2021 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship - Round 3

Playing  Daily Chess Championship I used to check participants Rapid and Blitz rating. Sometimes also their recent games. Thanks to that you can feel tournament spirit .

Some words about my opponents from round 3. Many of them have higher daily rating, some have similar blitz or rapid. Before entering to round 3 everybody had to win round 1 and 2.

There were no easy games. Moreover I have to admit that in the middle of this round I thought that I should not expect higher place than 3. I quickly lost one game, made few draws and some remaining games didn't look promising .   

Just to warm up

Before presenting round 3 most interesting moments let me share some nice tactics I managed to do during really sharp friendly game. This daily game I played in the break between round 2 and 3. After winning I shared this tactics with some chess players via MMS. Then I found out that there is a more convenient way to share games. So here it is now, on my chess blog .

Puzzle 1: 

Link to above game

Available on YT: https://youtube.com/shorts/PopyzwKj2Eg

Daily Chess Championship - Round 3

Let's start from the end .  This is my last game in round 3. I had some luck while also my rivals lost some points. I was in the lead, overtaken the next 2 participants only by half a point. 

It is one of my favorite daily games because it is full of tactics and traps. I even wanted to split this game to a serie of puzzles . Eventually I think that complex presentation will be more interesting.

Next 2 games were against  ~ #50 player in daily chess leader-board .

Playing white, I was convinced that I had full compensation for the sacrificed pawn. Active Queen and Rook should be enough. Even if white King does not feel very safe without a pawn fortress and having a black Queen next door .

While I lost with white, I had a good chance of winning in the second game. After small tactics (which turned out to be inaccurate in post game analysis)  I reach + endgame, with extra pawn and  opposite-colored bishops.

One of my oponent was 2600+ in blitz.  Playing this game I couldn't help but set a trap in position below:

During second game we have kind of zugzwang while chessboard was full of pieces.

Rook endgame

Let's look at another famous rook endgame with h and  f pawns. It was first time I met this position during the game, although of course I heard and maybe read something about such case many years ago.  I was pretty sure that it would be not difficult to win that endgame. 

But at the beginning I had some trouble to move my pawns forward. And eventually after couple of moves I came to conclusion that there is no way to win. We both made many mistakes but my opponent made the last one .

Openings - French Defense

Playing online games generally I am using the same opening repertoire as during life games.  If somebody starts with 1. e4 I always replay e6 choosing French Defense. And my favorite line was always French Winawer Poisoned Pawn Variation with 7. g4 c7.  

It is a great line during Blitz and Rapid. It is also good while you are playing life games. However, I found out once again that this variant does not work for daily chess. Having access to the opening book, white can choose between lines that give them a significant advantage:

Puzzles

Finally, a few puzzles from the games I played in round 3:

Puzzle 2: 

Link to above game

After opening my position was quite promising. Probably it was equal but I have miscalculated some lines and allowed black pawns to crash my advantage in centrum. I also missed that:

Puzzle 3: 

That's it, and here I am waiting for the final round 4 to begin .