THINK BLOG EPISODE 5

"Do you know why snow is white? Because it's forgotten what color it's supposed to be." That's a great quote to begin the blog with. What does it mean? You can tell me in the THINK forum. What? You are not in team THINK yet? Here, grab a link -lichess.org/team/think

But let's focus on the changes in this blog. There is a lichess study now, in which games were analysed by me and Windrunner315. Or perhaps I should say by Windrunner315 and I, because he has done more of the work. He is also sort of editor of this blog right now. This blog must be going in good direction, since I have an editor now.
Editor's note: Of course that's a good thing! ;)

FRIDAY SIMUL
For some reason we have decided to have a player host a simul at Friday's evening and experience a small mental breakdown due to time pressure.The first up was Windrunner315, he did volunteer for this great idea. Soon he realize the terror of what he agreed to, time was ticking and positions were not getting any more friendly to him.This game just exploded right in his hands (or should I say I exploded it?) It was a modern defense with nice positional pressure for black in the middlegame and knight sacrifices from both sides.
lichess.org/wmT1TAfs#1

U1700 GRAND FINALE
U1700 championship has came to an end, with an epic final between burnhart and TheRoyalFork. What better opening could be chosen than the Evans Gambit, for such a fierce battle? The game had a lot of key points, one of them was trading queens on move 15, which calmed a game a little bit, but white lost some initiative. In the end TheRoyalFork wound up victorious, ending the game with a stylish disposal of his bishop, killing white's most dangerous pawn.
lichess.org/g5AQ8fT1/black

CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP
Now it's time for a main event of this week- CC. The star this time will be pn2206, we will cover two of his 20+7 games. One of them was versus iancmason, where the opening looked just about equal, until a few suboptimal moves were played by pn2206 and seemingly out of nowhere he ended up in simply worse endgame. Yet again we could say that the queen trade may have happened a little too early, but in this position it felt natural. After pn tried to activate his king a little too early, iancmason used this to advance his pieces. Finally white king ended up on h6, which does not look not comfortable for me.lichess.org/qFbh5Bt9/black#1

MIRACLE?
The next game looked a bit grim for our protagonist even from the start. He was facing much higher rated player, Diego-Alexander. The middlegame was very open and tactical; pn2206 did not notice a pin and lost a whole bishop. Later, Diego's rook was closed in black's area by another of pn's bishops, but Diego-Alexander just cold-bloodedly captured, temporarily sacrificing the exchange and forked a queen and a rook 2 moves later. At the end, though, something unexpected happened. Diego-Alexander tried to go for a cool smothered mate, but that gave pn2206 mate in three, thanks to good coordination of his queen and rook. Never lose hope, main protagonist always wins the final battle.
lichess.org/8KANOlQq/black

BENONI TIME
This game between JeremyIsFishing and luka3916 was a weird one. It was a Benoni, so that should not be that surprising. Positions from the Benoni can get pretty wild. It seemed like Luka decided he is not going to play solid and chill, he just wants to take down Jeremy. This is why white delayed castling and went for using open files for the attack. It was a risky strategy, but it payed off, because white managed to sneak in devastating queen check on move 27. That lead to the collapse of the whole position. The game ended with very pretty looking overload tactic
.lichess.org/Uax8cWsb/black

HIDE AND SEEK
Here is a study that was made from all the games mentioned above. There is a twist though, there are hidden quotes that are there waiting to be found. Can you mange to do that? Moreover, do you know from where that quotes came from? It's for you to find out... Happy hunting!
Editor's Note: Eniack tried really hard to leave the link out, but here it is ;)