Friday Night Blitz

A night of lots and lots of chess, and little time!  Tonight we had three tournaments; the evening started with an U1350 and an Open running alongside each other and finished with a 3 minutes + 3 seconds Open tournament.  It was also a night for deciding matches, as seen below.

U1350 - Blitz - 5 minutes each
A fast win tonight for ORichards and 4 wins from 4 games - this is a player who seems to like his Blitz chess - very well played.  In the final round, ORichards and AbleLopsidedGiraffe were neck and neck on 3/3 each and they faced a shootout for 1st place.  It was a really well played game with lots of great chess - all the more impressive given the time pressure.  You can see the whole game at the end of this post, and a position from the game is also featured as tonight's chess problem, below.
In third place was MadWiryTank, also with with 3 wins from 4 games, and he also lost only to the winner, so very well played to MadWiryTank !!!
If you have a ChessKid login, you can see the full results and look through the games here: https://www.chesskid.com/tournament/u1350-friday-night-blitz-35014/results

​Open - Blitz - 5 minutes each
A final round showdown saw Rowantree and RichSmoothPanda battling each other for the win.  A cagey game ensued with a draw agreed after 21 moves, with Rowantree taking victory on tiebreak.  Another last round showdown saw GlumSuddenBacon secure victory over ZanyHummingBook.  ZanyHummingBook looked set to win, when GlumSuddenBacon took an opportunistic win with a back rank mate.  Time pressure in blitz can cause mistakes...
If you have a ChessKid login, you can see the full results and look through the games here: https://www.chesskid.com/tournament/open-friday-night-blitz-35015/results

Friday Night Special - Blitz - 3 minutes each and an extra 3 seconds per move
This was a shootout for the keen!  3 minutes on the clock and 3 seconds per move sounds tighter than 5 minutes.  But with the extra 3 seconds per move, if you do start to get very low on time, you can sometimes even build time back up again if you play really fast - just don't make a mistake!!!
One thing you should be aware of is this.  If you do get very short on time, you can sometimes be fairly sure of what your opponent is going to do, so you can be absolutely ready to play your move, and if you are fast you can play it within a second, and build your time back up again - once again - just don't make a mistake!!!
​In this competition, it was another win for Rowantree, securing victory with 4 wins from 4 games.  Well played.  In second and third places were theworldoflegend and ZanyHummingBook, who both scored 3/4, and each lost only to the winner - very well played to all.
If you have a ChessKid login, you can see the full results and look through the games here:  https://www.chesskid.com/tournament/friday-night-special-35018/results

The Results...

​U1350...

​Open...

Open - Friday Night Special...

Chess Problem
Tonight's chess problem is fairly simple.  It comes from the decider in tomight's U1350 between ORichards and AbleLopsidedGiraffe.  It is move 12 and White to play.  How can White trap Black's Bishop and then take the piece on the following move?  To see the answer, have a look through the game at the end of this post.

Chess Game: ORichards Vs AbleLopsidedGiraffe
I was really impressed to see how well these two young players from the U1350 section handled the pressure to play really good chess in a 5 minute game.  Below, you can click through to see all the moves.