You have heard of chess tournaments on Hive & lichess.org, right? On Sundays you have @chessbrotherspro top Hive chess players at the Chess Brothers League. Yes, chess sisters also can participate…

But there is one problem with that tournament. You have to be really strong player if you intend to snatch some points, and only the first five with the most points at the end of season (four weeks) are getting rewards. Therefore, you have two better options: On Fridays our @stayoutoftherz hosts Hivechess Tournament that rewards proportionally every player who participate in at least three tournaments with at least three games in each.

On Saturdays we have tournamens hosted by our @schamangerbert (HerbyW at lichess.org), and they can change name now and again. The most usual one will be Blitz Chess Tournament, but he varies time controls, variants (Blitz, Bullet, Arena, Swiss, Chess960…), tournament titles… And he pays a week after every round.

So, what are we going to do at four empty days? We are going to prepare for a tournament days, of course! Like Geri is preparing, and we can learn a few things from his famous game…

Geri is obviously aware that you have to be seriously prepared for a tournament matches. Therefore, he chose the hardest possible opponent, the one who can practically read his mind and put his chess skills to the ultimate test…

Geri opens very shyly. This is called the King’s Pawn Game: King’s Head Opening. Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend that opening to you, at least until you reach Geri’s experience. Geri takes the opportunity to immediately hit in the center:

It is already clear to Geri here that Geri is not joking, and he is taking defensive measures…

Unfortunately, from this moment on, that is not enough. Geri eliminates Geri’s Knight and rulez the center squares:

Now Geri’s opponent starts playing like Gary (you know that one, Kasparov), that is, he is even ready to make irregular moves! In a completely lost position, Geri decides to apply a special kind of tactic…

You wouldn’t believe, but the special kind of tactic gave results! And Geri turns the game in his favor. It’s a brilliant checkmate, worth of a false teeth. My God, I should soon apply to some tournament with such quality reward!

Of course, quality of the game deserves to repeat it again:

And again…

And again…

And again…

And at least one more time, but this time you will have to head to YouTube…

OK, now you are ready for the tournaments 😁