Hello everyone. This round was Chess960 themed and @samostically (ZGM_Samostically) was winner with almost perfect score. Congratulations.
After bad performance in round 2 this round was much much better. It is good to be in top 10. There were some games against stronger opponents were it was close (at least for me) and I did not feel any pressure while playing. Whole Chess960 feels that way when I play. One thing that surprise me this round is that several times I was low on time. Normally I play fast enough but this round I took a bit more time and it showed on the clock. Berserking also does not help with time menagment. For example in one game I had good position but I could not convert it.
Here are some games and game plan at the beginning of the game (if I can recollect what was my plan during these games).
This is my game against @justfavour (justfavour) So in these positions when rook and queen are on the edge I usually go for h or a pawn move. Depending on the rest of the pieces on the board in starting position it may change. Engine goes for g3 in this position.
From there for me it was almost all pawn moves until first captures.
Here I went for a discovery and won a rook. However engine says that I am in bad position
And if @justfavour (justfavour) had found this knight move to g3 it would not end well for me. After queen c3 check and retreat hero of the position was bishop on f1. He was holding everything together and knight move would take care of that.
He retreated his queen I connect my queen and bishop which lead to the mate on the end. I saw that I missed some moves but now I see it was close call.
Game link here https://lichess.org/0jnjzlzE/white#53
Second game I want to show is game against @fiona777 (fiona777).
Again h pawn starts. Idea here is to attack on king side. Bishops are already looking toward king side. So using that momentum I tried to shift attacking pieces toward the king.
Here as you can see bishops are already locked in.
After that knight and queen joined the attack.
On this move I played knight to g6 and after queen exchange and rook capture it was easier to play and find moves.
Game link: https://lichess.org/uA1DaHbZ/white
This is game against @rodrook (RDcast) Nice game and this is end position. I was in time scramble and could not find the queen move. @rodrook manage to make this checkmate trap but I could not find way out of it. In so little time that queen move was very far away. Nice one @rodrook.
Super round for me.
@maestroask (Odnoobraz_bcm) with another clean round. 7 games with 7 wins. 2 Hive sent . @samostically (ZGM_Samostically) was very close as well to collect 2 Hive but one loss toward end of the round spoiled his perfect score. Almost there.
15% of this post reward goes to @chesspricepool.