The Win I Thought was Impossible ⚔: Saturday HiveChess Arena S1R21

Intro: Persistence

Its been over 24 hours since the Saturday Hive Chess Arena. I was not able to write a post because my laptop has turn to television 📺 😭😹.

tv show no GIF by Robert E Blackmon

It goes off immediately it is unplugged from power supply. Although, I should get a new battery by tomorrow.

I am not skipping writing about Saturdays Tournament because I won against a player that felt impossible to beat.

Sometimes when the algorithm pairs us, I immediately feel like resigning without even attempting to move my pieces.

I and Odonoobraz_bcm Hive account@maestroask have legit played 27 times, this was the first time I won against him. I respect him as a player, he's good, like really good.

I and Hive account@justfavour often bant about how he dominated the board after each tournament.

Here's how the final leaderboard looked:

🥇 Odnoobraz_bcm– 32 points
🥈 SouthGamer- 30 points
🥉 Tangible_ay– 30 points

📊

Leaderboard

As usual, let's highlight some of the games that are quite interesting and we could learn from 👇🏼

Today's Game Highlights and Analysis

JUST_OLA VS ODNOOBRAZ_BCM

My opponent played White. He beserked and opened with the Hungarian Opening.

After analyzing the game, I won't say I played the best because there were inaccuracies and mistakes. My opponent had time constraint and actually had the upperhand in pieces arrangement.

What favored me was a blunder he made at move 58 (King to b5) accompanied with time constraint.

The Blunder:

White moving his king to b5 caused a lot of problems for him, it gave me chance to play rook to d5 and put his king on check. He replied with his rook to d5 then I played Queen to h6, capturing his Queen. This put a lot of pressure on White. He fought valiantly to recover but he couldn't because of the timer and I won the round.

Game Link: https://lichess.org/3Q5nWpa0/black

This is the PGN file of the game:

[Event "Saturday HiveChess S1R21 Arena"] [Site "https://lichess.org/3Q5nWpa0"] [Date "2025.11.22"] [White "Odnoobraz_bcm"] [Black "Just_ola"] [Result "0-1"] [GameId "3Q5nWpa0"] [UTCDate "2025.11.22"] [UTCTime "15:06:12"] [WhiteElo "2548"] [BlackElo "1797"] [WhiteRatingDiff "-11"] [BlackRatingDiff "+12"] [Variant "Standard"] [TimeControl "300+0"] [ECO "A00"] [Opening "Hungarian Opening"] [Termination "Time forfeit"]

g3 d5 2. d3 Nf6 3. Bg2 Nbd7 4. e4 Nb6 5. c3 e6 6. f3 Be7 7. Nh3 Nfd7 8. Nf2 Bc5 9. d4 Be7 10. e5 c5 11. f4 cxd4 12. cxd4 Nc4 13. O-O Qb6 14. b3 Na5 15. Ba3 Nc6 16. Bb2 Qc7 17. Nd2 b6 18. Nf3 Ba6 19. Re1 Bb4 20. Re3 Na5 21. Rc1 Qb7 22. Bc3 Ba3 23. Rc2 Nc6 24. f5 Bb4 25. Bxb4 Nxb4 26. Rd2 Nf8 27. g4 h5 28. h3 Qd7 29. a3 Nc6 30. fxe6 Nxe6 31. b4 Nf4 32. Qb1 Nxg2 33. Kxg2 hxg4 34. Nxg4 Ne7 35. Rc3 Bc4 36. Rxc4 dxc4 37. Qe4 Rd8 38. Nf2 c3 39. Rc2 Rh6 40. Rxc3 Rg6+ 41. Kf1 Nd5 42. Rd3 Ne7 43. Ke2 Nf5 44. d5 Kf8 45. Qf4 Nh6 46. Ne4 Qa4 47. e6 Qc2+ 48. Rd2 Qc4+ 49. Ke3 f6 50. Ne5 Qb3+ 51. Rd3 Qb1 52. Nxg6+ Kg8 53. Nxf6+ gxf6 54. Qxh6 Qc1+ 55. Rd2 Qe1+ 56. Kd3 Qb1+ 57. Kc4 Qc1+ 58. Kb5 Rxd5+ 59. Rxd5 Qxh6 60. Rd8+ Kh7 61. e7 Qg5+ 62. Ka6 Qxg6 63. Kb7 Qe4+ 0-1

SOUTHGAMER VS JAKI

SouthGamer is getting hotter.

Both strong players beserked and White opened with the Horwitz Defense.

What I could I say about this game that made White lose was the unprotected center. Black was able to break Whites center and put the king on check on move 21 (Xg4+).

It gave black the chance to attack aggressively. White lost a rook at c8 and also a bishop. White resigned after losing too many pieces .

Game Link: https://lichess.org/KrPCYfYB/black

This is the PGN file:

[Event "Saturday HiveChess S1R21 Arena"] [Site "https://lichess.org/KrPCYfYB"] [Date "2025.11.22"] [White "jaki01"] [Black "SouthGamer"] [Result "0-1"] [GameId "KrPCYfYB"] [UTCDate "2025.11.22"] [UTCTime "15:17:59"] [WhiteElo "2280"] [BlackElo "1997"] [WhiteRatingDiff "-10"] [BlackRatingDiff "+10"] [Variant "Standard"] [TimeControl "300+0"] [ECO "A40"] [Opening "Horwitz Defense"] [Termination "Time forfeit"]

d4 e6 2. Nh3 d5 3. Bg5 Be7 4. f4 f6 5. Bh4 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. e3 Qb6 8. Qb3 e5 9. Qxb6 axb6 10. Bb5 exd4 11. exd4 Bd7 12. Bxc6 bxc6 13. Nd2 Nh6 14. O-O O-O 15. a3 cxd4 16. cxd4 Nf5 17. Bf2 Bd6 18. Nf3 Rfe8 19. Rfe1 Re4 20. g4 Ne7 21. f5 Rxg4+ 22. Kh1 Bxf5 23. Nd2 Rg6 24. Ng1 Rh6 25. Ngf3 Kf7 26. h4 g5 27. Kg2 gxh4 28. Rh1 h3+ 29. Kf1 Ng6 30. Rc1 Rc8 31. Rc3 Nf4 32. Ke1 c5 33. dxc5 bxc5 34. b4 d4 35. Rc1 Nd3+ 36. Ke2 Nxc1+ 37. Rxc1 Bg4 38. Kd3 Bxf3 39. Nxf3 h2 40. Rh1 cxb4 41. Kxd4 Bc5+ 42. Kd5 Bxf2 0-1

Thank you all for the games, it was really fun I won't lie. And thank you Hive account@samostically for hosting this tournament.