Welcome! Chess fans, to the Games showcase post, where we will look at some interesting games from the seventh round of the Saturday Weekly Tournament.

The highlighted games feature either brilliant tactics, resilience, or good upsets. Game winners will share in the reward for their games being featured in this post. Rewards would be paid in Liquid.

In the last game feature post, I paid @southgamer and @jaki01 10% (6.6 Hive) of the previous post reward.

20% of this post will be shared among the featured players (10% each), and it will be paid out in liquid.

Please don't forget, if you feel confident about any of your games during the Saturday weekly event, drop a link in the comment section in the report post next Sunday.

Game 1

@rosmarly vs @maestroask

Maestoask won round 8 of the Saturday HiveChess Tournament as it has become a fixed endeavour. His reign on the chessboard was undisputed by any other chess player except Rosmarly, who brought him down in the last game before the end of the tournament.

1. d4 d6 2. Nf3 g6 3. e3 Bg7 4. Bd3 e5 5. dxe5 dxe5

The Queen's pawn is what this opening is called. Maestroask playing with the black pieces went for his usual pawn to d6, pawn to g6, and bishop to g7, making it look like he was planning to play the Pirc if he was playing against white's e4 or the King's indian if he was playing against white's d4, but that is not his plan. Instead, he usually strikes the center with an early e5.

One thing is for sure from my games against Rosmarly is that she enjoys playing positional setups like this, which is why it was not at all surprising to see that she won this game against the strong IM. She is quite positional in her style of play, and she sure knows how to punish a blunder.

Nh6?!

It is quite unusual to develop your knight to the edge of the board, especially when it is still in he early stage of the game where the pieces are still looking for good squares. But that is what maestroask loves to do in almost every game, and he will plan to move his f-file pawn to f6 and place his knight on the edge square h6 on the square f7.

As I anticipated, and I even forgot to mention, he goes for the queen exchange when he sees the opportunity, leaving the game to a play of minor pieces and who can maneuver better.

Kd7??

Moving his king to d7 was the blunder that caused black to lose the game in the endgame phase. This is because white's two pawns on c5 and b5 are forming a mismatch on the black king, and the knight has limited squares where it can move to without getting captured by the king or failing to stop one of the passed pawns. This is how Rosmarly won the game in an old-school two-pass pawns mismatch.

Here is the game link if you would like to watch the game on Lichess:
Game Link

And here is the game PGN:

[Event "Saturdays HiveChess S1R8 Arena"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/mLv09Hot"]
[Date "2025.08.23"]
[White "rosmarly"]
[Black "Odnoobraz_bcm"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2009"]
[BlackElo "2586"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+11"]
[BlackRatingDiff "-11"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "240+0"]
[ECO "A41"]
[Opening "Queen's Pawn Game"]
[Termination "Normal"]

1. d4 d6 2. Nf3 g6 3. e3 Bg7 4. Bd3 e5 5. dxe5 dxe5 6. O-O Nh6 7. Bb5+ c6 8. Be2 Qxd1
9. Rxd1 f6 10. Nc3 Nf7 11. b3 Nd7 12. Bb2 O-O 13. Ne4 f5 14. Nd6 Nxd6 15. Rxd6 Re8
16. Rad1 e4 17. Bc4+ Kh8 18. Bxg7+ Kxg7 19. Ng5 Ne5 20. Ne6+ Bxe6 21. Bxe6 Re7
22. c4 Rae8 23. Bd7 Rd8 24. Be6 Rxd6 25. Rxd6 Nd3 26. f3 Nc5 27. Bc8 exf3
28. gxf3 a5 29. Kf2 Kf7 30. h4 Re8 31. Bxb7 Nxb7 32. Rxc6 Re7 33. Rb6 Rc7
34. a3 Nc5 35. Ke2 Rb7 36. Rxb7+ Nxb7 37. b4 axb4 38. axb4 Ke6 39. Kd3 Kd6
40. Kd4 Nd8 41. c5+ Kc7 42. b5 Ne6+ 43. Kd5 Kd7 44. c6+ Ke7 45. b6 f4
46. e4 1-0

Game 2

@dakods vs @justfavour

1. Nf3 d5 2. e3 e6 3. d4 h6 4. c3 Nf6 5. Bd3

The Zukertort opening is what this position is called, and it looks like something similar to the Colle system mixed with some h6 moves from black to prevent white's bishop from coming to the square g5. The game starts off simple with positional play from both sides, but like most d4 openings, at some point, there have to be fireworks or at least attacks for someone to win.

a4!

Now, some fireworks as White grabs the initiative of going for a queenside attack, since that is where Black castled his king on the board. The idea is to open up the a-file for the white rook on a1, then it becomes active along the a-file, which will also serve as the beginning of his strike on black's king, and I bet he would bring in more pieces towards the queenside since that is where most of the action will be going on.

Here is where the game ended when Dakods saw he was down a pawn and felt he would not stand a chance, but I think he should have continued fighting, and hopefully, he would have gotten a draw. Well, I guess it might be a psychological play, but who knows, and it played into justfavour's luck.

Here is the game link:
Game Link

And the game PGN

[Event "Saturdays HiveChess S1R8 Arena"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/Jdgd5uLV"]
[Date "2025.08.23"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Dakods-16"]
[Black "justfavour"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A06"]
[Opening "Zukertort Opening"]

1. Nf3 d5 2. e3 e6 3. d4 h6 4. c3 Nf6 5. Bd3 a6 6. Nbd2 Nc6 7. e4 dxe4 8. Nxe4 Be7 
9. O-O b6 10. Qe2 Bb7 11. Re1 Qd7 12. Bf4 O-O-O 13. Bg3 b5 14. a4 Na7 15. axb5 Nxb5 
16. Bxb5 Qxb5 17. Nxf6 Qxe2 18. Rxe2 Bxf6 19. Ne5 Bxe5 20. Bxe5 f6 21. Bg3 Rhe8 
22. h3 Rd5 23. Rae1 e5 24. dxe5 fxe5 25. Rxe5 Rdxe5 26. Rxe5 Rxe5 27. Bxe5 g6 0-1

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In two days, the reminder post with the tournament link and time will be up. Looking forward to the next round. Special thanks to @edicted for the idea of rewarding brilliant games on a weekly basis.

See You on Saturday!

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Thanks For Reading!