in previous games with me. That is, usually he tries to attack quite fast in the opening with his bishop and knight on the weak points of the black king on f7 but this time he has been a little more patient and has developed his pieces in a more solid way.

However, here White makes a very serious mistake and that is to play f4, which he should not do because this point is quite well controlled by Black and in theory, in order not to lose material, he should make an unfavorable exchange since Bxf4 is practically forced.

White's position is solid and it seems to me that they had better options. For example developing the Bishop to e3 followed by Queen d2 is a fairly standard setup in this type of structure. The worst placed piece is the bishop on g4 but it has an interesting option of being exchanged for its opponent on c8 if the knight on e6 retreats, on the other hand it is also possible to play (after Be3 and Qd2) Bxe6 followed by d4 which would hit the center energetically.

@vjap55 vs @eniolw

Finally I had to face eniolw who is quite strong. I had the white pieces but it was difficult to anticipate the defense that my opponent would use as he has quite a varied repertoire. He decided to use the Caro-Kan defense which we have played several times. Unlike last week when I used a different line in the games of @deadleaf and @stayoutoftherz this time I went with the main line and saw how well eniolw had the theoretical study.

It was no surprise to see that the first few moves went very quickly. It seemed that everything was pretty balanced and at some point I thought that the game would end in a draw because this classic line is quite analyzed and it seemed that eniolw would not be wrong.

Here was the first time I started to think deeply and it seemed to me that I had a chance to get some advantage but I didn't want to fall asleep calculating long variations. My two candidate moves were 23)f3 or 23)g4. What I didn't like about g4 was that it weakened the kingside because the white squares were exposed to the vision of the black queen. f3 seemed to me more solid but I had to calculate what happens after 23)f3 Rxd1+ 24)Rxd1 Nxh5 and after a long time thinking about whether it was worth giving up that pawn on h5 I realized that black would be left with the knight out of position and I could take over the "d" file for example, 25)Qd3 or Qd2 white has a pawn less but a pretty good harmony of pieces.

Of course, Black avoided that possibility and decided to simplify all the rooks on the "d" column and once again I had an interesting opportunity:

My first thought here was: "Ok I can capture the knight and in this way give check with the queen on d2 captures the h6 pawn which would leave me with a well advanced pawn and supported by the queen".

But this thought was somewhat inaccurate since Black could have a counterplay by taking the c4-pawn and threatening check on the last rank and also the black king could easily control the h-pawn promotion. The strongest variation was simply to give check on d3 directly 26)Qd3+ followed by g4 and Black's position is very complicated because the lack of mobility.

So, after capturing 26)Bxf6+ I regretted it and instead of capturing the h6 pawn I had to change plans and well... things got a bit turbulent.

We were both running out of time and we had a Queen endgame in front of us which we had to fight to the last move. It was quite complicated because both kings started dancing all over the board and there were thousands of checks to calculate, it was really crazy.

After a back and forth of mistakes from both sides, Black had an incredible chance to win in a rather dramatic way:

This may be an excellent exercise. Black has only one winning move, and it is the stunning 40)...Kc3!! which leaves white totally indisposed since the white king is caught and the black Queen can threaten checkmate with a few maneuvers. The truth is that this move is super difficult to see in a game and even more so when you are running out of time.

Black overlooked this continuation and after a few checks White took control of the game and later the victory.

From these games we can have a good learning beyond the results so I hope you guys keep practicing and improve your chess skills.

Okay, thanks for making it to the end of this post. Feel free to share your analysis and let's talk about chess!

See you next time.