Rapid Chess Arena May 3

 I entered the Chess arena after studying some endgames.

I won the first game pretty easily. I have no idea what my opponent was thinking with Qxc3. Only after 12 moves my opponent, who has 600 more elo than me, resigned the game. Great start to today's arena.

I made a huge blunder in the second game where after c4 I absolutely missed checkmate with 5 minutes on the clock. I should have checked for such a thing before pushing c4, before I made that mistake I was wining the game. Rd2 was the only good move and I missed it.

Another game I was winning before I blundered. I went Qc4 wanting to have an attack on both the connected pass pawns, but that allowed Ne5+ which forked my King and Queen. After that I resigned the game.

Just an embarrassing game for me. I have no idea what to do in the Van Geet opening and I was defeated in 8 moves. I didn't want to lose my Queen with Qxc7.

The win I got here in 12 moves was a nice comeback, but I did blunder a knight in the game. Thankfully for me I didn't panic when my opponent tried to checkmate me, they went on to hang their bishop, and they hung checkmate.

I did not do well in the midgame and it was an uphill battle after I blundered by going Bb4. In the endgame I made the mistake of not keeping my opponent's King away from his pass pawn, with 4 minutes on the clock. Add bad time control by me to mistakes made in this game.

In the endgame I blundered my Knight and I went from being able to play for a draw to being checkmated. I'm sorry to say that I spent 15 seconds on b5 with 5 minutes still on the clock.

I have no idea what my opponent was doing in the opening. I wouldn't give them too much of a hard time because they're only 500 elo. I got checkmate on move 8.

My game here started going downhill because of my misunderstanding of the Four Knights Game. I went d4 to break open the position when instead I should have traded my bishop for the opponent's Knight. When I went b5 I allowed my King and Queen to be forked.

I'm sorry to say I went from winning the endgame to allowing myself to be checkmated. I went Rd1 anticipating that my pawn would be taken, which allowed Ra6#.

I was really excited that I had such a strong material advantage over an opponent who is far higher rated than I am. I really wanted to get his Queen off the board so I offered a Queen trade but instead he captured my Rook. The game wasn't lost though until I went Kg3. I should have tried to force a Queen trade on the back rank instead of keeping it then.

I went from winning this game to blundering my knight because I was so afraid of losing my Bishop that I tried to go "danger levels" by pushing d2. This was a huge mistake as it left my Knight undefended.