Lichess Yearly Three-check Arena Recap

TenThousandDays

Updated: Aug 26, 2020, 1:53 AM | 17

On August 13, 2020 I got 2nd place in lichess.org's Yearly Three-check Arena. It was a 5-hour long event where nearly 3,300 players participated. I played against many titled players and even went 4/4 against Grandmasters. There were a lot of games where I failed to convert winning positions but overall I'm satisfied with how I played. Congrats to LuukDeGrote for getting 1st place! He played much better than I did and deserved to win. Politeia put up a great performance as well.

Here are some of my favorite games from the tournament. They are in the order that I played them.

My 1st game was against politeia and it was a very sharp and exciting game where both sides had chances.

After a few more wins I got matched against a GM and I had the Black pieces so I knew that I was in for a tough game.

After a demoralizing losing streak I got paired against GM Orlando Gloom as Black again.

Here's a game that was slower and more positional in nature which was actually kind of nice for a change. I included it because of the idea that I found at the end.

This next game was against an IM and it was also significant in that this was my tenth win in a row against this player.

This was my only win against LuukDeGrote in the entire tournament. He really gave me a hard time that day, scoring 6/7 against me.

Knights are very strong in 3 Check endgames compared to Bishops and this game below is a good example of this.

This was my last game against Orlando Gloom and I was happy to have the White pieces this time.

I try a variation of this line myself against gavity.

This was my 4th and last game against a Grandmaster in this tournament. The last time I played Miro I got crushed twice even though I was White so I was happy to get a win as Black here. This was also my 13th win a row for the tournament and this winning streak really boosted my overall tournament standing. I should mention though that Miro berserked in this game, meaning that he cut his time in half in exchange for an additional tournament point if he won.

Thanks for reading! I'm going to try to work on minimizing my blunders so I can more consistently convert winning positions. If I can do that then I think I have decent chances to win the tournament next year.

Lichess Yearly Three-check Arena Recap

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