On the 12th of June 2025, we saw a different limelight for the Blockchain Chess Team in the Lichess Liga 5A Team Battle as we emerged victorious with a total of 305 points in the final standings. This victory came with a spice that lightens up my mood anytime I think about it. Thanks to the @sam.chess initiative for the players onboarded to Hive, participated in the event, and they came with their cloaks and daggers armed and prepared for battle. 

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The tournament had a total of 10 different chess teams, and 105 chess players participated under their respective team banners. For the tournament, only points from the top eight players count. That is, you can have a chess team with numerous players, but only the top 8 players with the most points will count for the team in the standings.  In that case, we were able to get points from;

- @stuffings 
- @tenny-trigah - He recently made an introductory post, and you can check it out [My Chess Journey and the Road Ahead](https://peakd.com/@tenny-trigah)
- queen5layer - Also a player I onboarded, but he is yet to make an introductory post
- TheMadman4rmDaSouth
- @zlater 
- ManfromSpain going as @poseout87 on Hive
- Zgm_samostically - My humble self
- And our finalist on the points standing @stayoutoftherz

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Stuffings happened to be our MVP of the tournament, pulling in the highest number of points - 54, which led us to a tournament victory and a second-place finish in the player standings, right behind IM Samisahi with a whopping ELO rating of 2735 playing for the Afghanistan Chess Network. I must add that Stuffings is also an International Master of Chess and has played the highest-rated chess player, Magnus Carlsen, in the Chess World Cup in 2017 at Tbilisi, Georgia. The Afghanistan chess network had their International Master, but we had two, Stuffings and Tenny-trigah. 

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#### Let's look at some exciting games from the event. 

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#### @tenny-trigah vs IM Samsahi 

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This typical English opening: King's English variation happened to be the only game IM Samsahi lost in the tournament, the rest were wins for him, thereby giving him 115 points in total. It was a berserk game from both players, giving each player only 1 minute and 30 seconds on their clock. 

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From this position, I wonder why black didn't take the free pawn on d5 with Nxe5, and after the Bishop takes back on e5, the Queen takes back. While I guess it is probably because of the time pressure. One tends not to see everything on board, which is fair given that speed is also a factor when playing. Instead, black went with Kh7. 


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And this is the blunder, Qe7. This happens to be a blunder because it allows white to move into the h6 square with their queen. Then the mating attack comes in afterwards, even the black queen cannot leave the square e7 because the x-ray comes in next after white pushes the d6  pawn. And this is how the game ended:

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You can use this link to view the game if you wish to [Game Link](http://lichess.org/NBL66VLA/black#0)

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#### @Stuffing vs Babasik23

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This is a game that happens to be the battle of the 2300-rated players, where pawn storms happen to be white's stronghold. The game spans from the Old Variation: Czech variation. Stuffing controls the white pieces in this game, hence he is responsible for the pawn storm, where I guess his plan happens to be a launch on the kingside if black castles to the kingside. Let's see where black castles to and what happened next. 

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And finally, black castles to the kingside, which makes it more interesting for white as he can continue with his plan of storming black's kingside. And the game even gets better with white castling in the opposite direction. 

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The game later went on to have a sacrifice of a rook for a bishop, which made it more exciting. 

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At this point, I did not get the idea of the sacrifice, but I got it later, paid off as white had a strong pawn structure in black's kingdom, which led to a forced mate. Important lesson: do not leave your king undefended, especially when an attack is coming. 

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Rook to h8 square is a mate, and the only way to stop it is Qe1, sacrificing the queen; still, the mate won't be stopped, only delayed. 

If you would like to check the remaining games and the tournament, use the link below:
[Tournament and Game link](https://lichess.org/tournament/E36Gge63)

[Also, for more updates on the Liga Team Battle check out this post](https://peakd.com/hive-157286/@stayoutoftherz/lichess-liga-team-battle-our-first-win--next-round-this-sunday)

Posted Using [INLEO](https://inleo.io/@samostically/hivechess-the-unstoppable-blockchain-chess-team-93c)