San Francisco Mechanics

Play it Again, Sam

2011-09-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

Mechanics-Sharks, 2005 USCL Playoffs: Tough loss eliminates SF from the playoffs. Team manager John Donaldson cleans house, brings in new fourth board Sam S. to lead team to 2006 league championship.

Mechanics-Sharks, 2010 USCL Week 10: Tough loss ensures that Mechanics will not make the playoffs for the first time in their history. Team manager John Donaldson cleans house, brings in new fourth board Sam S. to …

Well, you get the idea.

Mechanics fans were happy to see a win for the first time since last September 22^nd in what we can only hope is our most successful season yet. We’ve got some flexible lineup possibilities, some underrated folks for the fourth board, and some real power on the top. Here’s some analysis from the first week.

Board One: Finegold-Kraai

A tough positional grind of a game, nicely played by Finegold, although not the sort of struggle that’s going to get much love from the Game of the Week illuminati. Jesse appeared to go a little wrong during the flurry of exchanges in the center and sought refuge in a pawn down ending. A critical moment occurred on move forty:

Here Jesse avoided the exchange of bishops by playing the awkward 40… Ba3. As John Donaldson pointed out in the Mechanics’ Newsletter, the three vs. two rook and pawn ending with e and h pawns is rarely covered in chess literature, and Jesse’s instincts must have told him to avoid this one.

However, it’s here that I believe he missed his last good chance to fight for a draw. Let’s consider the following: 1) rook and pawn endings with all pawns on the same side of the board are generally drawn, particularly those with reduced numbers of pawns, such as three vs. two or two vs. one; 2) the addition of a pair of minor pieces in these types of endings is often enough to flip the assessment from drawn to won; 3) white’s bishop controls the queening square of the h-pawn, reducing a number of drawing plans in a pure bishop endgame; 4) with the bishops off, black can sometimes give up another pawn and hold, such as trading his two pawns for white’s g-pawn, leaving white with the problematic bishop and rook pawn duo.

I’m not saying that black holds the draw easily if he plays 40… Bxe5, but I would assess his chances to hold at about 60 percent, much better odds than I would give him in the bishop ending that took place in the game. Notably, white passed up two chances to enter the rook ending himself (although I’m not sure why he avoided it the first time; isn’t 42. Rxa3 Rxe5 43. Re3 a simple win?).

Board Two: Naroditsky-Banawa

My sense of righteous violence on the chessboard says give Danya GOTW, my little silicon friend says blunder by black on move 23 in time pressure. Unfortunately, as pretty much always the computer is correct, and in fact Banawa missed a good chance a few moves earlier:

Here 20… Qa5 is much stronger than Banawa's 20... Qb6 because the knight is not pinned. Now 21. Bxg7 Ne6 22. Qe5 (22. Bd5 Rf7) 22… Qxe5 23. Bxe5 Bf6 leaves white struggling. Risky play by Danya, but that’s sometimes what you’ve got to do when you take on the ugly pawn structure, and he was rewarded this time with a win.

Board Three: Eckert-Pruess

I don’t have much to add to David’s excellent article about this game; in fact, when I saw him bust out the QGA for the first time ever, I was reminded of a conversation that David and I had before playing at a tournament a couple years back.

David: I’m going to play an opening that I’ve never played against you before.

Me (in my head): So not the Benoni, Benko, Semi-Slav, Dutch, King’s Indian, Budapest …

Me (aloud): So it’s got to be the Slav or the Queen’s Gambit Accepted.

David: Good guess.

Obviously I could have manned up and played 1. e4, and for some reason I forgot about the existence of certain other common openings (Gruenfeld, QGD), but the lesson is clear: dude likes to play a lot of different openings. And I couldn’t agree more that playing this way keeps you fresh in a way that learning one opening straight through to the ending does not. Oh, and sometimes you play something new and get crushed, but that’s chess.

One cool little trick that David passed by in his article:

Here David has just sacrificed his bishop on c3 to help break through on the queenside. White’s rook and bishop are attacked, so he has to give back some materials, and did so, with 33. Bc2, which looked dangerous but lost in short order. But what if he plays 33. Re2?

Then 33… Qxb3 allows 34. Nf6+ gxf6 35. Qg4+ Kf8 36. Qxh4 with a miracle draw. The only way to stop Qh8# is to play the king back to the g-file, and then white simply checks with the queen.

Fortunately, black is still winning after 33… Ba6, but it’s a good reminder to never let down your guard when converting an advantage.

Speaking of opening preparation ...

Board Four: Sevian-Ding

This, in my mind, was the key game in the match. We lose here with white and a tie or loss in the match was quite likely. I wasn’t too comfortable with how the opening went for our latest wunderkind: he was wandering through (and getting way down on the clock) a really dangerous line of the Dragon (and reminding me in the process why I try to avoid the open Sicilian).

Black missed two good chances to gain a big edge against his youthful opponent:

In this position the move 18… Rb6 has done very well for black. The idea is that after 19. h5 g5 20. Rxd6 f6 white is playing without his queen for a very long time. Instead, the game continued 18… Be6 19. h5 Qc7 (now 19… g5 loses to 20. Nd4) 20. hxg6 fxg6 21. Rxd6 Rfc8.

One more diagram:

22. Rc6 is good enough to draw here, although that is something of a defeat of this whole line for white. Instead Samuel went for the unbalanced ending with 22. Qxh7+ Qxh7 23. Rxh7, but instead of the automatic 23… Kxh7, black could have had great winning chances with 23… Bxb3.

So, as almost always in the USCL, both teams had plenty of opportunities to win the match. A good season takes steady play and a little luck, and let’s hope we have both against a tough Dallas team next week.

Making a list, checking it twice

2010-12-18T12:03:00.000-08:00

After a long morning of looking at chess games and copying and pasting until my eyes glazed over, here are my picks for game of the year, with brief and hopefully not too insulting commentary. Who says you can't win blog of the year after the season's over? Wait, there isn't a blog of the year prize? What gives?

Anyway, as Tony Kornheiser would say, "That's it! That's the list!"

20. Week 7: Schroer-Kacheishvili

Voted into the contest after a majority of GOTW judges were stricken with upset-itus, this game has a lot of value when used to show kids that even GMs can fall asleep in the opening. But the system allows for do-overs, so the more deserving Stripunsky-Erenberg will get its day.

19. Quarterfinals: Krasik-Balasubramanian

In a week with a reduced number of games you expect shock-and-awe to get a little more play. The Krasik game was a nice bit of prep and technique, but at the risk of becoming an Esserman groupie it would have been more entertaining to see Esserman-Enkhbat in the GOTY competition.

18. Semifinals: Rosenthal-Thompson

An attractive attacking game with some nice ideas by white to crash through, but something about black’s porous defense makes me feel like it’s not quite on par with most of the other games in the competition.

17. Wildcard, Week 5: Gurevich-Barcenilla

This is the sort of thing that King’s Indian players everywhere have nightmares about. Not only does white overrun the queenside, but he eventually even pulls together a mating attack. The tactics were pretty if not too surprising, but black’s position will not attract many supporters in the future.

16. Week 5: Galofre-Milat

This game makes me think of what the NFL would look like if they didn’t have offensive linemen. It would be entertainingly violent, but the quarterbacks would make a lot of mistakes, as black did in this one. Good enough to win for the week, but the GOTY contest isn’t so forgiving.

15. Week 1: Shulman-Khachiyan

A nice clean win with a typical storyline: white gets initiative, white keeps initiative, black saves king at the cost of too much material and resigns. But they don’t give the Oscar to movies that come out in February.

14. Week 6: Christiansen-Kraai

I don’t really understand the appeal of this game. Castling on opposite sides is right in Larry C’s wheelhouse. And black’s queenside play was almost nonexistent. A couple quick blows and it was over. But if I rank it 19^th the judges will pick it to win the whole thing, so I’m hedging my bets.

13. Wildcard, Week 8: Kacheishvili-Shankland

A lot of people thought this should be game of the week, and indeed, it’s sort of magical to win in such fashion with black out of an opening that has been so heavily analyzed. And Shankland played quite well. But on some level, it feels like white got punished for playing too hard for a win when there was none to be found.

12. Week 10: Sammour-Hasbun—Kacheishvili

White wriggles into black’s position and black, overextended, capitulates after a short struggle. The coolness factor comes from the fact that this all came out of an exchange Slav, but I think that the wildcard selection from this week will do better. A lot better.

11. Week 9: Akobian-Friedel

A nice game, if mainly for the way the e4 shot tore apart black’s position so effectively. Strangely enough, there were three games from this week that made it into the GOTY contest, and everything that made the other two too scary to pick for GOTW will make them all too appealing for GOTY.

10. Wildcard, Week 9: Sammour-Hasbun—Kaplan

I remember glancing at this game and thinking that black had just won with Bxg3. Then Sammour-Hasbun rolled off a bunch of tactics and the black position just collapsed. As Tal said, you can only take the sacrificed pieces one at a time.

9. Week 3: Rensch-Abrahamyan

This game reminds me of many battles from my youth with my old sparring partner David Pruess. I’d play the Winawer, he’d sac the queenside, and then suddenly his pieces would all be better and I’d get mated in some sick way. As did Abrahamyan. Some things never change.

8. Week 2: Shulman-Felecan

Certainly the deserving winner of the “Upset of the Year” award. Or “Clutch Performance to Salvage a Draw for the Team” award. But “Game of the Year?” Probably not, although it was a nice effort from Felecan.

7. Finals: Shankland-Becerra

I’m glad I got my licks in against Shanky when he was a grade-school lad rated 1600. This game is elegant, smooth, and against the league’s most successful player in the most important match of the year. It’s not GOTY, but the context pushes it up a couple of spots in the rankings.

6. Wildcard, Week 7: Stripunsky-Erenberg

It’s clear that the judges initially rejected this game because of the strangeness of the opening. It’s not like they blundered any pieces, but the opening looks like it came from the top board of a B section rather than the USCL. However, Erenberg more than showed off his GM credentials with some nice tactics and technique.

5. Wildcard, Week 1: Rosen-Guo

The best game on board four, bar none. I admit to having some bias towards the French Defense, but it’s hard to argue with the facts: nice exchange sac, tough middlegame struggle, and a nice long combination at the end to win the queen.

4. Week 8: Schroer-Christiansen

A tough one to rank. Imagine that you’re back in 1998, watching “The Matrix” for the first time, totally blown away by one of the action sequences and then “My Dinner with Andre” is spliced in for the final three hours. Do you give the movie a good review? And how many times during the film do you have to go to the bathroom?

3. Wildcard, Week 10: Akobian-Shulman

This game reminded me of Shulman’s win from week one, but I like this one better. White just hammers and hammers at black’s position and eventually breaks through with a new queen. There’s something about the power of an attack down the center that isn’t aiming just for the king that is very aesthetically pleasing.

2. Wildcard, Week 9: Hungaski-Schroer

If the Turing test is the name for the not being able to tell that a computer is not a human, what do you call not being able to tell that a person is not a computer? Hungaski had to have ice in his veins to play this game with queen and knights circling his king.

1. Week 4: Friedel-Akobian

From my perspective, the game of the year should be epic … really epic. And this game certainly was, with the showy endgame making up for a maneuvering middlegame. This game made me realize that if this is what it takes to beat Akobian, well, I’m probably never going to do it. And I realize that this leaves open some talk of “West Coast Bias.” And I’m OK with both of those things.

Stuck Inside of Miami with the Playoff Elimination Blues Again

2010-10-30T11:28:00.000-07:00

Going into the last match of the season, one thing was on the minds of the San Francisco Mechanics: we had won one championship. We had been eliminated by the Miami Sharks in the three of the four other years, each time losing despite having good chances to win. Now the number is four, and for the first time, the ‘Nics won’t be making an appearance in the playoffs.

First, a little history. Although according to the league website we’re 7-7 against the dreaded Sharks, it seems like we’ve lost every key match against them. In 2005, needing only a draw to win the match, I fumbled the following position:

I had calculated 33… Nf4! 34. gf Qf3 at the board, and realized that it drew, when I looked at the clock, saw my time running down, panicked, and hammered out 33… Rd7?, losing on the spot. Dima also lost a drawn ending against Marcel, and a curse was born.

Two years later, 2007, and we met the Sharks in the first round of the playoffs, draw odds again, same result. Patrick drew quickly with black against Becerra on board one, and Dima got posterized by a sick piece of preparation from Martinez on three. Greg was getting destroyed on board four, so Vinay went all out to win in the following position:

Unfortunately, the winning attempt backfired, Vinay lost a position he certainly could have drawn, and so even when Greg miraculously came back, we had still lost the match.

In 2008 we lost to Dallas, but the next year it was Miami’s turn again. This time we fell apart early, as David tried to resurrect an ancient variation of the King’s Gambit that was probably best left dead and buried. He was already busted in the following position on move 12 (!):

So now, the present: we had neither draw odds this year (as we needed a win to grab a playoff spot), nor did we have one of our strongest lineups, as we would prefer to play Danya or Stephen on board three with Yian on four, but neither was available. So we went with Jesse on one, who had a tough time with Becerra last year in the playoffs, Dima on two, who had lost a surprising five straight games in the USCL, me on three, playing up for the essentially the first time in my USCL career, and Yian on four.

For a while things looked pretty good. Jesse got the a solid position against Becerra, the sort of stuff he likes where he can shuffle his pieces around like an old man and torture his opponent to death. I didn’t love Dima’s position out of the opening, but he worked through the complications well and got a reasonable middlegame position. Yian was clearly not very comfortable in the French-style position he achieved, but I had hope that he would eventually overwhelm his lower-rated opponent. And I stayed in preparation for 22 moves.

A big part of my preparation was psychological. By playing a sharp line that had a few places where white could force a draw by repetition, I wanted to see whether Martinez was willing to take some risks to make a game out of it. I was out of book after 22… h6, but got an interesting attacking position and felt pleased with my initiative after 29. Ra2. We were turning down draws on the other boards and our intrepid team manager, John Donaldson, slipped in an important message: Giants 8, Rangers 2. It was San Francisco’s night, baby!

(after 29.. Nxb2)

Here, however, things started to go downhill. After 29… Nxb2 I had intended 30. Rxb2 Bxb2 31. e5, with the idea 31… Bf5 32. Qd2 Bxc2 33. Qxc2 Bxe5 34. Bg5, but then realized that all black has to do is give back the exchange and he will be up a couple of pawns. Thus, I played it a bit more carefully: 30. Qd2 Nc4 31. Qf4.

I was again surprised by 31… Bh8, but I decided to go for the kill instead of bailing with 32. Bg5 f6 33. Bxf6 Rf7 34. Bxd8 Rxf4. Unfortunately, I had missed the hidden point of Martinez’s clever defense: clearing the bishop to the back rank allows the rook to swing to h7 as well. So after 32. Ng5 Ne5 33. Qh4 (threatening 34. Bf8! Nf3+ 35. Rxf3 Bd4+ 36. Kh1 Kxf8 37. Nxf7), 33… f6 leaves white in a very awkward position. I burned half of my remaining time, panicked anyway, and played the lame 34. Nf3? A couple moves later and I was down a piece, playing for tricks.

But by this time the whole match had fallen apart. Yian, whose opponent had the good side of a Karpovian torture position, tried to make sometime out of nothing and quickly resigned. Dima, pressed but the position liquidated into a drawn rook and pawn ending. Jesse, seeing our plight, went for it on one, got his queen trapped, and was granted a mercy draw. And so we lost 3-1, our worst drubbing at the hands of Miami yet.

Perhaps the worst part of the whole night was having to fight the World Series traffic on the way home from the match (what post of mine would be complete without baseball?). Thousands of ebullient, drunken, screaming Giants fans on BART, and me, morose and headachy, the one sad guy wearing a Giants hat in the Bay Area.

And so for the first time we watch the playoffs from the sidelines. I’m not going to break down the matchups quite as scientifically as David has, but I’ll pick a couple of teams for the finals: New England vs. Seattle. Best of luck to all the teams as they compete for the USCL’s biggest prize, and we’ll be back next year.

Under Pressure

2010-10-16T13:28:00.001-07:00

“Mine goes ding-ding-ding-duh-duh-ding-ding.” – Vanilla Ice

Well, it’s been a while since I blogged at the end of week one. At that point in the season, the ‘Nics were coming off a dominate performance over a dangerous Dallas team, Wolff was winning pawn down endings, Naroditsky looked like a lock for MVP, and I had a performance rating over 2600. I figured we would just win the next nine matches like that and coast through the postseason. It didn’t quite work out that way, but even halfway through the season, we looked like a pretty sure bet to get through to the postseason with our 4-1 record. Unfortunately, after two close losses in a row, we found ourselves Wednesday night facing the St. Louis Yankees and their ravenous Cerberus lineup.

Back in week two, when the Yanks first unveiled this monstrosity, I was sure that it would lead to the immediate collapse of the league. I mean, who the hell could compete with H-Rod on board one and C.C. Shulbathia on board two? I briefly considered sending a solution to Greg and Arun at league HQ, but I figured that my Hikaru-baiting plan would be too much of a stretch of league rules (for those interested in employing it, you simply put your fourth board on board one against STL, and then shift your other boards down one).

However, strangely enough, the big lineup didn’t really impress during week two. And then in week three, the unthinkable happened and Shulbathia lost with white. Throw in a few weeks of Olympiads, and the Yanks were no longer looking so high and mighty. And so we got stuck facing round three of the superlineup, no longer cocky, but focused, filled with venom rather than hubris. Not exactly the way we wanted to face them, especially not in the face of a two-match losing streak.

From the fourth board point of view, facing the Yanks is a peculiar experience. First of all, there’s the letdown that the rest of your team is facing GMs, and although the guy you’re playing has the same name as one of the GMs, he isn’t a GM himself. So everybody’s really amped up to play up and you find yourself playing the lowest rated opponent you’ve ever played in the USCL.

Then there’s the pressure. And it’s not normal pressure as when you’re playing an comparable opponent in a match-up that could mean the playoffs (see all boards, SF vs. SEA, for example), but the weird pressure where everyone on your team tells you that you’re going to win. And you can’t even think about how bad it’ll be for your team if you don’t. But going into a chess game thinking either “I’m going to win,” or “I have to win,” is somewhat disastrous. The former shuts down your brain and the second leads you to unfathomably aggressive and bizarre decisions.

So, as I sat across from the Panda, chewing on a Cliff Bar and preparing to get serious, I realized that I needed a new mindset. And I determined that I should not try to win. I was just going to play chess. If for some reason my position got good, I was going to be happy and convert it, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way to do this. Looking back on it, I wouldn’t say that this is an amazing game plan, but I needed to do something to focus on the chess rather than the pressure.

So, to get to the chess: according to little Finegold’s blog, (which is notable for its crass attack on the Mechanic’s Institute, but there’s no accounting for the tastes of youth [just look at the brainwashed fans of Hanson, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber over the years as evidence]), he did not expect the ol’ “best-by-test” e-pawn surprise. Now, I know that I have a lot of queenpawn games in databases, but I’d played 1. e4 against Shankar (that game’s another story: I haven’t beaten a player whose name begins with “Shank” since 2004), and I figured that I would only get one game of surprise value out of it. It probably doesn’t matter, since I had been counting on 3… Bf5 and was out of book by move five myself.

The game proceeded rather normally, and as a French player, I kept expecting black to break with the f-pawn. He finally did, a few moves after I had thought he would, but he played 12… f6 instead of 12… f5, which allowed me to take on g6 and try to play against his queen bishop. This is probably fine, but I felt afterwards like I was still trying too hard to do something about the position. Remember, no winning attempts allowed!

By move seventeen I was stuck. Nothing concrete looked like it worked, and although my pieces were a little better, he had the bishop pair and was adequately covering his weaknesses. I calculated some stuff involving 17. ef, but realized that 17… gf was going to be an annoying response … black’s a little loose but his center and bishops are going to be in charge. Then 18. Nxe6 Re8 19. Nxd8 Rxe2 20. Nb7 Rxc2 is the stupid sort of stuff that you try when you are desperately under pressure to win. So I resolved to make pawn moves and rook moves and not do too much.

The other boards were not going particularly well at this point. H-Rod had trotted out a pretty stupid looking opening against the Panda, but white seemed to still have some pull in the endgame, as most of Josh’s pieces were guarding pawns or restricted by white’s structure. Danya had a position that looked similar to mine but with more aggressive chances, and then Steven … well, Steven’s position looked like he’d been letting big Finegold choose the moves for both sides. I had no idea how he’d gotten into such a mess until I saw 14. Nb5 after the match was over. Certainly not a game of the week candidate, but a pretty sick move nonetheless.

Back to my game on four, which I was certainly not delighting in. Little Finegold played a couple strong ideas on moves nineteen and twenty and appeared to be within the drawing range. My bishop was still more active and I had an outside passer, but the rooks were coming off the board on the queenside and it was going to be hard to win anything given black’s compact structure. Fortunately, my “wait till he blunders” strategy paid off after the unwise 25… g5 and the subsequent hang of the exchange. Then all it took was the invasion of the rooks (now the open queenside proved useful), and black resigned in light of 41… Ke7 42. Qxf7+!

Unfortunately, by this point, we had already lost the match, as Danya had come through, shaking his head after forcing a perpetual. And that’s the trouble with playing the Yankees: they get a couple quick wins on boards 1-3 and whoever is left has to choose between pragmatism (those extra tiebreak points could be big) and desperation. Anyway, we go into the final two matches under even more pressure than before, but with some pretty clutch players out there. I wouldn’t count us out yet.

A Very Old Post From Week Three That No One Is Likely to Read

2010-10-16T13:24:00.001-07:00

Well, that’s not really the way we drew it up in practice. Seriously; I mean, I left my preparation on move two, which isn’t very surprising, but makes me feel like I should just get a good night’s sleep and show up at the match alert and awake. The excuse, “Honey, I can’t do the dishes, I’ve got a couple more variations to look at,” doesn’t carry as much weight when you have a three minute think on your third move.

Perhaps the only person with more wrecked opening prep was my opponent, although I haven’t asked him; I was simply surprised to see him sink into thought even earlier than me (move two!). For a long time I was only a queenpawn player; I’ve since tried to teach myself 1.e4, with mixed success. Still, I’m guessing that most of my available games start with the queenpawn.

To continue: my opponent from the Windy City played 2… g6 and I was a bit flummoxed, as I had been expecting a Najdorf. I considered playing casually with 3. c3, but then remembered that this had already been played in the league (the day before, in fact, in the game Costigan-Williams [see, it does pay to follow the league outside of your personal team affiliations]). I hadn’t much liked Costigan’s position after he took on d5, although it’s probably fine, so I tried to recall half-remembered variations and thought that there was one that involved moving the queen a bunch of times. I couldn’t find anything wrong with it and decided to give it a shot.

Around here I took a minute to wander and observe the rest of the team, or Dima and the Ninos, as I affectionately call them. Daniel’s game amused me: I found it a bit ironic that a guy who writes a book called Mastering Positional Chess goes out and plays some sort of an Austrian Attack with Bg5 thrown in for good measure. When’s Mastering Angry Caveman Chess coming out? The position after 9. Qxf3 reminded me of the comment about a similar recapture in My 60 Memorable Games: black doesn’t really slow down white’s development, because as soon as he takes the knight the queen replaces it. Definitely the sort of position I enjoy.

The other boards (where Chicago had white) were looking a little dicey. Chicago apparently went with a very specific strategic game plan: 1) lure opponent’s pawn to f5, 2) break with g4, 3) obtain extremely strong positional advantage. The Dmitry v. Dmitry matchup concerned me the most, as after 9. gf gf, white is two moves from castling queenside while black is not close to completing his development.

I was relatively happy with my game after 11. Ng5, which I felt offered me good attacking chances despite being quite double-edged. Although the potential discovery on the queen from the Bb7 is annoying, it works both ways, as now black cannot reply 11… Nxe5 and must find another way to cover f7. My opponent decided that castling was an unacceptable risk, and we continued 11… Ne6 12. h4 Rb8 13. Bd5 (I was not happy
about this move after the game, but I felt that the alternatives were speculative) 13… b4 14. Ne2 Nxg5 15. Bxg5 h6, and after a quick search, I tried to bail out with 16. Bf6.

A quick survey showed that we weren’t in Dallas or Miami any more. Daniel was still fine on two, although Felecan’s … f6 had broken the center phalanx. The real problem was on boards one and three. Gurevich had just played 15. Ne5, the kind of angry move that gets in your face as says, “Yo! Hand over the dark squares.” I was sort of horrified to see Dima accede to this request by taking twice on e5, and playing … Qh2. However, I see the logic: if your position is crummy, you can always grab a pawn and hope for the best. But given white’s position, what black had to hope for was a little limited. Heart attack? Massive nationwide internet failure? All of the above?

Stephen’s position seemed more weird than bad by this point. As he was playing on his laptop in the corner of the room, I could only see his screen from a weird angle, and although I could see that there were three e-pawns, I wasn’t completely sure whose they were. I figured one of them must be his. Wrong! I mean, take a lot at this thing after 20… Ke7! So, he’s down two pawns, but it’s not at all clear what white’s supposed to do with them. I had a brief flashback of a game where I had three extra e-pawns again Larry Christiansen – unfortunately, I had sacrificed a piece to get them and promptly resigned.

Back to my game, definitely feeling like I needed to win. Shankar continued to feel that discretion is the better part of valor, playing 16… Bxf6. After 17. ef e6 I had a brief vision of 18. Qf4 ed 19. Qd6 Rc8 20. Rh3, but 20… d4 kills it. White just cannot prepare the attack and keep the queen on d6 at the same time. So I continued bailing out, but by the time black played 22… Kf8 I realized I was in some trouble. Now my planned 23. Qxa7 Kg7 24. Qc7 Bb5 25. Rxd6 Qf5 26. Re1 loses to 26… Qf5, so I played 24. Kb1 and tried to hold things together.

About this point Dima’s game fell apart and he had to resign after a smooth mating attack. Felecan kept finding ways to liquidate the position and Daniel took a perpetual in the endgame. Stephen’s game looked as weird and strange as it had for the past hundred moves or so. Interestingly, it was turning out that the tripled e-pawns were crippling white’s winning chances, as he much rather would have had his king on e4 than a pawn.

So the pressure was on. Fortunately, despite my positional problems, Shankar was pretty low on the clock (if there’s one thing you can say, good or bad about the USCL, it produces some entertaining time scrambles), and he blundered a pawn with 27… Ba4 28. b3 Bc6 29. Nd3. One pawn became two, and I breathed a big sigh of relief. Oops.

A quick digression: two weeks ago, against Dallas, I had been happily finishing off the end of summer vacation. But now, two weeks into the school year, the names of 150 kids memorized (to the loss of countless opening variations), I was not in prime chess condition. I had tried to play in the CalChess Labor Day tournament the previous weekend and found out that: 1) I was so tired that I needed to be up more than 4 points of material to win a game, 2) that it’s hard to win an endgame without pawns, and 3) that when the end of your combination involves moving a rook to a square that is attacked you should resign and probably withdraw from the tournament.

So although I was happy with my two pawn edge, I probably shouldn’t have gotten too relaxed. After the sneaky 44… Rb2, I played the boneheaded 45. Re4 only to be shocked by 45… Rexb3+, a move which I had been considering in another variation only a few moves before. Calm down, I told myself, you’re probably still winning. I played a couple more quick moves, watched my opponent play 48… f5, and thought to myself, “That’s stupid, I just play 49. gf gf 50. Kc4 Re3 51. Rxf5 and he doesn’t get my h-pawn.” Then it hit me: 49. gf g5! and I can’t stay on the f-file.

I played the rest of the game pretty shell-shocked, and Shankar held the draw easily. Stephen made a valiant effort, but he was working from a pretty tough starting point. And so we lost our first match of the season. Chicago should be congratulated for playing two outstanding matches in a row; they were extremely solid this week, offering us very few chances to score cheap victories. Let’s hope for a better result against Seattle next week.

Taking the Draw

2010-09-17T14:22:00.000-07:00

by IM David Pruess

Not only do I not offer, or make a lot, of draws, but I am not offered draws very often. So the other night, as I was playing in the SF Mechanics match against the Miami Sharks, it came as quite a shock to me when my opponent, GM Renier Gonzalez, offered me a draw in the following position.

My first thought was that we must be doing badly on other boards-- because I thought my opponent was doing quite well, and we were the only board in the match where Miami held a significant rating advantage. So maybe they were doing so well on the other boards that he wanted to solidify the match score by making sure of a half point from our game. But after quickly checking the other boards, they were about as I had last seen them: about balanced. My outlook on my own position was a bit pessimistic, because my opponent had just recently played a move that I had not expected, and which disrupted my sense of where the game was heading:

It's natural to feel an aura of pessimism after this kind of event, even if it has not changed the evaluation too much. Of course, in the game, you don't know how much it should have changed the evaluation, so it's not so obvious if the position has really gotten much worse, or if you are under the influence of your emotions. The answer to that problem, as usual in chess, is to do some work and figure out what's actually going on in the position.

But on this day, the unpleasant turn of events was swiftly followed by this draw offer. My confidence was what was being questioned, and honestly I had not been at all confident going into this game. At some point, I could sit down to a game opposite the U.S. Champion expecting I'd probably brutalize him; but the past year or so, I often go into games with a "realistic" assessment that my opponent is stronger than I am, or at least with a distinct and unpleasant awareness of my own weaknesses. Before this match, I had felt that I was the most likely to blow the match of anyone on our team... and I had been nervous about the game for a couple days. Did not sleep well the night before. During opening preparations, every position I reached did not seem good enough to me. (note: when you are really confident, you are more easily satisfied while preparing "oh yeah, if I get this position, I'll be able to take it from here;" whereas when you are unconfident, you need to see a really good evaluation or a position that perfectly suits you to feel you have looked far enough). I had trouble getting out of bed that day, and felt like I was dragging with everything I did.

This could also be because the last time I played this same opponent, I had an overwhelming position, with, in addition, few losing chances, but managed to blow it and even lose. That could have contributed to my lack of confidence against him: I knew that getting a good position against him was at best the start of the battle. And if I ever did not have a good position, I'd really feel pessimistic about my chances. Especially since I knew that generally, I might be better in the opening, equal in the middlegame, and worse in the endgame. So as the game advanced, if I wasn't doing really well, my chances of being outplayed would just be increasing.

Now, in terms of team match strategy, it's a bit unusual to offer a draw at a stage in the game where both players have about 30 minutes left. It gives you the opportunity to wait, holding on to the draw possibility, and judge how the games on the other boards go, then decide if your team needs a draw or a win. I examined the three remaining games carefully: they seemed about balanced. However, I was quite confident in our young boards 3 and 4, Daniel Naroditsky and Yian Liou, being stronger than their opponents. So after I calculated a bit and realized that GM Patrick Wolff was holding a draw with black against GM Becerra on board 1, I realized that a draw would just put the match in the hands of the two kids, and that was a safe place to put it. I felt uncomfortable sitting around waiting in case of a change (seemed too gimmicky to me, and rude to the opponent) so I agreed to a draw.

If it had been an individual event, I knew for sure I wouldn't have taken the draw. Even if I slightly disliked my position (which I did), I would have played on in order to make myself suffer for not having played incisively enough in the earlier part of the game. But the USCL is a different ball game: you are partly there to play your chess, but you are also there to try to help your teammates score 2.5 points out of 4 every day. For me at least, that always takes priority in a USCL match.

The match followed my expectations: the Becerra-Wolff game followed a short forced sequence I had expected, and soon ended in a draw:

Yian Liou's position was totally equal but he had 40 minutes against 1. He moved back and forth for a long time, and eventually his opponent blundered into the c3 idea to win the blockaded isolated pawn. (The position was equal because white's c2 pawn was just about as weak as black's d4 pawn. In these positions, in order to defend it's important to place your pieces attacking c2, NOT defending d4).

And Daniel Naroditsky played gloriously, as he had the week before, and became our team's early-season MVP. Good dynamic strategic chess:

This of course confirmed for me that I had probably made the right decision in taking the draw. However, I could not shake the bad feelings off. I still felt like my draw was a lie, and I had lost the game, but had the result masked by my opponent's mercy. While thinking a few minutes during the game, I had been planning that if I needed to keep playing, my move would have to be Nd2, hanging the d4 pawn, with the tactical idea of Nxd4 Ndb1 opening the queen on the d-file and winning back the d5-pawn. But I had not analyzed the move out very precisely because of all the emotions. And without an analysis I was convinced of, I had a bad instinct about this plan-- it felt like the kind of plan that has a hole in it. I would have collapsed and lost in a few minutes if the game had go on, the thought kept nagging me.

Finally, on Friday, I had a little time (an hour) to prepare myself for the California State Championships starting the next day. Played a couple blitz games against 1200 rated opponents-- nope, that's anti-prep, cut it out, David. Solved a few tactics trainer problems. Ok, good. Now, how about just a short bit of serious analysis. I pulled out our beautiful chess board, and set up the final position again. Time to test my idea!

I was very happy to find that I was doing well. I no longer felt like a complete schlump for the moves I had made earlier in the game. A weight slipped off my shoulders, and I went back to work.

My analysis pgns did not copy over here, so if you want to see them, they are here: http://blog.chess.com/SFMechanics/taking-the-draw

Life Imitates Chess Imitates Baseball

2010-08-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

It’s become rather clichéd to blame sporting obsessions for distracting certain players during major chess tournaments. Short draws are attributed to a player’s desire to retire to the hotel bar to watch the latest soccer or cricket match. I’ve never quite understood this phenomenon; despite being a rather passionate baseball fan, I’ve never found chess and sports to interfere much with one another.

That said, some friends of mine from Cincinnati had purchased tickets to the Giants-Reds day game on Wednesday, and I went with them to engage in one of life’s purest pleasures, trash taking. The Giants, as I’ve come to expect, were down 10-1 by the third inning, and I was wishing that I could go back home across the bay, which I might have done had I not been in the USCL lineup that evening. My Cincy buddies were enjoying themselves immensely and trying to get me to drink beer; perhaps they were Dallas Destiny fans as well. I ignored them politely and hand some garlic fries and a lemonade.

Anyway, since I’m sure at some point you want to get to the chess, the Giants came back and took an 11-10 lead, only to blow the lead in the ninth and go into extra innings. (Doesn’t blowing a one run lead feel a lot like going into a pawn up ending and hanging the extra pawn?) And so we slogged on … tenth inning, eleventh. And at some point I realized that we were getting close to 5 o’clock, and it was going to take me a good 20 minutes to exit the stadium and bike on over to the Mechanics’ Institute. And there I am, sunburned, hoarse from screaming, bloated from garlic fries, trying to read an opening book in the upper deck while Barry Zito is giving up screaming line drives.

I ended up leaving before the game was over, proving that the expected disapproving tut-tutting from team captain John Donaldson was more frightening than the baseball game was enticing. I somehow managed to switch my baseball-addled mind over to chess mode, switched off the auto-queen feature on Blitzen, indulged in a few garlic heavy burps, and settled in for an evening of chess.

The opening in my game was moving at a nice molassesy speed, so I had ample opportunity early on to wander about and annoy my teammates by looking over their shoulders. Patrick had some sort of Sicilian on Board 1 – he was down a pawn but his knights were everywhere but his opponent’s bishop was strong but Patrick’s queen was centralized … anyway, that was about the time I decided to stop looking at his game (since I didn’t have a clue what was happening) and just go based on his facial expressions. Did glasses off mean that he had traded queens? Did rubbing his eyes mean that he was unhappy or just sleepy? Tough to tell.

Danya’s game on board two stressed me out even more. You know it’s a bad sign when you’re thinking about the other guy’s game: “Hey, that guy’s opening looks pretty strong; I might start playing 1.d4 again just so I can play it!” I mean, who can resist playing g4 at some point in every queen pawn opening?

(Bercys-Naroditsky after 14.Rg1; I am perturbed by white's kingside formation)

My assessment of Steven’s game on board three was also based on gut reactions. When he was down an exchange, I was a little sad for him. When he won the exchange back again, I was happy. When he was down the exchange again, well, you can guess how I felt. (Besides feeling that either I was insane and he had never won the exchange back in the first place or that these guys had missed the chess lesson where they tell you about how the castles are worth five and the pointy ones and the horseys are three apiece.)

My game, fortunately, was rather clear cut. White cannot be happy about taking on d5 and breaking up his ideal center; however, he tried to justify the decision by hanging on to the d5 pawn. This idea, 10.Qb3, appears to have been the critical mistake, since after 10… Nf5 white cannot castle: 11.00 Bxf3 12.Bxf3 Nxd4 with a terrible discovered check coming.

(Lopez-Lee after 10.Qb3 and Nf5; the d4 pawn is quite weak)

After 11.Ne5 Nxd4 12.Qd1 Bf5 my pieces swarmed in: 13.Bd3 Re8 14.Kf1 Qh4 15.Be3 f6, although white avoided a couple of checkmates: one unlucky line was 16.Nf3 Bxd3+ 17.Qxd3 Nxf3 18.Bxb6 Re1+ 19.Rxe1 Qxe1#. He instead played 16.Bxf5 Nxf5 17.Bxb6 axb6, but then had to avoid 18.Nf3 Ne3+ 19.Kg1 Nxd1 20.Nxh4 Re1#. Nevertheless, the result was never really in doubt.

(Lopez-Lee analysis; a checkmate that remained hidden in the wings)

Steven had already drawn by the time I was finished (after a nifty display of tactics from both sides), and Danya had exerted his will through some magical pawn sacrifice on g4 that involved trading his bad pieces, activating his good ones, stopping the kingside attack, and crippling his opponent’s pawn structure. A neat rook penetration lead to zugzwang and victory.

Somehow Patrick also pulled out his game, although he mentioned that it probably wouldn’t make his best games collection. He was kicking himself for not playing 18.Nxd6 at the critical moment.

(Wolff-Wang: the critical moment after black's 17th)

Then 18… Qxd6 19.Nf6+ is ugly, and 18… Bxd5 19.Qxe5 Ne4 20.Nf5 is devastating. But then Danya suggested 18… Ne4, which, besides being aesthetically pleasing, is also a hell of a move. (Or so it appeared last night, feel free to bash holes in it with your electronic devices.)

One other wild moment from Patrick’s game: our trusty TD Payam Tanaka suggested that instead of 46.Rxb4 that Patrick could have played 46.c6.

(Wolff-Wang after 45... Nd7)

I brilliantly pointed out that white’s rook is hanging and that there might be more important things to do than to play pawn moves, to which Payam said 46… Nxb8 47.c7! Oops! So then I tried to take the knight (if nothing else, I can take a hanging piece when I see one). But 46… Rxd4 47.c7! However, black can weasel out of it now: 47… Nb6 48.Rxb6 Rc4. And in the light of day, I also see that 46… Rxc6 47.Nxc6 Nxb8 is a clever line as well, since 48.Nxb8 b3 turns the tables. Oh well … just like some baseball comebacks (the Giants lost 12-11 in 12 innings), some variations just aren’t quite meant to work out, no matter how beautiful they appear.

A loss in the semi-finals to Miami

2009-11-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

Sic transit gloria mundi. Just after everything seemed to be coming together after defeating Arizona last week we collapsed in the semi-finals against Miami. The final score is not indicative of the one-sidedness of the match, one of the worst defeats the Mechanics' has ever been administered.

San Francisco 1.5 - 2.5 Miami

1. GM Jesse Kraai (SF) vs GM Julio Becerra (MIA) 1/2-1/2
2. IM Blas Lugo (MIA) vs GM Vinay Bhat (SF) 0-1
3. IM David Pruess (SF) vs IM Alejandro Moreno Roman (MIA) 0-1
4. NM Eric Rodriguez (MIA) vs NM Yian Liou (SF) 1-0

The opening here was a bit of a surprise as GM Becerra usually favors the Slav and King's Indian but Jesse's treatment of these openings ( dxe5 and cxd5) may have persuaded him to try something more active. At any rate his use of the Grunfeld quickly paid dividends. Jesse could have and maybe should have played 15.Bd3 planning Nc5 with a solid position where he wouldn't stand worse. Instead he lashed out with 15.f4. Maybe he could have salvaged his position with the computer like 18.Bf3 Qb6 19.Rd3 Rfe8 20.Rb3. He definitely was on the road to defeat after 18.Rd4.The half point at the end was just a gift to clinch the match for Miami.

Kraai,J (2552) - Becerra,J (2615) [D85]
USCL San Francisco vs Miami Internet Chess Club (12), 16.11.2009

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Bd2 Nb6 6.Nf3 Bg7 7.e3 0-0 8.Be2 Nc6 9.0-0 e5 10.Nxe5 Nxe5 11.dxe5 Bxe5 12.Qc2 c6 13.Rad1 Be6 14.Ne4 Bf5 15.f4 Bg7 16.Bc3 Nd5 17.Bxg7 Kxg7 18.Rd4 Qb6 19.Qd2 Bxe4 20.Rxe4 Rae8 21.Qd4+ Qxd4 22.Rxd4 Nxe3 23.Rf2 Rd8 24.Re4 Rfe8 25.Rxe8 Rxe8 26.Bf3 Nc4 27.Rc2 Nb6 28.Kf2 h5 29.Rd2 Re7 30.Rd8 Na4 31.b3 Nc3 32.a4 Ne4+ 33.Bxe4 Rxe4 34.g3 a5 35.Kf3 Rb4 36.Rd3 c5 37.Ke3 b6 38.Rc3 Kf6 39.h3 Ke6 40.g4 hxg4 41.hxg4 g5 42.fxg5 1/2-1/2

This game was the only bright spot for the Mechanics'. Vinay equalized out of the opening and when Blas chose 21.Nh2 instead of 21.Nf2 he was better and steadily increased his advantage and could have finished off in fine style with 33...Nf4! followed by ...g5. Instead things got ragged ( 35...Ng5? instead of 35...Nc5) and with 37.Bg4 White would have been equal - instead 37.Bd4?? lost on the spot.

Lugo,B (2351) - Bhat,V (2504) [C55]
USCL San Francisco vs Miami Internet Chess Club (12), 16.11.2009

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 Be7 5.Nc3 d6 6.a4 0-0 7.0-0 Bg4 8.h3 Bh5 9.Be3 Qd7 10.Nd5 Nxd5 11.Bxd5 Bg6 12.Nh2 Nd8 13.f4 exf4 14.Bxf4 Ne6 15.Be3 c6 16.Ba2 d5 17.exd5 cxd5 18.Qf3 Rfd8 19.Ng4 Qd6 20.Rae1 h5 21.Nh2 Bf6 22.Qf2 Be5 23.Nf3 Bg3 24.Qd2 Bxe1 25.Rxe1 Rac8 26.c3 Qa6 27.Ne5 Bh7 28.Bb3 f6 29.Nf3 Bxd3 30.Qf2 Bg6 31.Nh4 Be4 32.Bxa7 Re8 33.Bb6 Rc6 34.a5 Qb5 35.Bd1 Ng5 36.Bxh5 Re5 37.Bd4 Nxh3+ 38.gxh3 Rxh5 0-1

The famous game Steinitz-Zuckertort, London 1872, saw 8...Bc5 but IM Moreno Roman's seems quite playable as well. Maybe White had to try Rybka's suggestion of 10.g3 fxg3 11.Bg2 gxh2 12.Kf1. Instead David, who was working everything out over the board, played 10.Qe1 as seen in Chigorin-Mortimer, Paris 1900. Black's 10...Bxf3+ was a substantial improvement over 10...Re8+ as played by Mortimer and White never had a chance.

Pruess,D (2418) - Moreno Roman,A (2331) [C25]
USCL San Francisco vs Miami Internet Chess Club (12), 16.11.2009

1.e4 e5 2.f4 Nc6 3.Nc3 exf4 4.d4 Qh4+ 5.Ke2 d5 6.Nf3 Bg4 7.exd5 0-0-0 8.dxc6 Nf6 9.cxb7+ Kb8 10.Qe1 Bxf3+ 11.gxf3 Re8+ 12.Ne4 Qh5 13.Kf2 Nxe4+ 14.Kg1 Bb4 15.Qxb4 Qxf3 16.Qe1 Ng3 0-1 White forfeits on time

Yian was doing fine here ( and had a 50 minute advantage on the clock) but he should have played either 17...Nh5 18.Nxe5 Bxe5 19.Bd3 Be6 or 19...e4 with equal chances. Instead allowing White to capture on f5 and play e4 quickly led to an untenable position.

Rodriguez,E (2290) - Liou,Y (2149) [A85]
USCL San Francisco vs Miami Internet Chess Club (12), 16.11.2009

1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 d6 4.Bg5 Nbd7 5.Qc2 g6 6.h4 h6 7.Bd2 e5 8.dxe5 Nxe5 9.0-0-0 Be6 10.Nh3 Qd7 11.b3 0-0-0 12.Nf4 Bf7 13.f3 Bg7 14.e3 g5 15.hxg5 hxg5 16.Rxh8 Bxh8 17.Nd3 Bg6 18.Nxe5 dxe5 19.g4 Qh7 20.gxf5 Bxf5 21.e4 Bd7 22.Bxg5 Qh5 23.Qd2 c6 24.Be2 Qf7 25.Qe3 b6 26.c5 b5 27.Rd6 Rg8 28.Bxb5 cxb5 29.c6 Bh3 30.Nxb5 a6 31.Rxf6 Qxf6 32.Bxf6 Bxf6 33.Qa7 1-0

Every team in the US Chess League is bit of a mystery to the rest. How they chose their lineups each week is based on insider information (who is in town, who is healthy, who is good form) that no scouting report is likely to predict, but this season much of the league might have guessed the Mechanics' were playing musical chairs. Seven of the ten players on the roster made trips to Europe during the season, some for prolonged periods. This was not fully anticipated when assembling the team roster and at times we were down to four eligible players ( i.e.. the court of last resort - Donaldson goes into the lineup). The plan was to field two of our four GMs, put Sam Shankland and his 2550 USCF rating on three, and 2300 strength NM Yian Liou on four.

The potential of this plan was shown the first four weeks of the season when we got off to a hot start with 3.5 from 4 including 3-1 wins over Dallas and Miami. Then we lost Sam who went to Europe in search of his last GM norm. Objectively speaking this was a serious loss as Sam's lifetime winning percentage in the league is over 80 percent. This meant the Mechanics' had gone from one of the most dangerous teams in the league to merely a good one. The change was immediately apparent as the team stumbled drawing only one of its next three matches to hover barely over 50 percent. Then came a good comeback with two consecutive wins and a draw to get the second seed in the West. A victory over Arizona left us only two matches short of the goal and with Sam back for the final match ( but Josh and Vinay out of town for the December 5 final) , but it was not to be as we lost to a Miami team that fully deserved their win

All things considered tying for third in the 14-team league ( + 6, -3, =3) was a respectable finish even if we still dream of what might have been. None of the successes we enjoyed would have been possible without team MVP Yian Liou. Before the start of the season David Pruess and I were uncertain how to put together the roster. Sam Shankland and Daniel Naroditsky were both substantially high rated than the year before. Many of our GMs were likely to be unavailable at different stages of the season so we knew there were few spots we could afford for board four. Greg Young, had played well in years past, and did again this season ( 2-0 !), but demanding high school academics and basketball met he could only play a few matches. Also his rating was too high to allow the two GM plus Sam lineup. Enter Yian Liou.

NM Michael Aigner, who has worked with so many of the promising young players to come up through the Bay Area ranks ( Shankland, Naroditsky, Zierk, Young, Schwarz, etc...) wrote to David and I telling us we should check out this 12-year-old kid from Walnut Creek who just might do the trick. This proved to be a slight understatement. Yian scored 6.5 from 10 for a performance rating that was over 2400 until the final match. He not only performed excellently and was extremely durable ( no one else on the team played more than 7 matches) , he did it with an assessed rating of 2019! That's good value.

Two other players came up big during the season. Former US Champion Patrick Wolff scored 2.5 from 4 for a performance rating well over 2600. He and Vinay Bhat stepped into the lineup the second half of the season replacing European bound GMs Josh Friedel and Jesse Kraai who had been struggling. Josh has been a steady performer for the MI in the USCL over the years but 2009 is a season I am sure he would rather forget with 1.5 from 5, his only win straight from theory. Jesse's final score of 3 from 6 was good for a 2500 performance but a little deceptive as it includes a gift half point from Becerra and scrapping out the bottom of the barrel for a draw and win respectively against Krush and Felecan in the regular season. Both Josh and Jesse are perfectionists who like to think which are not necessarily good qualities in the USCL where practical players reign supreme.

Daniel Naroditsky is also a perfectionist and for much of his USCL career has had a hard time. This season looked to promise more of the same as it started out with a pair of painful losses (particularly the one against Danny Rensch) but he really rose to the occasion the last part of the year. Filling in for Sam Shankland he scored an undefeated 3 from 4 down the stretch to play a key role in helping the team turn things around.

The future is uncertain for the Mechanics'. We lose IM (soon to be GM) Sam Shankland who will be attending Brandeis University next season but will have our young Tigers Daniel and Yian back plus a bunch of GMs and IMs, but how to squeeze them in under the rating cap? The quest will be on to find the missing link. Are there any Bay Area players rated 2000 on the September 2009 rating list that will be 2300 strength come next September? Let me know!

I would like to thank our loyal tournament director Payam Tanaka for performing his duties in exemplary fashion. Payam not only made sure all was proper and by the book but his statistical analysis of other teams was very useful in guessing lineups in advance. He also made sure no one suffered from low blood sugar by providing a steady supply of pastries and drinks. Thank Payam!

One of the reasons the MI has enjoyed the success it has is due to the cultivation of its junior talent. This season was no exception and I would like to thank Michael Aigner, Sam Shankland, David Pruess and Josh Friedel for helping Yian Liou prepare for his games throughout the season. Seeing Patrick Wolff patiently explaining the intricacies of an ending to Yian in a post mortem was watching the knowledge of a great player of the past being transferred to a future star right before my eyes. The hard work and willingness to share was greatly appreciated.

Semi-Finals

2009-11-13T09:50:00.001-08:00

US Chess League Semi-Finals

The first round of the playoffs produced plenty of surprises with only New Jersey's victory going more or less as predicted. Who would have thought Boston would have scored 1.5 points on the bottom boards (Matirisov came up big) but lose the match with draw odds. New York's tandem of Kachesvili and Charbonneau played very well. Fourth board Sean Finn was huge for New Jersey winning with Black in only his third USCL match against a higher-rated opponent.

New York's lineup is easy to guess: 1. GM Georgi Kacheishvili 2. GM Pascal Charbonneau 3. NM Matt Herman 4. SM Yaacov Norowitz, but New Jersey's is harder. Joel Benjamin will definitely be on first and Sean Finn has earned himself the spot on four after his nice win last week and 2.5 from 3 this season.

Who they will select on boards two and three is harder to say. One choice is a repeat of last week with rock solid Dean Ippolito on two and Mackenzie Molnar on three. The other option is GM Boris Gulko (8 for 8 in the league !) and Victor Shen who is 3 for 3 this season including a victory the opening week of the season against Herman.

Both approaches have merit for New Jersey which needs 2 points to advance. Assuming New Jersey chooses White on boards one and three (as they did last week) the first plan leaves them with a clear advantage on three but as underdogs on two and four. Using this lineup it might make sense to use the White pieces on two and four . Ippolito with White is very tough to beat (with Black as well!) and can hold Charboneau. Taking White on the even numbered boards would also give New Jersey White on board four where they face their greatest rating differential. Molner gets Black in this scenario but he is also the only Knockout with a sizeable rating advantage. Several time US Champion Joel Benjamin is known for playing very well with Black.

Going with Gulko and Shen changes the picture as with a second GM in the lineup they can go either way with the colors. Using these two players they measure up better on board two but lose some fire power on three.

Looking at the regular season matchups New Jersey defeated New York 2.5-1.5 in weeks 1 and 4. Both times Kacheishvili and Benjamin drew on board one while Ippolito (as White) and Gulko defeated Charbonneau. It's definitely not easy to beat Pascal twice in one season. Molner and Shen both defeated Herman on three while Norowitz won both of his games on board four but not again Finn. The key for New Jersey is to keep on doing what they have done in the two previous matches - they might possibly get extra help on board four. New York would seem like it has to win four and a draw on three would definitely have them looking good. One thing is pretty clear - New Jersey will have to win at least one game to advance as 2-2 matches with all games drawn are really rare in the USCL.

Last minute notice - I just noticed New Jersey took White on one and three. Accordingly I expect Gulko and Shen to be playing and not Ippolito and Molner..

While the East pits a veteran team (New York has been to the playoffs all five years) against a playoff newcomer, the West is a much different story. The Miami Sharks and SF Mechanics' have a long rivalry dating back to the beginning of the league. The competitiveness of the two teams can be measured by the 6-5 lifetime score in San Francisco's favor. Both teams have enjoyed success The Mechanics' won the league title in 2006 while Miami was second in 2005. The M.I. well remembers being eliminated twice by Miami in 2005 and 2007 - both times by 2.5-1.5.

The two teams featured much different lineups in their week three and six matches this season (the Mechanics won the first 3-1 and the second was a draw) with the only players participating in both of them Julio Becerra, Jesse Kraai and Yian Liou. The semi-final match will see more personnel seeing action.

Miami has an assortment of riches starting with first board Julio Becerra. It would be hard to think of a better person to build a team around than the many time league MVP and first board-first team all star. Miami has three formidable number twos (the team scored 75 percent on this board the regular season) in Marcel Martinez, Bruci Lopez and Blas Lugo. The first two are younger and higher rated but the veteran Lugo has come through for them in the clutch, his performance against Seattle last week yet another example. Young master Eric Rodriguez has been very dependable doing double duty on boards three or four.

The lineup that Miami is using this round:

GM Julio Becerra
IM Blas Lugo
IM Alejandro Moreno Roman
NM Eric Rodriguez

has been their most effective this season. They tied Tennessee (Week 4)and beat Carolina (Week 5),Arizona (Week 10), and Seattle (Week 11)with it. Curiously it is only their ninth highest rated combination, but it works well as they are very competitive on all four boards.

The Mechanics' are countering with:

GM Jesse Kraai
GM Vinay Bhat
IM David Pruess
NM Yian Liou

The MI, finishing second in the Western Division to Miami's fourth, not only has draw odds, but got to chose colors selecting White on board one and three. Selecting White against Julio Becerra seems a prudent choice and it will be interesting to see how Jesse's scientific technical/positional style plays out against Becerra who can do everything but likes to mix things up whenever possible.

Board two will be a matchup between Blas Lugo, who does double duty as both a player and captain for the Sharks, and the Mechanics' Vinay Bhat. Here the MI will have a substantial rating advantage but Lugo is a very experienced and dependable team player who will benefit from having White.

Two IMs will meet on three. David Pruess of the Mechanics'has some rating advantage and the White pieces. Alejandro Moreno Roman had trouble showing his true strength in the USCL until the last two weeks when he put together back to back wins against Robby Adamson and Michael Lee.

Last, but certainly not least, two of the league's premier board fours meet. NM Eric Rodriguez of Miami and Yian Liou of San Francisco have turned in almost identical performances this season with the former scoring 7 from 10 and the latter 6.5 from 9, both with performance ratings around 2400.

This is a harder match to predict than that between New York and New Jersey as neither team has White and a huge rating advantage on any board (Rodriguez is currently 2320 to Liou's 2226 but the latter has played well over 2300 his last three events increasing his rating 87 points in just 17 games.

Past history says it will be close, no more than 2.5-1.5 for either team, and having draw odds might just be useful this time around.

This will be a tough match for the Mechanics' and we will need to play our absolute best.

2009-11-09T14:36:00.000-08:00

The regular season and playoffs are always two different things in the US Chess League. Winning the regular season requires consistency. Four board matches and a 2400 rating cap require bringing the strongest possible lineup to each match, week after week. Depth and availability are where it's at.

The playoffs are different. Here all you need is one good lineup . Yes there are perks that go with having a stellar regular season in having draw odds and getting to choose colors, but the margin for error is small so every team has a fighting chance - just some more than others.

Boston - New York

The rivalry between New York and Boston is one of the highlights of any USCL season and this match should only add to the tradition. This year the teams met only once at the end of the regular season with little at stake - Boston won 2.5-1.5. Looking at their records the Blitz would seem to be a clear favorite but that does not take into account two factors. The first is that New York, as in the past, had trouble putting together consistent lineups during the regular season and the second is the Norowitz factor.

Looking at the top two boards for each team the predicted result would be 1-1. All four players are strong experienced GMs and its likely they will balance each other out. The pairing on board three was a surprise for me. Matt Herman was to be expected for New York. He has been a fixture in their lineup this season, playing against higher opposition with reasonable results, which enables NY to utilize its Norowitz factor on board four.

Vadim Martirosov has been an important role player for Boston for several seasons but the question that has to be asked is where is IM Marc Esserman? The rating cap means that teams that want to have outstanding results need to consistently play well above their ratings (a tough trick to pull off - think Carolina in 2008) or they need to have a substantially underrated player (someone who showed significant rating improvement the past year. Usually such a player is a kid and a fit for board four. Esserman has morphed into a strong IM and would have given Boston a definite edge on three. Unfortunantely for Boston, for Esserman to fit into the lineup with the two GMs it means Expert Andrew Wang would have to play on board four. Which combination - Esserman-Wang or Matirisov-Krasik, would yield more points, is a tough call. Esserman's absence means board three is a pick-em.

This now leads us to board four where New York reveals its not so secret weapon Yaacov Norowitz, the likely reason Esserman was not included in the Boston lineup. Presently rated 2431 but counting for only 2212 Norowitz is about 90 percent fast twitch muscle fiber and a true product of the ICC. He has not lost a game in scoring 6 from 8 this season but has not been as dominating as the rating differentials would have suggested. Norowitz's positional skills are still catching up to his considerable tactical ability and at times this season he seems to have been at a loss what to with his often considerable advantages on the clock. His opponent, Ilya Krasik, a USCL playoff veteran (this is Norowitz's first season), has been playing well this year and will have White so another tossup.

Boston should have just enough firepower to advance to the next round in their quest to make it to the finals for the third year running.

Boston 2 - New York 2

New Jersey - Baltimore

This looks like a total mismatch on paper as the playoff team with the best season record (New Jersey) faces the only team that with a losing record ( Baltimore). Don't bet heavily on New Jersey if you have to give any odds. The Knockouts had a phenomenal regular season and they did it in interesting fashion with tremendous scoring on the top three boards with several time US Champion Joel Benjamin holding down board one ( 5/9) followed by GM Boris Gulko ( 5/5 !), IM Dean Ippolito (3.5/5), IM Albert Kapengut (2/2 !) and NM Victor Shen ( 3/3 !). The first half of the season New Jersey had terrible problems on board 4 scoring 1 from 5 but using a platoon system the second half of the season turned things around big time scoring 4.5 from the last 5 matches.

Unlike Seattle that has a clear maximum lineup ( 1.Nakamura 2. Serper 3.Lee 4.Chen) New Jersey doesn't have anything quite comparable. Playing their big frontline of Benjamin, Gulko and Ippolito leaves only Anna Matlin or Arthur Shen eligible for board four. Both are young improving Experts, and New Jersey might go with a lineup including them in a later round, but for the moment the manager for the Knockouts has opted to go for a more balanced approach which could be called the law of 200 rating points, the same law the Boston manager is following this round. Basically this law calls for not giving up more than 200 rating points on any board - to try to preserve realistic possibilities to win any matchup. Of course this is the USCL and anything can happen in any match, and even more so in any individual game, but past performance factors in somewhere along the line.

Baltimore has a tough regular season but look at how they match up. Board one is strong GM versus strong GM. Joel has White so give New Jersey a slight edge though note Sergey Erenburg has yet to lose a match this season . Board two Tegshuren Enkhbat is solid and experienced as is Dean Ippolito and a draw the normal result between these two players. Board three is likely where New Jersey is counting on Molnar to come through strongly with White. He will likely need to as 21-year-old Expert Sean Finn, with only two USCL matches under his belt, faces a stiff challenge in Tsagaan Battsetseg who plays much better with White and is a tested USCL playoff veteran.

New Jersey advances 2.5 - 1.5.

Seattle - Miami

Once again this looks like another mismatch with Miami out rated by almost 100 points a board. Seattle has come to the playoffs with one of the highest rated lineups in the history of the league. This is the second time this season that Seattle has unveiled it's fearsome foursome. The first time out New York went 2-2 with Charbonneau beating Serper on board two as White. This time Seattle, with both draw odds and the choice of colors in the first round, elected to take Black on first board giving Serper White.

Seattle could take of business by winning on the first two boards but 2400 Michael Lee and 2200 NM Howard Chen aim to help the case. Lee, who gained his SM title this past summer, is a tremendous talent, but has not enjoyed great success in the USCL in his four seasons. Miami will definitely be going after him and Chen on board four. The latter is a mystery for USCL fans as a high school tennis matches limited him to only two regular season matches. Facing him on board four is NM Eric Rodriguez who had a fine regular season (6.5 from 9 for a 2420 performance).

Its easy to figure out scenarios where Seattle wins - for Miami it is a bit trickier. Clearly Lugo as Black is a serious underdog against Serper but he will do what he can. Should he pick up a half point Seattle might be in trouble. Moreno has played little this season but came through against Adamson in the last round of the regular season and he has White. Should he and Rodriguez both win anything is possible. More realistically they might get 1.5 points. In any case they need help from above.

GM Julio Becerra, the 2006-2007 USCL MVP faces the current titleholder Hikaru Nakamura. Hikaru was near perfect this season, with 5.5 from 6 ( 2719 PR) while Julio had his worst season in the USCL ( a still very respectable 4.5/9, PR 2586). Their regular season match saw Hikaru avenge his loss in the 2008 USCL playoffs. Here Julio gets White as in last season's playoffs. This might well be the most exciting game of the first round.

I go with Seattle 2.5 -1.5 but end with the following caveat - Miami is a very tight knit group that play well together. If the Sharks smell blood they will be ready!

San Francisco - Arizona

The final first round match up features the most evenly matched teams both by average rating and season record. They met once in the regular season with Arizona winning 2.5-1.5 in a contest where either side might have scored 3.5 points! Neither team is at complete strength. The regular season Arizona fourth board David Adelberg is in Turkey playing in the World Youth. For the MI GMs Josh Friedel and Jesse Kraai and IM Sam Shankland are worshipping Caissa at the rate of one game a day in Europe.

The absence of Adelberg means that the Scorpions will be playing the equally strong NM Leo Martinez on board four but have to make up for this by playing IM Rensch on two and FM Adamson on three (instead of GM Barcenilla/ IM Altounian on two and Rensch on three. The result is a match that looks highly competitive on every board. Going board by board I see a slight edge for White in every instance and therefore 2-2 is the expected result with San Francisco advancing on draw odds.

Playoffs 2009

2009-11-05T17:46:00.000-08:00

The Mechanics' Institute finished the regular season with a draw against two-time defending USCL Champions the Dallas Destiny. Sometimes the final score doesn't give a good indicator of a match but this was fairly close all the way. Yian got the better of a theoretical Dragon battle with Bayaraa Zorigt, one of the League's all-time great board fours, and defeated her in a nice game. Vinay was the next to finish with a solidly played draw with IM Salvijus Bercys. At this point things were looking pretty good as our rival for second in the West, Arizona, was losing to Miami. We clinched second when Daniel drew a well-played game against Keaton Kiewra. This left Patrick in the sort of odd situation of playing a game that didn't have any effect on the standings as Seattle had drawn with Chicago clinching first in the West. His opponent, IM Daniel Ludwig, finally won in an up and done struggle in which the advantage changed hands several times.

This leaves the Mechanics' facing Arizona in round one of the playoff with draw odds. The team meet in a rematch of round seven of the regular season where Arizona won 2.5-1.5 in a crazy match that could have gone either way. Arizona, which is sort of two teams in one with players drawn from Phoenix and Tucson usually playing along side those from their own city, has benefited immensely from the addition of former Dallas Destiny team member GM Alejandro Ramirez. He played a key role in leading Arizona to a second half resurgence which included wins over the two teams with the best regular season records - New Jersey and Seattle. One of the best run teams in the league with extensive sponsorship (Chess.com from Silicon Valley among them), Arizona will be a formidable foe.

Congratulations go to the New Jersey Knockouts whose regular season record of 8-2 was the best in the league and and only half a point shy of the all-time record set by the Mechanics' 2006 team. Curiously the team with the season winner has had mixed success in the post season with New York in 2005 and Carolina, Queens and Miami in 2008 failing to make the final. San Francisco managed to get the job done in 2006 but only after defeating New York in a blitz playoff. The form charts only held in 2007 when the two teams with the best season records, Dallas and Boston met in the final with the former winning the championship in another dramatic blitz playoff.

One of the most interesting lineup decisions will be made by Seattle manager Eddie Chang who will have to decide whether to go with his 1-2 punch of GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Gregory Serper with NM Howard Chen on board four or a more balanced lineup with SM Slava Mikhailuk on board two and 2300 NM Josh Sinanan on board four. The thought at the beginning of the season was that the two GM lineup would be rolled out as the first option, but the unavailability of Chen, who rumor has it had high school tennis matches on Wednesdays, nixed that plan. Milhailuk and Sinanan rose to the challenge for much of the season (Slava defeating GM Shabalov) before cooling off. Sinanan, one of the USCL's premier fourth boards, lost his last two matches, but the results are a little deceiving as the loss in round 9 was in a position where he had to decline a draw because his team was losing in the match, but in doing so immediately found himself in a terrible position. Against Chicago he was doing well but stumbled and lost again - but in a situation where his result was unimportant for the team as they had already clinched the top seed in the West.

It's also not entirely clear who will be board three. Going into the season SM Michael Lee was the clear choice but a combination of some difficult games and possible unavailability led to Canadian ex-pat Marcel Milat being inserted into the lineup and he has performed well. All USCL team managers would love to have to ponder the choices that manager Chang faces. One thing that no doubt help him sleep well at night is that if Seattle makes it to the championship match and it ends in 2-2 he will have Hikaru for the blitz.

Boston, having come so close two years in a row, will be hungry as will New Jersey whose 1-2 punch of GMs Joel Benjamin and Boris Gulko have been near perfect this season. The West has won the league title three seasons running but either of these teams could bring the title back East.

Those who like underdogs might consider New York and Miami. Neither team had exceptional regular season records but both have a tradition of playing well come the playoffs.

2009-10-09T10:39:00.000-07:00

This was a tough match against a longtime rival and the final result, a 2-2 tie, helped neither team as Seattle moved a point ahead in the division.

San Francisco 2 vs Miami 2

1. GM Patrick Wolff (SF) vs GM Julio Becerra (MIA) 1-0
2. FM Marcel Martinez (MIA) vs GM Jesse Kraai (SF) 1-0
3. FM Daniel Naroditsky (SF) vs NM Eric Rodriguez (MIA) 1/2-1/2
4. Miguel Recio (MIA) vs NM Yian Liou (SF) 1/2-1/2

Defeating Julio Becerra is always an accomplishment, doubly so in the USCL where he reigns supreme. His 73 MVP points heading into the 2009 season put him well ahead of second place Vinay Bhat's 46. Here Patrick uses 3.Bc4 to steer in a Ruy Lopez setup. After Black's eighth move White is three tempi ahead of a regular Spanish but as Patrick pointed out just who are those three tempi ( ...a6, ...b5, ...Bb7) good for. Play was delicately balanced until White started to get the better of it with 18.b4 and after 30.Qg3 he had a large advantage which he converted. This battle should be a strong contender for Game of the Week.

Wolff,Patrick (2623) - Becerra,Julio (2615) [C55]USCL San Francisco vs Miami (6), 2009
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 Be7 5.0-0 0-0 6.Re1 d6 7.a4 Na5 8.Ba2 c5 9.Nc3 Nc6 10.Bg5 Nb4 11.Bc4 Be6 12.h3 Nd7 13.Bd2 Nb6 14.Bxe6 fxe6 15.Ne2 Nc6 16.Ng3 Qd7 17.c3 Bf6 18.b4 Nc8 19.Qb3 N8e7 20.bxc5 dxc5 21.a5 Ng6 22.Be3 Be7 23.Nf5 Rac8 24.Red1 Kh8 25.Nxe7 Qxe7 26.Ng5 Nd8 27.d4 exd4 28.cxd4 Nf4 29.Bxf4 Rxf4 30.Qg3 Rf6 31.dxc5 Rg6 32.f4 h6 33.Qh4 Qxc5+ 34.Kh1 Qc2 35.Qh5 Rf6 36.Qe8+ 1-0

White always use to meet the McCutcheon with 9.Bd3 Nxd2 10.Kxd2 but since about 2004 has scored very well with 9.Qf4 planning to recapture with the Queen and not the King on d2. It says a lot that Igor Glek, one of the great exponents of 4...Bb4, has suffered several serious defeats in this variation.

Jesse could have captured the h-pawn ( 20...Qxh4 but after 21.Qb4 White would have enjoyed a serious initiative. One idea might to induce ...b6 by doubling Queen and Rook on the a-line. Once ...b6 was playing a4-a5 would be natural and strong. Jesse tried to mix things up by sacrificing the exchange for play along the long diagonal but it did not work out.

Martinez,Marcel (2475) - Kraai,Jesse (2552) [C12]USCL San Francisco vs Miami (6) 2009
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4 5.e5 h6 6.Bd2 Bxc3 7.bxc3 Ne4 8.Qg4 g6 9.Qf4 c5 10.Bd3 Nxd2 11.Qxd2 Nc6 12.Nf3 Qa5 13.dxc5 Qxc5 14.h4 Bd7 15.Rb1 0-0-0 16.0-0 Kb8 17.Rb5 Qe7 18.Rfb1 Bc8 19.Nd4 Nxd4 20.cxd4 Rd7 21.g3 g5 22.h5 Rc7 23.Qa5 b6 24.R5b3 Bb7 25.Qd2 Rc4 26.Bxc4 dxc4 27.Qb4 Qd7 28.Qxc4 Ka8 29.Ra3 Rc8 30.Qb4 Qc6 31.f3 g4 32.Qxb6 Qxb6 33.Rxb6 gxf3 34.Rxb7 f2+ 35.Kg2 Kxb7 36.Rf3 Rxc2 37.Rxf7+ Kc6 38.Rxf2 Rc4 39.Rf6 Kd5 40.Rxh6 Rxd4 41.Rh7 Rd2+ 42.Kh3 Rxa2 43.g4 Kxe5 44.Rf7 Ra1 45.Kg2 Ra2+ 46.Kg3 Ra3+ 47.Kh4 Ra1 48.Kg5 a5 49.h6 a4 50.h7 Rh1 51.Kg6 a3 52.Ra7 Kf4 53.Ra4+ Kg3 54.g5 e5 55.Kg7 e4 56.h8Q 1-0

Daniel played a great game but in too complex a style for G/60 + 30 second increment. Had he not been down to a minute on his clock he would have undoubtedly found 30.Qf3 or 32.Bxh6, in both cases with a significant advantage for White.

Naroditsky,Daniel (2371) - Rodriguez,Eric (2290) [C79]USCL San Francisco vs Miami (6), 2009
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.d3 d6 6.0-0 Bd7 7.c3 g6 8.Nbd2 Bg7 9.Re1 0-0 10.Nf1 Qe8 11.Ng3 Kh8 12.Bb3 Ng8 13.h3 f5 14.exf5 gxf5 15.d4 f4 16.Ne4 Rd8 17.d5 Nce7 18.c4 Nh6 19.Bc2 Nhf5 20.Bd3 Ng6 21.g4 fxg3 22.fxg3 h6 23.h4 Rf7 24.h5 Nge7 25.g4 Nd4 26.Nxd4 exd4 27.g5 Rf5 28.Nf6 Rxf6 29.gxf6 Bxf6 30.Bg6 Qg8 31.Rxe7 Bxe7 32.Qxd4+ Qg7 33.Qxg7+ Kxg7 34.Bd2 Bf6 35.Re1 Be5 1/2-1/2

Yian was a little better on the board after 25...c4 but way ahead on the clock. He was a pawn up in the ending after 38...Qd5 but Recio defended very well to split the point. Maybe 41...a5 intending 42...b4 was a better winning try.

Recio,Miguel (2164) - Liou,Yian (2149) [A90]USCL San Francisco vs Miami (6), 20091.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nf3 e6 4.g3 d5 5.Bg2 c6 6.0-0 Bd6 7.b3 Qe7 8.Bb2 0-0 9.Ne5 Nbd7 10.Nd2 Bxe5 11.dxe5 Ng4 12.Nf3 b6 13.Qd2 Bb7 14.Rac1 Rfd8 15.Qf4 Nf8 16.h3 Nh6 17.Rfd1 c5 18.e3 Nf7 19.cxd5 Ng6 20.Qc4 Bxd5 21.Qe2 Rac8 22.h4 Bxf3 23.Bxf3 Ngxe5 24.Bg2 Rxd1+ 25.Rxd1 c4 26.bxc4 Nxc4 27.Rc1 Nfd6 28.Bd4 Qf7 29.Rd1 b5 30.Bf3 a6 31.Bg2 Rd8 32.h5 h6 33.Bc3 Qc7 34.e4 Nxe4 35.Rxd8+ Qxd8 36.Bxe4 fxe4 37.Qxe4 Qd1+ 38.Kg2 Qd5 39.Qxd5 exd5 40.Kf3 Kf7 41.Ke2 g6 42.hxg6+ Kxg6 43.Kd3 Kf5 44.Kd4 Ke6 45.Kc5 h5 46.f4 Nd6 47.Kb6 Ne4 48.Be1 Kd7 49.Kxa6 Kc6 50.f5 d4 51.Ka5 d3 52.Kb4 d2 53.Bxd2 Nxd2 54.f6 Kd6 55.Kxb5 Ne4 56.f7 Ke7 57.a4 Nc3+ 58.Kb4 Nxa4 59.Kxa4 Kxf7 60.Kb3 Kf6 61.Kc2 Kf5 62.Kd1 Kg4 63.Ke1 Kxg3 64.Kf1 Kh2 65.Kf2 h4 66.Kf1 Kh1 67.Kf2 Kh2 1/2-1/2

2009-10-01T13:54:00.000-07:00

Opening preparation is very important in the US Chess League and last night New York was very well prepared indeed picking up two points almost straight out of the opening. We will need to do better against Miami next week.

New York 3 vs San Francisco 1

1. GM Giorgi Kacheishvili (NY) vs GM Josh Friedel (SF) 1-0
2. GM Jesse Kraai (SF) vs IM Irina Krush (NY) 1/2-1/2
3. NM Matthew Herman (NY) vs FM Daniel Naroditsky (SF) 1-0
4. NM Yian Liou (SF) vs NM Yaacov Norowitz (NY) 1/2-1/2

Kacheishvili,Giorgi (2666) - Friedel,Josh (2612) [E45]
USCL (5) 2009

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 b6 5.Nge2 Ba6 6.a3 Be7 7.Nf4 d5 8.cxd5 Bxf1 9.dxe6 Ba6 10.exf7+ Kxf7 11.e4

This is much stronger than 11.Qb3+.

11…c5 12.e5

This move, it would seem first played by Aronian, is a substantial improvement over 12.Be3 of Lombardy-Keres, Mar Del Plata 1957.

12… Nc6

This looks like a novelty. White is 3-0 after 12…Re8 and 12…Qxd4. The latter has been suggested as possibly Black’s best with the line running 13. e6+ Kg8 14.Qf3 Nc6 15.Qxc6 Rc8 17.Qf3 Qe5+ 17.Be3 Bc4 with slightly better chances for White. Likely Kacheishvili has an improvement in store.

13.exf6 Bxf6 14.Qb3+ c4 15.Qa4 Qe8+ 16.Be3 Na5

All of this is analysis by Gavrikov in ChessBase (in his comments to Kharlov-Zaja, Warsaw 2005) where he gives only 17.Qxe8+ Rhe8 and “White is only a little better”. He didn’t have the new version of Rybka at hand which gives a strong preference for 17.Qc2 awarding White with a sizeable advantage.

17.Qc2! Nb3 18.Rd1 Nxd4 19.Rxd4!

This exchange sacrifice breaks Black’s position.

19…Bxd4 20.Qf5+ Bf6 21.Qd5+ Kf8 22.0-0

22.Ne6+ might have been even more precise ending Black’s suffering straightaway. As it is Josh fights on for the team but the result is never in doubt.

22…Rd8 23.Ne6+ Ke7 24.Nxd8 Qxd8 25.Bc5+ bxc5 26.Qxc5+ Kf7 27.Qxa7+ Qe7 28.Qxa6 Qe6 29.Qxe6+ Kxe6 30.Re1+ Kf5 31.Ne4 Bxb2 32.Nd6+ Kf6 33.Nxc4 Bd4 34.Re4 Bc5 35.a4 Ra8 36.Ne3 Rb8 37.g3 Rb2 38.Kg2 h5 39.h4 g6 40.Kf3 Kf7 41.Re5 Bd4 42.Rd5 Rb4 43.Nc2 Rb3+ 44.Ke2 Bf6 45.Rb5 Rc3 46.Rb2 Bd8 47.Nb4 Ba5 48.Nd5 Ra3 49.Rb7+ Ke6 50.Nf4+ Kf6 51.Ra7 Ra2+ 52.Kf1 Ra1+ 53.Kg2 Be1 54.Ra6+ Kf7 55.Nxg6

Kraai,Jesse (2552) - Krush,Irina (2478) [D27]
USCL (5), 2009

1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 dxc4 4.e3 e6 5.Bxc4 c5 6.0-0 a6 7.dxc5 Bxc5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Nbd2 Ke7 10.Be2 Nbd7 11.Nb3 Bd6 12.Nfd4 Nb6 13.Na5 e5 14.Ndb3 Rb8 15.f3 Be6 16.e4 Rhc8 17.Be3 Nc4 18.Bxc4 Bxc4 19.Rfc1 Bxb3 20.axb3 Rxc1+ 21.Rxc1 Nd7 22.Rc4 Nf8 23.Ba7 Ra8 24.Bb6 Nd7 25.Be3 b6 26.Nc6+ Ke6 27.Kf2 a5 28.Ke2 Nc5 29.b4

Due to the circumstances of the match (we were down 2-0) Jesse had to play for a win from a position in which he had a tiny edge at best. At this point he has already over played his hand but maybe 29.Rc3 planning to meet 29….Kd7 with 30.Nxa5 Rxa5 31.b4 was a better practical try to draw.

29…axb4 30.Kd2 Nb3+ 31.Kd3 Na5 32.Rc2 Kd7 33.Nxa5 bxa5 34.b3 a4 35.bxa4 Rxa4 36.Bd2 Ra1 37.Rb2 Rg1 38.Bxb4 Bxb4 39.Rxb4 Rxg2 40.Rb7+ Ke6 41.Rb6+ Ke7 42.Rb7+ Kf6 43.h4 g6 44.Rb6+ Kg7 45.Rb5 Rh2 46.Rxe5 Rxh4 47.Ke3 Rh2

By now the match was already decided ( 2.5-.5 for New York) but the interesting rook ending that has now arisen still provided interest for spectators. Three versus two Rook endings are usually easy draws unless one side has a passed pawn. Almost inevitably when four versus three endgames simplify down the best the superior side can hope for is a passed e-pawn with both sides having g and h pawns. You can find hundreds of examples of such endings in Mega Database. The structure that has arisen in the game, where Black has a passed h-pawn is much, much rarer. This makes sense - how many times does ones g and h pawns disappear from the board without at least one of the opponent’s kingside pawns missing as well.

If White’s pawns were on f2 and f3 ( instead of f3 and e4) and his King were on g2, the position would be an easy draw ( see for example the classical example Suetin-Kholmov, USSR 1954 – colors reversed.

The text does not seem to be well covered in the literature. Emms in his The Survival Guide to Rook Endings. Gives to examples but neither seems completely relevant. In the first example White is much more active than in the game and in the second ( with colors reversed) Black’s King and Rook are horribly misplaced. The text does not seem to be well covered in the literature. Emms in his The Survival Guide to Rook Endings. Gives two examples ( Anderson - Hug, Las Palmas 1973, and Korchnoi - Lputian, Sarajevo 1988), but neither seems completely relevant. In the first example White is much more active than in the game and in the second ( with colors reversed) Black’s King and Rook are horribly misplaced.

During the game I was thinking it made sense to leave the pawns on f3 and e4 for the moment and instead improve the position of the White King and Rook ( say the King on g3 and the Rook on the 7th rank) but I don’t see how to do it – 48.Kf4 Rg2 cuts the King off.

The position is now almost identical to: Cuellar – Jimenez, Havana 1966, except Irina’s h-pawn is further advanced.

50…Kf8

With the h-pawn further advanced Irina has a possibility not available to Jimenez. As Josh pointed after the game Black didn’t have to get out off the way of the threatened e6. Instead 50…h3 was possible. After 51.e6 Black has 51…Re2+! which looks like it wins after 52.Kxe2 h2 but White saves himself with 53.Rxf7+ Kg8 54.Rh7!. Black is a pawn up in the resulting Queen ending after 54…Kxh7 55.e7 h1 (Q) 56.e8(Q) Qh2+ 57.Ke3 Qg3+ but the position is drawn.

51.Ra7 h3 52.Kf3 Rb2 53.Kg3 h2 54.Ra8+ Ke7

This looks like the better route for the King than …Kg7-h6 as played by Jimenez.

55.Rh8 Ke6 56.Rh7

56.Kg4 doesn’t help White as Black simply plays 56…Kd5.

56… Kd5 ?

Now this is a mistake. Instead 56…Ra2 wins a tempo as either the Rook has to remove its attack on f7 or the King can no longer keep attacking g3. Black will play 57…Kd5 with …Ke4/…g5 in the offing. I believe Black should be winning.

57.Rxh2 Rxh2 58.Kxh2 g5 59.fxg5 Kxe5 60.Kg3 Kf5 61.Kh4 f6 62.gxf6 Kxf6 1/2-1/2

Just like board one Hermann rattled his opening moves off very quickly and by move 15 was 40 minutes ahead on the clock, but unlike the other game matters were quite tense and only resolved when Black found himself short of time and blundered with 25…Nd7.

This game will undoubtedly be analyzed for a long time so the following are just preliminary observations.

While White’s attack looks extremely strong there appear to be some interesting resources for Black. One example is taking the Bishop right away without inserting …a3. For example 20…exd5 21.hxg7 Re8 22.Qh2 Bh4 23.Nf5 bxa2 24.Nxa2 a3 looks exciting or in the game instead of 24…dxe4 allowing White to activate his Rook maybe 24…Nxb3+ is possible with the idea 25.Kb1 dxe4 26.Rxd6 Qc8 27.Nxh4 exf3 28.Nxg6 Qf5+. Both of these variations are difficult to see with only a few minutes on the clock.

Herman,Matthew (2275) - Naroditsky,Daniel (2371) [B87]
USCL(5), 2009

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e6 7.Bb3 b5 8.f3 Nbd7 9.Be3 Nc5 10.Qd2 Bb7 11.0-0-0 Be7 12.g4 Nfd7 13.g5 Ne5 14.h4 0-0 15.h5 b4 16.Nce2 a5 17.g6 a4 18.h6 Nxg6 19.Bd5 b3 20.Nc3 a3 21.cxb3 exd5 22.hxg7 Re8 23.Qh2 Bh4 24.Nf5 dxe4 25.Rxd6 Nd7 26.f4 Re6 27.Bd4 axb2+ 28.Kb1 h5 29.Rxe6 fxe6 30.Nh6+ Kh7 31.g8Q+ Qxg8 32.Nxg8 Rxg8 33.Rg1 Ndf8 34.f5 1-0

Halfway through the season Yian Liou and Yaacov Norowitz have established themselves as two of the top fourth boards in the League. Their game last night was evenly contested throughout with first Black and later White having a very small advantage. A draw was a fair result.

Liou,Yian (2149) - Norowitz,Yaacov (2354) [B16]
USCL (5) 2009

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Nxf6+ gxf6 6.c3 Qd5 7.c4 Qe4+ 8.Be3 e5 9.Ne2 Na6 10.Nc3 Qg6 11.a3 Bf5 12.d5 Nc5 13.Bxc5 Bxc5 14.Qf3 0-0 15.Be2 Rac8 16.g4 Bc2 17.h4 Bd4 18.Rc1 e4 19.Qf4 Bxc3+ 20.bxc3 Bd3 21.d6 Rcd8 22.Bxd3 exd3 23.Kd2 f5 24.gxf5 Qxd6 25.Rcg1+ Kh8 26.Qxd6 Rxd6 27.Rh3 Rfd8 28.Rgg3 Rf6 29.Rf3 Kg7 30.Rhg3+ Kf8 31.Rf4 c5 32.Rfg4 Rdd6 33.Rg8+ Ke7 34.Re3+ Kd7 35.Re5 Rh6 36.Rf8 Rxh4 37.Rxf7+ Kc6 38.Ree7 Rxc4 39.Rc7+ Kd5 40.Kxd3 b6 41.Rxh7 Rf4 42.Rhe7 b5 43.Rxa7 Rf3+ 44.Ke2 Rxc3 45.Rab7 Rxa3 46.Rxb5 Rf6 47.Rc7 Rc3 48.Kd2 Rc4 1/2-1/2

Mechanics' edge Chicago

2009-09-24T14:03:00.000-07:00

Chicago 1.5 - San Francisco 2.5

1. IM Jan van de Mortel (CHC) vs GM Josh Friedel (SF) 1/2-1/2
2. GM Jesse Kraai (SF) vs FM Florin Felecan (CHC) 1-0
3. IM Angelo Young (CHC) vs IM Sam Shankland (SF) 1-0
4. NM Yian Liou (SF) vs IM Mehmed Pasalic (CHC) 1-0

This was not a pretty match to watch. Having convincingly defeated two of our main divisional rivals 3-1 the past two weeks some pundits had the Mechanics' running up a big score against Chicago. We were under no such illusion. Last year they drew with us using a "balanced" lineup where the rating differential from first to fourth board was less than one hundred points and they opted for something similar this year fielding a team with four IMs ( Felecan has the norms and a rating of 2429 and is waiting for his the title).

Such a strategy of using an evenly balanced lineup is not likely to lead to blowout victories but it does promise to always be competitive. I would expect to see Chicago fielding this lineup quite a bit in the second half of the season - especially as Young and Pasalic both entered this season with USCL ratings around 2500.

Prognosticators had the two teams splitting the bottom boards but few if any would have guessed it would be by the Mechanics' winning on board four and not three. IM Sam Shankland entered the match with the phenomenal score of 17 from 20 in USCL matches but one of his rare losses was last season to Pasalic in a game similar to the one against Young on Monday night. Both games developed along similar lines with White getting an equal and somewhat boring position out of the opening and Sam pressing and overextending. The game with Young reinforced the lesson and we don't expect to see Sam losing this way again.

Josh looked like he might be getting something against Van der Mortel ( by the way the Chicago team might be the United Nations favorite in the USCL with Van der Mortel hailing from the Netherlands, Felecan being born in Romania, Young the Philippines and Pasalic the former Yugoslavia) but a draw was a fair result for the game. When the players split the point the Mechanics' were pressing on boards two and four. Yian improved his season performance to 3.5 from 4 in his toughest test to date. The 12-year-old from Walnut Creek was in trouble after the strategic error Bb5xc6+ and had to hang on to survive for most of the game but grabbed his chances brought on by better clock management.

Last to finish was Kraai-Felecan. Jesse, nursing a serious cold, essayed the unconventional plan of dxe5 against Felecan's pet Kings Indian. The game was an up and down struggle. Jesse, who was ahead on the clock most of the game, sacrificed a pawn for positional pressure. A logical continuation was a draw had Felecan accepted the Knight at move 32 but his electing to continue could have had serious consequences had White played the intermezzo 34.Rg3+.

Eventually the players found themselves in an interesting ending that both played quite well for a long time. A rare rook ending was reached with White having two extra, but blockaded pawns ( g5 and h6) . These positions, first analysed by Kling and Horwitz in the 19th century and later quite extensively by Kasparian right after WW2, can be tricky. The game should have been drawn but Felecan, down to the increment ( 30 seconds a move) missed one last trick for White. So San Francisco defeated Chicago by the minimum score bringing our record against the Windy City to 2.5-.5 - the Mechanics' defeated Chicago 6.5-5.5 in a match played by telegraph in 1922.

van de Mortel,Jan (2456) - Friedel,Josh (2612) [E15]USCL Chicago vs San Francisco Internet Chess Club (4), 21.09.2009

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.d4 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.Qa4 Bb7 6.Bg2 c5 7.dxc5 bxc5 8.0-0 Be7 9.Nc3 0-0 10.Bf4 d6 11.Rfd1 Qb6 12.Qb5 Qc7 13.Rd2 Rd8 14.Rad1 h6 15.Qa4 a6 16.b4 e5 17.Be3 Bc6 18.Qb3 cxb4 19.Qxb4 Nbd7 20.Nd5 Bxd5 21.cxd5 Rdb8 22.Qa4 Rb5 23.Rc2 Qb7 24.Nh4 Bf8 25.Nf5 e4 26.Rcd2 Re8 27.h3 Re5 28.g4 h5 29.Bf4 Rexd5 30.Rxd5 Rxd5 31.Rxd5 Qxd5 32.Ne3 Qd2 33.g5 Nc5 34.Qc6 Nfd7 35.Qd5 Qc1+ 36.Kh2 Nb6 37.Qc6 Nd3 38.Qxe4 Nxf4 39.Qxf4 Qc5 40.Qf5 g6 41.Qxc5 dxc5 42.Bb7 a5 43.Nd5 Nxd5 44.Bxd5 1/2-1/2

Kraai,Jesse (2552) - Felecan,Florin (2430) [E94]USCL Chicago vs San Francisco Internet Chess Club (4), 21.09.2009

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.d4 0-0 6.Be2 Nbd7 7.0-0 e5 8.dxe5 dxe5 9.Qc2 c6 10.b4 Re8 11.Rd1 a5 12.b5 Qc7 13.Rb1 Bf8 14.Bg5 Nh5 15.Na4 Nf4 16.b6 Qb8 17.Bf1 Ne6 18.c5 Nexc5 19.Nxc5 Nxc5 20.Rd8 Rxd8 21.Bxd8 Bf5 22.exf5 Qxd8 23.fxg6 hxg6 24.Nxe5 Qd4 25.Re1 Bg7 26.Nf3 Qc3 27.Qd1 Bf6 28.Re3 Qb4 29.Qd6 Kg7 30.Ne5 Qxb6 31.Nxf7 Rf8

32...Kxf7 33.Bc4+ Kg7 34.Re7+ is a draw.

32.Nh6 Qd8 33.Nf5+ gxf5 34.Qxc5

34.Rg3+ Kh7 35.Qxc5 is an improvement as Black's King doesn't have the option of f6.

34...Bd4 35.Rg3+ Kf6 36.Qc1 Rg8 37.Rf3 Qd5 38.Qh6+ Ke7 39.Qh7+ Rg7 40.Qxf5 Qxf5 41.Rxf5 b5 42.h4 Ke6 43.Rf3 a4 44.Kh2 Kd5 45.Kh3 b4 46.g4 Rb7 47.Bg2 Kd6 48.Rd3 Kc5 49.Bxc6 Kxc6 50.Rxd4 b3 51.axb3 axb3 52.Rd1 b2 53.Rb1 Rb3+ 54.Kg2 Kd5 55.h5 Ke5 56.h6 Kf6 57.f4 Kg6 58.g5 Kh7 59.Kf2 Kg6 60.Ke2 Kf5 61.Kd1 Kg6 62.Kc2 Rb4 63.Rh1 b1Q+ 64.Rxb1 Rxf4 65.Rg1 Ra4 66.Kd3 Rh4 67.Ke3 Rh3+ 68.Kf4 Rh4+ 69.Kf3 Ra4 70.Rh1 Ra8 71.Kf4 Ra4+ 72.Ke5 Ra8 73.h7 Re8+ 74.Kd6 Rh8??

Black could draw with 74...Kh8 or improving the position of his Rook so it has sufficient checking distance with 74...Ra8 or 74...Rb8. What he can't do is allow White's King the e7 square when his Rook is passive.

75.Ke7 Kg7 76.Rh6! Ra8 77.h8Q+ Rxh8 78.Rxh8 Kxh8 79.Kf7 1-0

Young,Angelo (2325) - Shankland,Sam (2564) [D31]USCL Chicago vs San Francisco Internet Chess Club (4), 21.09.2009

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Bd2 Bd6 6.c5 Bc7 7.f4 b6 8.b4 a5 9.a3 Ba6 10.Bxa6 Nxa6 11.cxb6 Bxb6 12.Qa4 0-0 13.b5 cxb5 14.Qxb5 Ne8 15.Nf3 Nd6 16.Qd3 Nc4 17.0-0 Qe7 18.Ne5 Rfc8 19.Na4 Bd8 20.Rfc1 Nxd2 21.Rxc8 Rxc8 22.Qxa6 Qc7 23.Nc5 Rb8?

23...Be7 was better not fearing 24. Nxf7 on account of 24...Bxc5 25.Qxe6 Qxf7 28.Qc8+ Bf8. On 24.Rc1 Ne4 Black should be equal.

24.Rd1 Ne4 25.Nxe4 dxe4 26.Qc6 g6??

This loses on the spot. Black had to trade Queens and endure the worst side of the ending.

27.Qe8+ Kg7 28.Nd7 Qd6 29.Nxb8 Qxb8 30.Qa4 Qb2 31.d5 Bb6 32.Qxe4 Qxa3 33.dxe6 Qxe3+ 34.Qxe3 Bxe3+ 35.Kf1 fxe6 36.g3 Kf6 37.Rd6 Bc5 38.Ra6 Bb4 39.Ke2 h5 40.Kf3 Kf5 41.h3 Kf6 42.Ke4 Be1 43.g4 hxg4 44.hxg4 Kf7 45.Ra7+ Kg8 46.Re7 1-0

Liou,Yian (2149) - Pasalic,Mehmed (2346) [B60]USCL Chicago vs San Francisco Internet Chess Club (4), 21.09.2009

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bd7 6.Be2 Nc6 7.Bg5 Qa5 8.Bxf6 gxf6 9.Nb3 Qg5 10.g3 f5 11.f4 Qg7

This is not commonly seen here. Usual are 11...Qg6 or 11...Qh6. The objection to the text might be that Black can't post his Bishop on g7.

12.exf5 Bxf5 13.Bb5?

13. Qd2 followed by castling queenside looks better. The text cedes Black two strong Bishops and a big pawn center.

13...a6 14.Bxc6+ bxc6 15.Qe2 Qg4 16.Qg2 Bd7 17.Nd4 Bg7 18.Qe4 0-0 19.Kf2 f5 20.Qd3 e5 21.Nde2 d5 22.h3 Qg6 23.fxe5 Bxe5 24.Nf4 Qd6 25.Nce2 d4 26.b4 a5 27.Qc4+ Kh8 28.a3 Bc8 29.Rad1 axb4 30.axb4 Ba6 31.Qe6 Qc7

31...Qxe6 32.Nxe6 Bxe2 33.Kxe2 Rfe8 34.Nc5 Bxg3+ leaves Black on top but with good chances for White to draw. As is often the case in the USCL towards the end of matches it was not clear for Pasalic what his team needed. The score at this point was 1.5 -.5 Chicago but Jesse Kraai was pressing against Felecan on board two.

32.Rhe1 Rae8

32... Bxe2 33.Nxe2 f4 looks easier to play in time pressure ( Pasalic had less than three minutes at this point). After the text the worst is over for White and he exploits his chances.

33.Qh6 Rf6 34.Qh5 Rg8 35.Qf3 Bb7 36.Qb3 Qb6 37.Nd3 Bd6 38.Nef4 Ba6 39.Re6 Rxe6 40.Qxe6 Bxf4??

Down to less than a minute Black blunders. He had to play 40...Qc7.

41.Qf6+ Rg7 42.gxf4 Bxd3 43.Rg1 1-0

Untitled

2009-09-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, Shanky Here,

So far, this season has been just like last season except even more extreme- more trash talk, less objectivity, rants between players fighting senselessly over stupid things like which GOTW judge who graciously volunteered their time has a secret grudge against who and which one is too stupid to be allowed and whether some game is overvalued or undervalued. Oh and lets not forget the heated debates on whether GM Stripunsky is a blithering idiot who really did mean to play Qa8... its an extremely close call (of course), although I'm going to have to lean towards... NO, NO, and NO! Let the man play the move he intended! Mouseslips, of course, are again the subject of huge internal squabbling, just like last year, it's nice to see nothing has changed. I mean seriously, isn't chess a violent enough game on its own? Do you really need to fight OFF the board? I'm guessing within 24 hours this post will have somewhere between 5 and 15 hostile comments saying that I'm talking trash about people just because they are passionate, or biased against Boston somehow because I believe Stripunsky deserved to win his game or something else I can't even anticipate, and quite frankly I don't want to deal with it or anything like that so this will be my only report for the season. Now, that I've vented my anger, I'll do a brief recap of SF's match against Chicago.

Coming into the match, SF was 2.5-.5 and in first place in the west, while Chicago was bringing up the rear. Coupled with the fact that we had a large rating advantage on boards 1-3, we were probably reasonable clear favorites to leave victorious. While in the end (somehow) we won the match, for awhile it looked about as pretty as a racoon lying in the middle of the highway after losing its right with an 18-wheeler. On board 1, while GM Joshua will of course never admit it, he seemed to have a worse position with the white knight salivating over the f5 square and the rook on c2 controling the cfile. However, Josh found some good ideas and even seemed to have a nominal advantage at some point, although soon enough the game petered out to nothingness. On board 2, Jesse played his usual exchange Kings Indian which he claims "makes for small plus". Although I'm somewhat skeptical of his evaluation, he played a fine game and ground out IM Felecan in a drawn yet difficult roook endgame, one which, by the way, sparked the same kind of fighting over ICC where people were passionately arguing the result to the point of making proposition bets amounting to $10,000. Discussing games can be all fine and good, but next time try giving variations and actually explaining your thoughts, rather than "It's winning!!" or "It's drawn!!" or "I'm a total idiot but my super strong computer/tablebase says win/draw (pick one)!!" My own game was rather saddening but there were some key lessons I learned from it. My opponent played a couple strange moves, and it felt like they just didn't add up and after Qa4? 0-0 I thought I should have some advantage with my lead in development and a knight soon going to c4. However, although white played somewhat odd and perhaps inaccurate moves for the first part of the game, I was still playing black in a quiet opening- there is no reason to expect an advantage. Couple this with the fact that because of these silly looking moves I may have underestimated my opponent who is an IM and has had great results in the league- disaster was waiting to happen. I played too ambitiously, and after Qc6 I had an unpleasant position, although I probably could have held a draw in the rook ending after exchanging queens. Instead I blundered that very move and lost promptly, and while I'm sure many would disagree I believe for at least part of the game my opponent played extremely well. On board 4, our little kid got a bad position but fought back hard, defending seemingly foreever, and when time pressure kicked in he ended up on top. So in the end we somehow won 2.5-1.5, although it was not looking good for awhile. NY is up next, be sure to watch on ICC and make obnoxious comments during the games!

Mechanics' defeat Sharks

2009-09-20T12:37:00.000-07:00

The match with the division leading Miami Sharks was a good test for the Mechanics' and early season indicators suggest this year's team compares favorably with the 2007 USCL Championship squad. GM Jesse Kraai was the first to get on the scoreboard and he was quickly joined by Yian Liou. Up 2-0 and with Sam Shankland his customary 30 minutes up on the clock, and his opponent IM Blas Lugo running low on time, the match score was soon 3-0. GM Julio Becerra, the 2006 and 2007 USCL MVP and the first team all star selection for board one four seasons running, averted a shut out for the Sharks.

Miami 1 - San Francisco 3

1. GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs GM Josh Friedel (SF) 1-0
2. GM Jesse Kraai (SF) vs FM Bruci Lopez (MIA) 1-0
3. IM Blas Lugo (MIA) vs IM Sam Shankland (SF) 0-1
4. NM Yian Liou (SF) vs NM Ernesto Alvarez (MIA) 1-0

Practical players and not perfectionists rule supreme in the USCL and Becerra is the practical player par excellence. Rule number one is play quickly and confidently and try to set your opponent problems. Sometimes, as in this game, that can lead to a somewhat dubious position but if the opponent is low on time he will be hard pressed to find the right moves. One last observation is those who plays frequently on ICC tend to do better - it helps if playing in front of a computer screen feels nature.

The following game could be analyzed for hours but in a nutshell White was outplayed in the early middlegame and found his best chance in sacrificing a piece for two pawns and a mobile center. One answer to this was to return the material for a better position. It appears Black had at least two opportunities to do this. First he had 34...Bxf2+ 35.Nxf2 Nxd6 when the pin on f2 and the passed pawn on b3 give Black the advantage. The second possibility was 37...Bxd7 (and not 37...Ba6??) 38.cxd7 Ra7. Josh might well have found the latter if the match had not already been decided, but up 3-0 he was noticeably relaxed.

Becerra,Julio (2615) - Friedel,Josh (2612) [C88]
Miami vs San Francisco (3) 2009

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.h3 Bb7 9.Nc3 d6 10.a3 Nd4 11.Ba2 c5 12.d3 h6 13.b4 Qc7 14.Bd2 Rfe8 15.bxc5 dxc5 16.Nd5 Nxd5 17.exd5 Bd6 18.c3 Nf5 19.c4 Bc8 20.Bc3 Bd7 21.Nd2 b4 22.axb4 cxb4 23.Bb2 a5 24.Ne4 a4 25.Rc1 b3 26.Bxb3 axb3 27.c5 Bf8 28.c6 Bc8 29.d4 Qb6 30.dxe5 Ra2 31.Bc3 Bc5 32.Qf3 Bd4 33.e6 fxe6 34.d6 Rf8 35.d7 Ba6 36.Bxd4 Nxd4 37.Qxf8+ Kxf8 38.c7 Qxc7 39.Rxc7 Ke7 40.Nc5 Kd8 41.Ra7 Bc4 42.Rb7 Ra8 43.Re4 1-0

Black was already worse (and getting low on time) when he blundered with 20...f5. This was a very efficient performance by Jesse.

Kraai,Jesse (2552) - Lopez,Bruci (2480) [E97]
Miami vs San Francisco (3) 2009

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.d4 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.dxe5 dxe5 9.Bg5 Qxd1 10.Rfxd1 h6 11.Be3 Bg4 12.h3 Bxf3 13.Bxf3 Rfd8 14.Nd5 Nxd5 15.cxd5 Nd4 16.Rac1 Rd7 17.Kf1 h5 18.Be2 Rf8 19.Bc4 Kh7 20.g4 f5 21.exf5 gxf5 22.Bxd4 exd4 23.Bd3 Re7 24.Bxf5+ Kh8 25.Re1 Rfe8 26.Rxe7 Rxe7 27.d6 1-0

Sam’s win clinched the match and was filled with some eventful moments. White got nothing from the opening but Black decided to unbalance things with 26...Qb4 ( in place of 26...Rd4 or 26..Rbd8). White should have tried 29.Rxd4 but very low on time blundered with 29.Kb2 and 30.a3.

Lugo,Blas (2351) - Shankland,Sam (2564) [B90]
Miami vs San Francisco (3), 2009

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.f3 Be6 9.Qd2 0-0 10.0-0-0 Nbd7 11.g4 b5 12.g5 b4 13.gxf6 bxc3 14.Qxc3 Nxf6 15.Na5 Rc8 16.Nc6 Qd7 17.Nxe7+ Qxe7 18.Qa5 Rc6 19.Bd3 Rb8 20.Rhg1 Qb7 21.b3 Nd7 22.Qd2 g6 23.h4 Nc5 24.Bxc5 dxc5 25.c4 Rd6 26.Qg5 Qb4 27.Qxe5 Rd4 28.Bc2 Rbd8 29.Kb2 Bxc4 30.a3 Qb6 31.Rxd4 cxd4 32.h5 d3 33.h6 f6 34.Qe7 Bf7 35.Rd1 Re8 36.Qd7 dxc2 37.Rd3 Qc5 38.Kc1 Rc8 0-1

Yian had the advantage in the middlegame when his opponent went wrong with 25...Qe7 (better was 25...Qxa5 26.Qxa5 Rxa5 27.Rxd6 Ra2 when White has two connected passed pawns but at least Black has some activity. In the game after 27.Qb6! White’s d-pawn is a game winner.

Liou,Yian (2149) - Alvarez,Ernesto (2200) [B92]
Miami vs San Francisco (3), 2009

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.0-0 b5 9.a4 b4 10.Nd5 Bb7 11.Be3 Nxd5 12.exd5 0-0 13.a5 Nd7 14.c4 bxc3 15.bxc3 Rc8 16.c4 Bg5 17.Qd2 Bxe3 18.Qxe3 Nc5 19.Rfb1 Qe7 20.Nxc5 Rxc5 21.Rb6 Qc7 22.Qb3 Bc8 23.Qb4 f5 24.Rd1 e4 25.Rc6 Qe7 26.Rxc5 dxc5 27.Qb6 f4 28.d6 Qf7 29.f3 e3 30.Qxc5 Be6 31.Qd4 Qg6 32.Bd3 Qh5 33.c5 Bh3 34.Qe4 e2 35.Bxe2 Qxc5+ 36.Qd4 Qxd4+ 37.Rxd4 Bd7 38.Bxa6 g5 39.Rb4 Kf7 40.Re4 Kf6 41.Bb7 Bc8 42.a6 Rd8 43.Bxc8 Rxc8 44.d7 1-0

A Big Win against the Defending Champs

2009-09-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

Last night the Mechanics' entry in the US Chess League turned in one of its best ever results defeating the defending two-time league champions the Dallas Destiny. The match started strangely with two games ending in less than hour. Chess is a fascinating game but also a cruel one - witness two very strong players losing quickly in known ways.

What was once a four game match was now down to two with the score knotted. The Mechanics' struck first blood with 12-year-old Master Yian Liou defeating his Dallas rival, 14-year-old Adarsh Jayikumar in what was unbeknownst to both players a theoretical duel. The two youngsters followed theory for over twenty moves until White went wrong with the decentralizing moves 24.Nb3?! and 25.Qb6?. The latter was strongly met by 25...Ne6 when Adarsh was left with no reasonable moves.

Dallas third board Salvjius Bercys was tasked with equalizing the match against the US Chess League's all time best percentage scorer (15 from 18 before last night) IM (soon-to-be-GM) Sam Shankland. The latter is gifted with a preponderance of fast twitch muscle fiber and seems to feel right at home with the League's time control. It's not uncommon for Sam to be ahead of his opponent by 20-30 minutes when the game reaches its critical phase and that is exactly what happened last night. Bercys was down to three minutes by move 30. He kept his head above water for a longtime before finally blundering with 43...Bf5??

This was a good win against a strong team but there is no time to celebrate. Next week we meet our friends and rivals from Miami who are off to a great start this season and lead the division.

Here's the rundown, board-by-board, along with all of the games with light notes:

San Francisco 3, Dallas 1

1. GM Josh Friedel (SF) vs IM Marko Zivanic (DAL) 1-0
2. IM Daniel Ludwig (DAL) vs GM Jesse Kraai (SF) 1-0
3. IM Sam Shankland (SF) vs IM Salvijus Bercys (DAL) 1-0
4. Adarsh Jayakumar (DAL) vs NM Yian Liou (SF) 0-1

Friedel,Josh (2612) - Zivanic,Marko (2551) [B48]
USCL San Francisco vs Dallas 2009

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be3 a6 7.Bd3 Nf6 8.0-0 h5

Zivanic also plays 8...Bd6 which looks safer.

9.h3 Bd6

Zivanic plays just as he did against Patrick Wolff in one of one of the regular season matches between San Francisco and Dallas.

10.f4

Patrick tried 10.Re1 with the idea of a4 and Nd5. The text looks stronger.

10...Nxd4

Black could have tried to bail out of what follows by 10...Bc5. Then White might try 11.Be2 or 11.Nf5 along the lines of 8...Bd6 9.f4 Bc5 10.Nf5. The question is who is favored by the inclusion of h3 and ...h5 in this position? This is probably the test of 10.f4 and possibly the way to rehabilitate 8...h5.

11.e5 Bc5

11...Bxe5 12.fxe5 Qxe5 13.Qd2 gives White tremendous compensation for the pawn.

12.exf6 Nxc2

GM Miezis once got away with 12...Nf5 but 13.Bxc5+ Qxc5+ 14.Rf2! gxf6 15.Bxf5 Qxf5 16.Qd6, as in Roa-Morales, Madrid 2002, can only be described as crushing. After the game Josh pointed out to us that White is threatening Nc3-a4-b6 and even 16...a5 doesn't stop it - 17.Na4 Qb5 18.Nb6 Ra6 19.Nxc8!.

13.fxg7 Bxe3+ 14.Kh1 Rg8 15.Bxc2 Rxg7 16.Qxh5 Bd4 17.Qh8+

White could also play 17. Nd5 but the text is more precise. Neither player was aware of it but they are following a previously played game and continue to do so almost until the very end.

Ke7 18.Nd5+ exd5 19.Rfe1+ Kd6 20.Qf8+ Kc6 21.Ba4+ b5 22.Rac1+ Kb6 23.Rxc7 Kxc7 24.Rc1+ Kb7

24...Kb6 25.Qd8+ 1-0, Haker-Budisin, Germany 1995.

25.Bb3 Ka7 26.Rxc8 1-0

Ludwig,Daniel (2543) - Kraai,Jesse (2552) [C07]
USCL San Francisco vs Dallas 2009

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 c5 4.exd5 Qxd5 5.Ngf3 cxd4 6.Bc4 Qd6 7.0-0 Nc6 8.Nb3 Nf6 9.Nbxd4 Nxd4 10.Nxd4 Bd7 11.b3 Be7 12.a4 a6 13.Re1 Qc7 14.Qf3 0-0 15.Nf5 Bc6??

15...Bd8 as in Tiviakov-Anderson, Haninge 1992. Maybe Ludvig had found a way for 16.Nxg7 to work in his preparations but it doesn't look very clear.

16.Qg3!

Winning on the spot.

16...Qxg3 17.Nxe7+ Kh8 18.hxg3 Be4 19.Bb2 1-0

Shankland,Sam (2564) - Bercys,Salvijus (2503) [A84]
USCL San Francisco vs Dallas 2009

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c6 4.e3 f5 5.Bd3 Nf6 6.0-0 Bd6 7.b3 Qe7 8.Bb2 0-0 9.Qc1 Ne4 10.Ba3 Nd7 11.Bxd6 Qxd6 12.Nc3 b6 13.cxd5 exd5 14.Ne2 Bb7 15.Qb2 Rae8 16.Rac1 Rf6 17.Rc2 Rh6 18.Ng3 Qf6 19.Qa3 a6 20.Rfc1 g5 21.Nd2 Nxg3 22.hxg3 g4 23.Nf1 Rh5 24.f4 gxf3 25.gxf3 Rg5 26.Rg2 Kh8 27.Rcc2 c5 28.Qb2 c4 29.Be2 b5 30.f4 Rg7 31.Bf3 Nf8 32.Kh1 Ba8 33.Rh2 Rc8 34.Qc1 a5 35.Rh5 Ra7 36.Qb1 c3 37.Rch2 Rf7 38.Bd1 Bc6 39.Bc2 Bd7 40.g4 Qe7 41.gxf5 Rf6 42.Qe1 Qf7 43.Qh4 Bxf5??

Black had to leave the pawn on f5 but overlooks a neat tactic seriously short of time. Note that 43...Rxf5 would not by met by 44.Bxf5 but by the much stronger 44.Rh6! planning 45.Ng3.

44.Rxf5 Rxf5 45.Qg4! Rxf4 46.Qxf4 Qxf4 47.exf4 Re8 48.Rh3 Re1 49.Kg1 b4 50.f5 Kg7 51.Re3 Ra1 52.Re5 Rxa2 53.Ne3 Rb2 54.Re7+ Kf6 55.Ra7 Kg5 56.Rxa5 Nd7 57.Rxd5 Nf6 58.Re5 Kf4 59.Ng2+ Kg4 60.Ne1 h5 61.d5 h4 62.d6 h3 63.Re6 Kg5 64.Kh2 1-0

Jayakumar,Ardash (2173) - Liou,Yian (2149) [A87]
USCL San Francisco vs Dallas 2009

1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.Nc3 d6 6.Nf3 0-0 7.0-0 Qe8 8.d5 Na6 9.Rb1 Bd7 10.b4 c6 11.dxc6 Bxc6

Kindermann, in his authoritative book on the Leningrad, prefers the more dynamic but riskier 11...bxc6.

12.Qb3

This is considered to be White's best here in preference to 12.b5 or the less commonly seen 12.c5.

12...Ne4 13.Bb2 Nxc3

It's possible that 13...Bxc3 is more precise as the text gives White an extra option.

14.Bxc3 Bxc3 15.Qxc3

15.c5+!? e6 16. Qxc3 dxc5 17.b5 lead to very sharp play in Kramnik-Malaniuk, Moscow (ol) 1994.

15...Rc8 16.Qd4

As recommended by Khalifman in his Opening for White according to Kramnik series.

16...Be4 17.Nd2(!)

Exclamation mark by Khalifman.

17...Bxg2

17...Bxb1 is met by 18.Bxb7!

18.Kxg2 Qc6+ 19.Kg1 Nc7 20.Qxa7 Ra8 21.Qe3 Rxa2

So far the players have been following M. Gurevich - Rebers, Netherlands 2000, where 22.Rfd1 preparing c4-c5 was played.

22.Ra1 Rfa8 23.Rxa2 Rxa2 24.Nb3?!

It only takes two mistakes for White to lose this game.

24...Qe4! 25.Qb6 ?

This is the fatal error taking the Queen away from the center.

25...Ne6!

The game is over.

26.Nc1 Rc2 27.Qb5 Nd4 28.Qd5+ Qxd5 29.cxd5 Rxc1 0-1

SF Ties Seattle

2009-09-02T23:20:00.000-07:00

The San Francisco Mechanics pulled off a feat that has never been accomplished in USCL history. I managed to send someone else to play in my stead! I got this idea from a member of another team, who was going to send in a homeless person to play for him. Rather then let him claim all the glory, I felt I needed to do it myself first. Of course I didn't send in a homeless person, at least not in the literal sense. The person who played for me was none other than league vice president Arun Sharma. All the while, I was back at my apartment logged onto his account, kibitzing during the games. I wasn't sure what he likes to say, so I just kibitzed the most obnoxious things I could think of, bashing Greg Shahade whenever possible. Anyway, he was doing fine, until he gave away his knight for no reason with Nxe6? I tried to message him to play Nc6, but I guess he got confused. Luckily, the rest of the team performed well, and managed to save the tied match.

Now, you might ask, why would I do this? Well, you could ask Hillary why he climbed Everest, or ask Einstein why he came up the theory of relativity - to see if it could be done. Now, why would Arun do this? Only he truly know. My own theory is that he was sick of taking orders from someone he despises so much. In any case, I was considering keeping this a secret, but I felt it was too good, and that people had to know. Only one question remains. How will this be topped next week?

-Josh

Now for a respectable report by Mr. Donaldson-

The Mechanics' drew its opening US Chess League match with arch-rival
Seattle 2-2. Both teams were without some of their top guns and evenly
matched. The final score was probably fair but the individual results
could have easily have been quite different. Josh Friedel and Gregory
Serper have a real history in the USCL and have met roughly a half
dozen times on board one with the same result in every game - White
won! Strange things have happened as the two players checked each
other out. Try Gregory playing 1... e6! This time he put his favorite Kan
Sicilian on the bench and played the French. Mega Database gives one
game where he answered 1.e4 with 1...e6 back in 1991, so it was
definitely a surprise. Josh was always slightly better but
hallucinated on move 27 ( he thought Qb4+ would pick up the Rook
forgetting it was protected).

David Pruess and Eric Tangborn played the longest game of the match
and the last to finish. Both sides had terrible pawn structures in the
Rook ending ( four doubled f-pawns) but David was able to defeat Eric
despite playing the last part of the game on the increment.

Board three saw the game go back and forth between a Black advantage
and White holding even chances. Fortunately for me Michael spent a lot
of time in the opening and was in time pressure for much of the game
which is annotated below.

Hikaru may have been missing from the Seattle lineup but his team
gained one advantage as they could put Josh Sinanan, one of the
league's best fourth boards ( 2300 and very good with White), into the
match. When he secured three connected passed pawns for the exchange I
figured Yian Liou was a goner but the 12-year-old played very well and
was able to hold. A draw with Black against a tough opponent was a
good start to the USCL for Yian.

Donaldson,John (2408) - Lee,Michael (2384) [A33]
1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.g3 Qb6 7.Nb3 Ne5
8.e4 Bb4 9.Qe2 d6 10.f4 Nc6 11.Bg2?!

I was playing too fast and forgot to play 11.Be3 first, and am
immediately fighting for equality after Black's next move. It is some
consolation that this mistake has been made by such greats as Karpov
and Portisch.

11...e5! 12.f5

12.Bd2 is likely better.

12...Nd4 13.Qd1?!

Here 13.Nxd4 exd4 14.a3 Qa5 15.Rb1 Bxc3+ 16.bxc3 Qxc3+ 17.Bd2 was superior.

13...Qc6?!

This wins material but allows White to resolve his King position.
Maybe 13...Bd7 14.Bg5 Rc8 15.Bxf6 gxf6 or 13...0–0 14.Bg5 Bd7
15.Bxf6 gxf6 made more sense. In the latter position White would have
to try something like 16.Kf1.

14.0–0

14.Nxd4 exd4 15.Qxd4 Bxf5 16.Bd2 Bc5 17.Qd3 0–0 18.0–0–0 was sharper but risky.

14...Qxc4 15.Bg5?

This was a major mistake that could have had very serious
consequences. White wants to resolve the situation in the center but
the Bishop on c1 doesn't yet know it's best square. Much better was
15.Kh1 with the idea 15...Bxc3 16.bxc3 Nxb3 17.axb3 Qxc3 18.Qxd6 Qxa1
19.Ba3.

15...Bxc3 16.bxc3 Nxb3?

This isn't bad it's just that 16...Ne2+ probably wins or is at least
very strong for Black. . For example 17.Kh1 Nxe4 18.Nd2 N2xg3+
19.hxg3 Qxf1+! 20.Bxf1 Nf2+ 21.Kg2 Nxd1 22.Rxd1 f6 23.Be3 Bxf5 24.Nc4
Ke7 25.Nxd6 Bg4 26.Rd2 b6 and Black is consolidating his material
advantage.

17.axb3 Qc5+ 18.Kh1 h6?! 19.Bh4

19.Bc1 was suggested by Josh Friedel after the game and it is
definitely better than what I played. After 19... 0–0 20.Ba3 Qxc3
21.Bxd6 Re8 (21...Rd8 22.Bxe5) White has better chances than in the
game. White could capture on f6 but after 19...gxf6 20.Rf3 Ke7 21.Rd3
b6 22.Qd2 Bb7 23.Rd1 Rad8 =0 Ait's hard to see how I can improve my
position.

19...b6 20.Ra4

This weird looking move with a crude threat ( 21.Rc4) is designed to
provide ...b5. I thought if I tripled on the d-file and put my pawns
on b3 and c4 Black would guard d6 and later play ...a5-a4.

20... b5 21.Ra5 Qb6 22.b4

Now Black has the use of the c4 square but a break with ...a5 and
later ...b4 will trade all the queenside pawns.

22... Bb7 23.Qe2 a6 24.Rd1 Rc8 25.Rd3 Rc4 26.Bxf6 gxf6 27.Ra1 Ke7
28.Rad1 Rd8 29.g4?

This looks good as it prepares Rh3 but it is another critical mistake.
29.Re1 Qc6 30.Qd2 was correct. White should try to hold the position.

29...Qc7?

Immediately after the game Josh pointed out the brutal double attack
29...Qc6! hitting c3 and more importantly e4. White has no
satisfactory answer to this move. To be fair to Michael he had only
three minutes on his clock and had disconnected twice in the last
twenty minutes which might have rattled him.

30.Qe3

White doesn't miss the opportunity to improve the position of his
Queen and hits the pawn on h6 hoping to capture it and quickly follow
up with g5..

30...Rh8 31.Qd2

31.Rxd6 Qxd6 32.Rxd6 Kxd6 33.h4 was possible b ut the inactivity of
the Bishop on g2 leaves the Queen playing by itself.

31...Rc6 32.Rh3 Rg8 33.Rg3 Rc4 34.Re1

I was very conscious of my weak back rank. 34.Qxh6 Rxc3 35.g5 Rxg5
36.Rxg5 Rc1! would not have been pretty.

34...Rh8

=0 A
Black could have tried 34...a5 35.bxa5 Qxa5 planning ...b4 in the
future, but down to less than two minutes ( against twelve for White)
decides to allow the repetition.

35.Rh3 Rg8 36.Rg3 Rh8 37.Rh3 Rg8 38.Rg3 ½–½

-John Donaldson

SF Goes Down to Dallas

2008-10-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

I've never felt guilty in my life. Except that one time, but she woke up before it could happen. Wednesday night really came close though. I was off in China for a few weeks, the team is doing great, winning almost every match. Then, I come back, and we promptly lose. Though I somehow didn't lose myself, I certainly should have, and I'm sure losing the match was my fault in some way. Let's see how it played out.

The first game decided was David's loss to Igor Schneider. As usual, David decided the best strategy for the game was playing some opening he didn't know much about. Igor's 12. b3 sent David into the tank, and it seemed like he tried to react a bit too violently toward it. 14... Nxd4 looks like a definite improvement over exd4, as then Bb7 can hit the knight on d5 next, and black has good counterplay. With 17... Bxh3 David was already in desperation mode, but 18... Bh4 was too much. He needed to play Nc6, though his position is still unpleasant after Qc3 Bd7 Qd3. After 22. g3 white is clearly winning. Igor needs no help when he has the initiative on his side, and he finished quite easily.

The next to finish was young Nicholas Nip's game. To be honest I was a bit worried at first, as Nicholas is inexperienced in the league, and Zorigt has done quite well thus far. I was happy to see that as usual I was dead wrong. At first he was steadily outplaying her in a closed sicilian, and after 24. exd6 he looked just winning. However, he then went astray with moves like Rc4 and Ra4. In my opinion, he needed to get his knight into the fight, for example with 27. Rc2 followed by Nb2. As it occured, Zorigt managed to win the c5 pawn. Even after that Nicholas seemed better, but nothing materialized, and they drew in 52 moves. While not a perfect game, I thought it was an impressive debut by the youngster, and I have no doubt he'll make his mark in future seasons.

So at this point we were down 1.5-.5. Vinay's position on 2 again Davorin Kuljasevic was looking good, but unfortunately I was dead lost against Marko Zivanic. Vinay's game was one which I'm sure he laments not winning. I bet he'll complain about it on his blog shortly. I'll allow him to show you his analysis, which I'm sure will be superior to mine. To summarize, however, he had a very promising position out of the opening. Then he went astray, missing black's idea of c5. As is often the case in Vinay's games, even after a "ridiculous oversight," he was still better. He was unable to make anything of it, however, and after the queenside pawns traded a draw was the inevitable result. This left me with the task of winning down a queen, a task I just didn't feel up to.

My own game resembled what my dorm room at boarding school was like by the end of the year. It was just a complete mess, with my pieces thrown randomly all over the board. Plus I think there was food somewhere that I couldn't find, because it really stank. OK forget that analogy, it didn't work out at all. I got an awful position out of the opening. 6... Bd6 is sketchy in of itself, but 8... Bb7 really sealed my fate. I was playing too fast, and only after my opponent played 9. e4 did I realize I was practically lost. I sacrificed a queen for rook and piece out of desperation, but there is no way it should have held. 28. Qe7 instead of a3 would probably have finished me quicker, but even after that he was winning. The simple plan of tying me up with his queen, then advancing his kingside pawns seemed like the simplest way to win. He tried playing on the queenside instead, however. This probably should have worked also, but me messed it up, and after 47... Rd4 I'm already getting counterplay.

Some complications ensued, but after 57... Rf5+ I felt I was already close to the drawing zone. If I simply keep my king on the kingside supporting my pawn, it will be nearly impossible for him to win. However, like an idiot, I got impatient and went for 58... Rf3+ and Rxg3. I missed he could win my g-pawn by force then, and then I'm in danger again. My only drawing try then is sacrificing my knight for the pawn, and creating a fortress with my remaining pieces. I was hoping to keep my pawn on b6 and sac the knight for the h-pawn, but then he'll simply march his king up to f5. That meant I had to march my pawn up, which makes fortresses much harder. I still think his best try was meandering his king up to f5, trying to sac for my knight, perhaps forcing me to advance my b-pawn beyond where my king can hold it. He played h7 as soon as I advanced my pawn. It turns out, however, that as long as his king can't get behind my b-pawn it's still a draw! I didn't know this, and my suspicion is that my opponent didn't either. Even if his king managed to get in front of my pawn it's a draw, as long as my rook still has access to c3. He tried to win for awhile, but I managed to hold it together, and we drew after a grueling 107 moves. Unfortunately, this had no bearing on the match status, and we went down 2.5-1.5.

Next week we face the red hot Miami Sharks. If we win or draw, we clinch the division title, whereas if we lose we'll probably get 2nd. If we manage to get blown out, we might even get 3rd, but there I am being all negative again. My hope is that we'll just win and put all doubts to rest, and go into the post season with renewed confidence.

Taking out the Tempo

2008-10-15T23:41:00.000-07:00

Our Week 8 matchup was with the Tennessee Tempo - they haven't had much luck over the years in the league, but this year, they're much more dangerous with GM Jaan Ehlvest on board 1. Actually, Ehlvest might have the highest percentage of any board 1 in league history with his undefeated 7/8 over two seasons thus far. With Ehlvest on board 1, they can all slide down a board and get more competitive matchups.

Board 3: Shankland - Bick , 1-0

Sam was the first to finish with a win over John Bick. His opening was a bit weird (9.Nc3 is not something I normally see there, I thought 9.Kf2 is more normal), but he quickly achieved a huge position because Black got carried away on the queenside. After the game, he wondered if he'd get any GotW votes, and maybe he will, but he could've helped himself with 17.f5!

I had walked by after 16...Nb3 and thought 17.f5 was crushing but didn't calculate too much. Then Sam played 17.Bb5+, so I figured I had just missed something, but on a second glance, it looks devastating. One nice line is 17.f5 Nxa1 18.fxe6 g6 19.Bb5+ Kd8 20.Nxf7+ Qxf7 21.Rxf7 gxh5 22.Bg5#

After 17.Bb5+ though, White's advantage disappeared pretty quickly. 28...h4 was a bit too ambitious, and then John probably missed 32.Ne8+!, which sets up a nice mating attack.

Board 2: Andrews - Bhat, 0-1

I was a bit surprised by Todd's opening choice with the 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.g4 Anti-Meran. I was actually expecting 1.e4, but I knew he played 1.d4, and expected the regular 6.Bd3 Meran there. Earlier this year, I met this 7.g4 line (I think it's been called the Shirov-Shabalov Attack elsewhere?) with 7...h6. But in that game, against GM Eugene Perelshteyn, I struggled to get a draw, and figuring that Todd had prepared something special for me in this line, I decided to change things up at the line and play 7...Nxg4.

The game continued on relatively normal paths until 14.Be1. My thought during the game was that he wanted to stop 14...Nh4, which now runs into due to 15.Nxh4 Qxh4 16.f3, and maybe avoid an exchange of knight for bishop. Unfortunately, the bishop is misplaced a bit on e1 and clogs up some of the communication of his rooks. I also don't have to rush with ...Nh4 and can instead go about finishing my development and castling. I was more worried about 14.Bd3 or 14.Be2 at that point, as even if go after the h-pawn right away with 14...Nh4, after 15.Nxh4 Qxh4 16.Rdg1, I expected White to have adequate counterplay on the g-file and in the center.

In the game, though, I got to castle queenside without too much trouble and then White was left without any obvious targets to attack. With my powerful knight on e4 and the ability to challenge the g-file, the center and kingside are generally in Black's hands. Thus, Todd looked to attack on the queenside with 16.c5. The problem was that the attack was a bit slow to organize, and in the meantime, I was able to organize some serious threats myself.

After some exchanges on the kingside, I was threatening to crash through, but then Todd gave me a gift. 22.Rb3? walked right into 22...Nxc5 (thanks to the pin along the 4th rank), but I think White was already in trouble. I expected 22.Qb4, but then I planned 22...Rg1 23.Be2 (23.Rb3 still walks into 23...Nxc5! 24.Qxc5 Rxf1, when White is in huge trouble) Bc7 24.Rb3 Kd8!, simply sidestepping the attack. Black threatens 25...a5 to drive the queen from the defense of the bishop on e1, and meanwhile White's pieces are strangely tied up on the b-file and in the center.

Board 1: Wolff - Ehlvest, 1-0

Patrick ran into a buzzsaw this week, with Ehlvest continuing his strong play in the league. With this win, Jaan now leads BionicLime's USCL Rating List (available here). The opening didn't really go White's way, but I thought Patrick fought back to get a reasonable position. After the game, he suggested 21.a3 immediately (instead of 21.Rc1) was maybe a bit better.

Black cut across White's plan of Rc1-c2-f2 after 21.Rc1 with 21...Qd6 when the knight on d5 begins to feel a bit vulnerable. Patrick gave a pawn up on that square, but got it back before going into a slightly worse endgame with R + B + N + 3P for each side. A computer would probably draw such a position, but it's a tall order to play it in time pressure against a strong player. Ehlvest gradually wore him down until White blundered with 49.Rxb5, which allowed 49...Bxd4! winning.

Board 4: Al-Shamma - Young, 0-1

Like Board 3, this didn't seem to be going our way in the opening and early middlegame stages. As a side note, I think Jim lived in the Bay Area for some time, as I played him in the Berkeley Quads tournament back in 1994!

I'm not an expert on either side of the Dutch, but this line with Qc2 and Bg5 certainly paid dividends in the opening phase. White got his pieces out to good squares while saddling Black with the backwards e7-pawn. 13...Rxf3! was a good practical move, as although Black's position was still worse, the nature of the game had changed a bit and White had to play a little more precisely to maintain his advantage.

After some lengthy maneuvers, Greg still seemed to be hanging in there around move 25. White was tied up a bit on the kingside and Black was circling the g5-pawn. But it looks like 26...Nxg5 was rushed (Black's worse after 26...Bd7, but it's probably better), as White could play 27.Re2!, when 27...Nf7 loses to 28.Rxh3. Missing this, White had essentially just given his g-pawn away for free and was soon struggling to maintain equality. He continued to bleed pawns left and right, although as he was playing purely on the increment by that point it's hard to imagine putting up strong resistance. Greg wisely snatched a bunch of pawns before arranging a queen trade. He had 5 pawns and a bishop for the rook at that point, and even though one pawn was lost right away, it was a trivial win as the central pawns ran down the board.

With this win, we won the match 3-1 and clinched a playoff spot in the West. We now have 6.5/8, which keeps us tied for the best record in the league with Queens. Queens kept pace with a 3-1 win over the Chicago Blaze, with standout IM Alex Lenderman running his score up to 7 for 7 (!) in league play thus far. I don't think anybody has been perfect through 7 games before, and so maybe this breaks Jorge Sammour-Hasbun's record of 6.5 through 7 games last year for a single season performance? Miami beat Dallas, so they're in 2nd place now with 5.0/8. We play Dallas next week and Miami in week 10, so it won't be a cakewalk to maintain the division lead.

Some photos from SF - Seattle (week 7)

2008-10-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

Since we don't seem to have any photos posted, I took a few during yesterday's match. Here they are:

John on board 2. My board is in the background, with the (non-digital) clock ticking.

The kids seem to use a different approach without any old-fashioned board or clock.

I don't think I could see the board well if I were this close to the screen.

Sam prefers a slight tilt - monitor to the right, head to the left. But maybe that just explains his poor opening play.

Cutting down the Sluggers

2008-10-09T12:15:00.000-07:00

It took a couple extra days, but we beat the Sluggers in the end by a score of 3-1. This match was originally scheduled for Monday night, but due to some strange events, it got moved to Wednesday.

I'll give my take on the lineup changes (EDIT: This is not an agreed upon version, mind you, just my thoughts on the emails I saw). After our last match against Arizona, John emailed Greg asking if Patrick could play from the Marshall Club along with the NY Knights this week. After Greg asked Eddie Chang (the Seattle manager), it was cleared and the lineups were set with Patrick on 1 (as white against Hikaru) and Serper on 2 (as white against me).

Then, on Monday morning, the match was abruptly moved to Wednesday. It seemed there was concern about a strong storm moving through Seattle and also the fact that Serper's wife had delivered late on Sunday night. However, this was not a good move for us as Patrick had since scheduled to fly back on Wednesday evening. Thus, John was again forced into relief duty and had to play on board 2.

It would've been patently unfair to let Seattle use the same lineup on Wednesday as they had penciled in for the Monday match when they had just arbitrarily knocked out our highest rated player. However, they let Mikhailuk play on board 2 without even offering a time penalty to John, which seems ridiculous to me.

The justification seemed to be that Seattle had done us a favor by letting Patrick play from NY. For starters, this seems a bit of a stretch, as the league rules state that some of the factors that increase the likelihood of this being allowed include if: (1) you're away due to a major obligation; (2) the place is a public area; (3) your team has not used this option previously; (4) a league approved TD on site; (5) it's a regular season match. This covers 5 of the 6 applicable factors here, the only one remaining is the other team's willingness (but the commisoner retains the final say based on all the factors present).

Even discounting this, in the alternative scenario where we might have been forced to play on Monday without Patrick's help, Serper likely would not have played because of his newborn child. Our lineup would have been finalized in advance, but they would have had to substitute Mikhailuk (or someone else) with a time penalty offered.

But, in the end, Seattle got to knock out our highest rated player, while making a substitution that might well have taken place anyways without a time penalty! Luckily, we managed to win the match anyways.

Board 1: Bhat - Nakamura, 1-0

On board 1, I again got the white pieces against Hikaru. Last year's game was a bit of a roller coaster that ended in victory for me (the game can be replayed with some of my notes at: http://sfmechanics.blogspot.com/2007/09/back-in-game.html). Since then, Hikaru has since crossed 2700 FIDE and was a perfect 3 for 3 (all against GMs) so far this year.

The opening was a weird King's Indian Defense with 6...Nc6 7.d5 Nb8. This was one of the more interesting moments in the game, as I hadn't seen this move before, but it did bring back a memory of another weird opening line. It reminded me a bit of 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Ng8!?!?. I was alerted to the existence of this line when flipping through a copy of Khalifman's "Opening for White According to Anand, Volume 5", which at least according to the table of contents, spends close to 10 pages discussing how to get +/= against this line. I don't have the book, so I'm not sure it's a typo, but I've seen that table of contents online, so it's probably correct.

Anyways, I didn't expect to refute 7...Nb8 and when I looked this up in the database today, there were over 300 games with it!

I was a bit better after the opening, but the position wasn't anything amazing. After 16.cxd5, Black's queen is a bit funny on a5 (it can get hit by a3/b4 or Nb3 in various lines), and White is trying to push through e4-e5 when the knight on f6 is short on safe squares. Then, after 16...Nb6 17.a3 Na4, I could've played 18.Ncb5 which secures the advantage. I had seen the key line 18...a6 19.Nc7!! Rxc7 20.Nb3, when the Black queen can't stay in touch with the rook. However, I was unable to find anything special after 18...Qd8! 19.Rxc8 Qxc8 20.Nxa7 Qg4. 21.Qb5 runs into 21...Qd7, when White can't hang on to all his loose pawns (on b2, e4, f4, and sometimes d5). However, 21.Qc4 hits the knight and White comes out on top.

After 18.Nb1?!, then, Hikaru played correctly at first: 18...Rxc1 19.Rxc1 Qa6 before I made another misstep with 20.Qc2?!. Both 20.Qxa6 and 20.Nd2 were better, as even though White loses the b-pawn, the rook invades on the 7th rank and the position remains about equal.

Hikaru then returned the favor with 20.Qc2?! Nc5 21.Nd2 Nd3 22.Rf1 Nd7?. He explained after the game that he was a bit under the weather, which would explain this lackadaisical move. I'm pretty sure he'd normally see and play 23...Ng4! very quickly, when the threat of ...Ngf2+ is bothersome. I'd have to play 24.h3 Ngf2+ 25.Rxf2 (25.Bxf2 Nxf2+ 26.Rxf2 Bxd4 is clearly better for Black - he has the bishop over the knight, a more compact pawn structure, and the open c-file after ...b6 and ...Rc8) Bxd4 26.Rf1 when the position is now better for Black.

After 22...Nd7?, though, he's losing. 23.b4! threatens to cut the queen off from the knight and there's no safe way back from d3. After 23...Bxd4 24.Bxd4, he can try 24...g5, but the calm 25.g3 keeps the e5-square from Black and Qb3 and b5 follow, winning. The rest was pretty easy mop-up duty, as I wasn't planning on giving away gift away like I did against Barcenilla last week.

Board 4: May - Naroditsky, 0-1

The next game to finish was on board 4, with Danya pretty easily dispatching Andy May. This was a Closed Sicilian where Black chose the interesting plan of playing ...Nh6, ...f5, and ...Nf7. Actually, I think Hikaru used to play this way against the Closed Sicilian when he was younger. Anyways, White didn't find anything useful to do, and after 13...fxe4, dropped an exchange with 14.dxe4 Nb5 15.Nxb5 Bxb5. White could have put up some more resistance, but Danya neutralized any pressure quickly and marched on to victory. May struggled on for a long while, but the result was never in doubt.

Board 3: Shankland - Readey, 1-0

We definitely got a bit lucky on this board. I'm not sure which position Sam is talking about, but he claim after the game that at some point, if he had the black pieces, he'd "have a plus a score against Rybka." Danya quickly told him that was being a bit too bold, but the point remains that Black was clearly better.

The opening certainly didn't go Sam's way, as he sort of castled into it on the queenside. With the long diagonal being opened, and then having to play b2-b3, his position was pretty ugly. 20...Nc4! 21.bxc4 Nxe5 was one nice way to win the game (maybe this is what Sam was referring to?). 22...Nxe5! was also winning, as after 23.fxe5 Nxe3, White can't cover the back rank and the the weak dark squares.

Readey's move order of 22...Nxe3 23.Qxe3 Nxe5 was also good enough, but after 24.Rgd2, he should've brought the knight to c6 instead of g4 (after a preliminary exchange on d2). In the game, he was still better, but wasn't so easily winning. Sam defended well, and the game petered out to a simple equality. However, Readey had been down on time for a while now, and maybe either the time pressure or the fact Seattle needed him to win to salvage a draw in the match clouded his judgment and he let the draw slip away 60...Bf8?. Sam then played correctly, targeting the g6-pawn to finish Black off.

Board 2: Mikhailuk - Donaldson, 1-0

This was a smooth positional effort from Mikhailuk. The game started out as a standard Symmetrical English, with some subtle move order tricks from both players. Maybe an interesting juncture was after 14.Rb1, when John had a chance to play 14...Nd4. Then after 15.Bxb7 Rb8 16.Bg2 Bb3 17.Qe1, Black has compensation for the pawn, but it's not clear it's quite enough. However, this was very similar to John's game as black last year against Readey (!) when he made a similar pawn sacrifice on b7 to get a bind on White's position. Take a look at Readey-Donaldson, 0-1, 2007 - the position after 23.Qe1 is pretty similar. John considered this, but in that game, Readey had lost some time with his queen and knight, and so Black's counterplay (especially with ...f7-f5-f4) was coming much sooner.

Anyways, the next interesting moment seems to be after 17.axb4, when Black can consider 17...Qd6 instead of 17...cxb4. In the game, Black takes the bishop pair, but is saddled with a permanently weak b5-pawn. After 17...Qd6 18.bxc5 bxc5, though, White has trouble targeting the c5-pawn and the d4-square becomes an even stronger outpost for Black's knight. 19.Rb1 Bb3 and 19.Qc2 Nd4 do not inspire for White.

After 17...cxb4 18.Bxb4 Nxb4 19.Rxb4, though, it becomes a long struggle to try and draw the game. The isolated b-pawn became an isolated a-pawn, but it was no safer there. John managed to get to R + B + N, with 3 pawns to 2 for White, but the passed d-pawn is problematic. Pushing the h-pawn with 37...h5 may not have been the best call, but having done so, 38...h4 probably has to be played. Black's happy about pawn exchanges, so 39.gxh4 isn't too worrisome; after 39.g4, though, Black has to find 39...Ng7!, heading for e6 which targets the newly weak f4 and g5 squares.

In the game, White slowly activated his pieces and Black had too many weaknesses to defend. With 3 points in the bag, it didn't affect the match outcome, and we stayed in first place in the West with 5.5/7. Next week, we play on Wednesday against Tennessee.

Sort of right

2008-10-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

A few days overdue, but we won in one of the featured Monday night matchups against the Arizona Scorpions. It could easily have been 4-0, but we settled for a 3-1 victory (as a side note, it was some nice symmetry with the previous week against Boston, where we should have lost 0-4, but managed to save two games to bring the score to 1-3).

Board 3: Rensch-Shankland, 0-1

The first game to finish was on board 3, as Sam outplayed Danny in an endgame. Like Patrick a few weeks ago, Sam essayed the Classical Sicilian and quickly took the game into an endgame. However, 17...b6? was a mistake that allowed 18.e5!, when White can get a very favorable structure at no real cost. White missed that opportunity and should have then sat tight instead of 20.e5?. A draw would then have been the most likely result in my view.

I'm assuming that White missed 20...Bxf3 21.exd6+ Rxd6!. The resulting R+P endgame is also probably drawn with correct play, but it's psychologically tough to play tough defense after a couple missed lines. As it was, Sam played quite well and easily went from equality to a clearly won game.

Board 2: Pruess - Ginsburg, 1-0

David one-upped me here, as he managed to win with an offbeat Bg5 opening (as opposed to my disaster against Christiansen a couple weeks back). I personally don't think 3...c6 and 4...Qa5 is the most challenging way to meet the Veresov, but Mark said that he's had some success with this line in the past. As he said, 8...exf3! was a better move - in the game, Black's king gets stuck in the center for no real compensation.

White continued thematically with 11.d5!, opening up the position before Black could consolidate. The game turned into David's bread-and-butter: pursuit of the king. He never let Black get a real fighting chance later on, with 13.Qe1! and 19.Ne4!. The finish was rather picturesque - Black can't avoid losing a queen after 23.c7+, so he resigned.

Board 4: Naroditsky - Martinez, 1/2

This game was almost decided in the opening itself. Danya played a King's Indian Attack and black chose a solid, but not especially enterprising line against it with an early ...b6. After 9.Qe2, Black can play 9...a5 or 9...Be7 with a reasonable position, but instead, he chose the lemon 9...Nfxe4?. With 13.Qf3!, White hits b7 and f7, and threatens an annoying check on c6 to boot. Actually, I expected 14.Qc6+ Ke7 (14...Qd7? drops the rook on a8) 15.Nxe6!, when it's all over right away. If 15...Kxe6 (15...fxe6 drops the queen after 16.Bg5+) 16.Re1+ Kf6 17.h4! h6 18.h5!, and Black can't avoid mate. The threat is 19.Qc3+ Kf5 20.Qf3#.

However, Danya chose the more prosaic approach with 14.Rd1 Be7 15.Nxf7. White just emerges up a couple extra pawns in a relatively trivial endgame. I'll take a break in the action of describing this game with my own now.

Board 1: Barcenilla - Bhat, 1/2

I had expected Rogelio to play 1.c4 (since that's all I saw for the past dozen years or so), and then he played 1.e4 on me! I was debating what to play, but decided to go with the Ruy Lopez. He chose a sideline in the Exchange Ruy with 5.Nc3 that was unfamiliar to me, and I responded with 5...Qd6. It's ironic that Josh Friedel was surprised with 1.e4 by Serper in the league, and Serper chose this same line of the Exchange Ruy! Must be easy to learn ...

The endgame was pretty equal right away, as Black has no real trouble with his queenside pawns or in developing his pieces. 16...Be6 was a bit provocative, as 16...Bd8/16...Bc6 would be more normal in this kind of position. White played 17.f4, as expected. The mistake, as pointed by Levan Altounian on the Scorpions' blog, was to keep pushing the f-pawn. 18.f5?! and 19.e5?! left White a bit overextended, when 18.Nc3 was more prudent. White's not really much better, but the game continues.

By 25...Rhe8, I was already a bit better probably, as I had accomplished a lot more over the previous 5 moves or so than White had. White's pawns aren't going anywhere, Black has the bishop pair, and can now try to start pushing with some of his queenside pawns. Maybe in an effort to stir the pot, Rogelio played a bit starting with 26.b4, and was close to losing after 32...Nc7. After 36.Ke2?, allowing 36...Rxb3 37.Rxb3 Nd4+, winning a piece, he was definitely losing.

Of course, at this point, we were winning on the two remaining boards. On Sunday, I had given an interview to Elizbeth Vicary (you can read it on her blog, here) and predicted a win for Seattle by a score of 2.5-1.5, and a win for San Francisco by a score of 3-1. I realized now that I was in danger of being wrong on that prediction and that really couldn't be allowed.

So I started running back and forth between my board and Danya's board in an effort to distract him from his game.

Thus, in spite of having at least 3 winning plans after move 35 in his game (35.h3-h3), he was thoroughly distracted and managed to give away half a point. (The easiest way to win would have been h3/g4/f4-f5/g5-f6, and so on.)

I, too, had to make sure not to win my game and so after consolidating the extra piece, I was only one move away (with 47...Bd7 or 47...Bd5 of completely squashing any hope of counterplay). However, I had to make sure to give away the win as well, and so out came 47...Kb5?, 52...Bg7?, 54...Nf5?, and so on. Actually, even after these mistakes, 64...Nh5 might have provided winning chances, but in the mode of playing bad chess, I couldn't stop myself and so 64...Ne4 came along, allowing the obvious 65.Nxg4 with an immediate draw.

Anyways, the two draws were enough to win by a 3-1 score and reclaim sole first in the west (Dallas lost to Tennessee by a 2.5-1.5 margin). Next week, we get the rejuvenated Seattle Sluggers, who with GMs Nakamura and Serper on boards 1 and 2, present a tough test for everybody.

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce?

2008-09-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

Well, that was embarrassing. In what was quite possibly our worst match ever, we lost yesterday to the Boston Blitz by a score of 3-1. It could easily have been much worse, as I'm not sure we were ever really better on any of the boards.

Board 3: Shankland - Esserman, 1/2

Board 3 pitted two rapidly improving players that many predicted to be a slugfest. The game was a regular Najdorf until 8.Qe2, which I've never seen before. I didn't get a chance to ask Sam if this was his preparation, but in any case, it certainly didn't work out. Esserman achieved a clearly better position right away, and then Sam had to play defense.

Black could easily have played for more (for example, 27...Qa5 looks quite strong), but having looked at the other boards, Marc decided to play it safe and exchange queens. The endgame left nothing special to play for and a draw was agreed.

Thus, it looked like we dodged the first bullet of the evening.

Board 1: Bhat - Christiansen, 0-1

Well, I can't say much positive about my play in this game. I normally don't play the Trompowsky these days (it was my main weapon with 1.d4 back in 2005), but it was what I felt like playing in this game. I decided to steer the game out of any theoretical waters with 3.Nd2!?. Larry has previous experience in this 2...d5 line in the league itself, as he played it against Nakamura last year (see the game Nakamura - Christiansen, 2007, which ended in a draw).

Larry played 3...Nbd7, and looking back now, there was clearly something wrong with me as I played 4.e3 and after 4...e5, realized that I was playing the black pieces. Somehow Black had gotten the center! Oops.

Actually it wasn't too serious, as after 9.Bxc4, I thought that it was probably equal, but that White's position is a bit easier to play. The check on b4 is not very dangerous, as after 9...Bb4+ 10.Ke2, White's king is not a problem (Black can't get at it), while the bishop on b4 is misplaced and White is ready to do exactly what he wants: put the queen on b3 (targeting b7 and f7), rooks on the open files, and maybe even put a knight on e5. If Black exchanges queens, White's king is already in the center while the e5-square is still available. Meanwhile, unlike in the game, White's pawn structure is fine and his development is better.

However, I completely missed 11...g5 which forces the queens off, negates the development issue to a large extent, and messes up my structure a bit. Thus, 11.0-0 was a bit of a mistake, and 11.Qb3 was better. I saw this move, but saw no reason to rush as I thought Black was just going kingside as well. After the surprise, I immediately erred with 13.hxg3 (13.fxg3 was better, making use of the open f-file and the weak squares on f7, f6, and f5 created by ...g5 - I'm not sure why I rejected this during my long think) and then played the rather eccentric 15.Re1?!.

Around this point, Sam was in some trouble (queens were still on the board) and Daniel seemed to just be down a rook for nebulous compensation. David's position appeared to be a mess, but with his queen soon to be a blockader on g7, I wasn't overly optimistic (after the game, David explained that his 2 extra pawns outweighed that queen, but he that he missed some tactics later on).

In my game, the normal plan would be to put the knight on d4 and leave the rook on d1 - to this end, 15.Be2 (or maybe 15.Rac1!?), followed by 16.Nd4 is natural. However, in an effort to keep more pieces on the board, I decided that a plan of pushing the e- and f-pawns offered some hope of complicating things again after I didn't play 11.Qb3. But, this plan is just a pipe dream. I shifted the pieces around for a while, and while my position stayed slightly worse, it wasn't over by any means.

Somehow, though, I missed 26...Rad7 (rather obvious, as Black had essentially just played ...Ra7 preparing to double) and blundered with 27.Nxg5. After 27.Bc2 (which, sadly, I saw) Rg8 (to guard the g5-pawn), 28.Bh7 Rg7 29.Bb1 still keeps fighting. As it was, Black's rook invades on d2 with clear advantage.

Then maybe the most embarrassing moment for me came up - I flagged on move 31, trying to play f2-f4. The endgame is bad, of course, but after 31.f4 Rxb2 32.Be4, White can still play on a bit longer. However, I typed f5 the first time, and then on noticing the move wasn't being made, I tried again and again typed in f5! Wishful thinking to push the f-pawn to f5 at once. The last time I remember losing on time (I've certainly lost because of time, or resigned with a couple seconds on my clock but to actually let my clock run out?) was back in 1994 or so, when I lost track of the moves, saw the clock turn over to the next time control, and thought I made it when in fact I hadn't. Anyways, no offense meant to Larry - I didn't purposely let my clock run out. I just was too incompetent yesterday to figure out where the 4 was on the keyboard.

Board 4: Krasik - Naroditsky, 1/2

This was a miraculous save by Danya. The game devolved into a mess very quickly, with what I think is a Panno version of the Saemisch with opposite-side castling. It turns out Christiansen had written an article on this exact variation some time back, but recommending 15...Be6 instead of Danya's 15...Qa5. The entire line looks fishy to me, but as I don't play this from either side, it may just be my ignorance showing.

After 17.d5, if Black retreats, White can simply play a3 and ask where Black plans to put this knight. The kingside is still a problem and Black might just be down a piece. So, Danya just sacrificed a whole rook with 17...Nxa2+, 18...Rxb2, and 19...Bxc3. I missed this sequence, but then saw the position after 20...Bd7 21.Bd2 and decided he was just down a rook for essentially nothing.

Actually, 20...c4 seems like a better objective try, but I'm sure he saw something to dissuade him. 21.Qb6 Qxa2 22.dxe6 Qa3+ 23.Kb1 Bb4! looks like a saving try, as Black might be able to escape into an exchange down position if he gets White's bishop.

Krasik managed to defend pretty well and consolidate his extra piece, but then tripped up horribly with 40.Kg1??. 40.Kg2 would have won as Black doesn't have a perpetual then (40...Qg4+ 41.Kf2 Qd4+ 42.Ke2 Qg4+ 43.Ke1 Qg3+ 44.Qf2), but in the game, he has checks on g3, e1, and h4 forever.

Board 2: Sammour Hasbun - Pruess, 1-0

The last game to finish, and the only team member to think he had a serious advantage at any point in the game. This is not a line of the French I normally play, but 10.0-0-0 is certainly not the most popular move (usually White exchanges on c5 first, in order to prevent Black from playing ...c4 after White goes long). Maybe Jorge had prepared something specially for David here.

In my view, 12...Nb6 was a bit of an error and I'd prefer 12...f6. I think it might force White to pay a bit more attention to his center and prevent the wholesale assault that Jorge launched in the game. David won two pawns, but after 24...h6, his queen was relegated to being a big defender of the passed g6-pawn.

While this was a serious weakness, he did have an extra two pawns, and it wasn't clear how White would break through. Instead of pushing on the queenside immediately, Black could have taken some time out to solidify his central situation (some ideas include doubling rooks on the e-file, sliding the king over to f8, trying to get the queen away from g7 earlier, etc), but he missed the nice shot 31.Nxe6!. White executed perfectly after that, not falling for any of the tactical tricks David set up.

And so we were handed out first loss of the season, dropping us into a tie for first in the west with Dallas at 3.5/5. Hopefully we managed to get all the bad chess out of our system at once, as we have a short week with a Monday Night matchup against Arizona coming up.

Pre...monitions for the SF-Boston Match

2008-09-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

Predictors are putting up with a lot these days, so I figured I'd do some predicting under another term. My small hope is that nobody realizes it. My larger hope is actually that nobody reads it either. So without further ado, here they are.

Board 1 has two players I basically can't pick against. Vinay was put in for a few reasons. The first being that Patrick is on a business trip in Europe, and can't play. The 2nd is that I'm so terrified of Boston that I'm flying to New York on that very day. The 3rd is, well, because he's Vinay. I have to pick Vinay to win, but I simply can't pick Larry to lose. Therefore, I say Vinay walks away from this game with the full point, while Larry picks up half of one. (1-.5 SF)

Board 2 is another interesting matchup. White is Jorge Sammour-Hasbun, one of the best performers ever in the USCL. It would be hard to pick against Jorge considering his league success. However, it is David's first match, and he is always hungry in his first outing. Therefore, I decided to do it mathematically. David's total league score is 16.5/26 (63%), while Jorge's is 8/9 (89%). Assuming all scores are expected to reach 50% eventually, isn't it logical that both of them need to start losing? Therefore, that is what will happen. (0-0)

Board 3 pits two players who are showing impressive results lately. Sam Shankland, with the white pieces and a FIDE rating recently surpassing 2400, would on paper seem to be the likely favorite. However, I prefer to go by the most recent of results. In the Miami Open, Esserman put up the strong score of 6.5/9. Shankland, however, couldn't even manage a point. Therefore, I have to go with Esserman on this board, and being kind to our team, I'll say he only gets 2-0. (2-0 BOS)

And it all comes down to board 4. So far, the score is 2.5-1 in Boston's favor. We all know Naroditsky is a powerful force, but can he make up the slack? Lest we forget, he's playing one of the most feared players in all the league. While I must pick the kid to pick up a point, I don't want to be unfair to Ilya, so I'll grant him a point too. (1-1)

So, there you have it. We are going to lose 3.5-2. I know this isn't what our fans want to hear, but I have to call it like I see it.

-Josh

SF smashes Philly

2008-09-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, a bit of an overstatement. The match was much closer than the score (3.5-0.5) indicated.

On board 1, Kudrin seemed to have a slight edge against Wolff, but before I knew it the game was over, draw. Wolff seemed to hold himself together very well, and it turns out Kudrin never had more than a slight edge. The game can be replayed here.

For a very long time we were in a very tense match situation, with all three boards being very unclear. On board 4, Danya sifted through the complications after playing a nice pawn sac, 18.g5!. After he played 22.e5, I thought he had quite a serious advantage and that Wilson would be under a lot of pressure. After 22...fxe5 23.Bxe5, I think white should be winning (I have not analyzed it at all, I could just be wrong) based on the weak black king and whites well placed pieces and attacking potential. The game can be replayed here.

I was the next to finish, with a win over Richard Costigan on board 3 (The game can be replayed here.). My game was interesting, the plan of c4 closing the queenside and then putting my king there was very risky, but white never got in a4 and b5. I think the key moment of the game was when Costigan played 24.Bf4?. If he had played 24.Nf4 Rxg1+ 25.Bxg1 Nxe5 doesn't work, so I was planning to play 25...Nf8, although I think white must have an advantage there as I am still playing without my light squared bishop.

After 24.Bf4, slowly I made progress and shut his pieces out of the game. The killer was when I managed to swing my pawn on b7 into the game (and promote it to a bishop). If Costigan had tried a3-a4! at some point, planning to meet ...Bc6 with b4-b5, he may have been able to generate some counterplay. The immediate b4-b5 was also an idea, as ...a6-a5 shuts down all play but my bishop is still entombed, and ...axb5 could run into Rb1 or a4 (or both).

30.Bg4 would have been a mistake if not for the beauty it created on the completely occupied g-file after 30...Bg6. You could say that all our pieces had no trouble at all finding their respective g-spots. After 31...Bd3 it was pretty much over.

Now, on to Josh's game on board 2 against Bryan Smith (the game can be replayed here). He played nicely for the first half or so of the game, including 32.Re1! with the point being 32...Rxa5 33.Bxf7+ Kxf7 34.Re5! and black will not be able to stop Rxg5 and Rg7+. However, then he lost part of his mind and succeeded in finding some of the worst moves on the board. In all seriousness, he did misplay it, most notably missing the ...Nh8-g6 maneuver, but always had counterplay with his f-pawn.

40...Kf6? was a serious error, when 40...Kh6 should have kept some advantage, though probably not enough to win. Josh made the strong reply 41.Bc7!, where he is back in control. At this point, an esteemed member of the Mechanics suggested 41...Ne7 for black, which would be good if not for 42.Be5#. Josh played very well from then on, including 45.Bf6+!, forcing 45...Kh6 and following up with 46.Bxg6! Unfortunately, however, he then proceeded to play 47.Kh2, which is pretty stupid. Even without calculating any variations, it seems more natural to play 47.Kg2.

However, while many morons such as Greg Shahade have said that black is winning after 47.Kh2, they are wrong. After 47.Kh2 hxg6 48.Be5!, both 49.f6 and 49.Bf4+ are serious threats. Black's best is 49...exf5 50.Bf4+ Kg7 51.Bxc1 fxg4, and of course white is better but will he win? Maybe, maybe not, I'm too lazy to look at the endgame. On 47.Kg2! though, 48.Bg5+ (as played in the game) is decisive. In the game, 48.Bg5+ should have been met by 48...Kxg5 49.f6 Rc2! with a winning position for black. Instead, black probably missed that his rook was hanging and played 48...Kg7, after which it was all over.

Boston next, should be fun.

Cheers,
Sam Shankland

Sinking the Sharks

2008-09-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

We actually had a week 3 recap posted earlier, but due to an unfortunate accident, the post was lost for posterity. I'll fill in the blank with this one ...

Board 1: Donaldson - Becerra, 0-1

First off, we originally had a lineup with GM Patrick Wolff on board 1, but due to a last minute family emergency (Patrick has two young children), IM John Donaldson had to fill in for him. This was both psychologically difficult since he was not prepared and was rather inclined to go out for dinner, but also chess-wise, a tough task, as he was up against 2-time league MVP, GM Julio Becerra.

Thus, rather than test the waters in a main-line Slav or Semi-Slav, John tried to play it safe with the Exchange Slav. Actually he drew with Becerra back in 2005 in 15 moves in this line (see Donaldson - Becerra, 2005), but Julio was in a more fighting mood this time around.

John didn't get anything from the opening, but it was relatively symmetric. He could have maintained more of that symmetry with 15.Qf3, since as he said later, "his pieces were not set up to play against the IQP." 21.Bh4 was a more serious mistake, since the bishop pair is not so valuable here - black's knight will cause many more problems than white's dark-squared bishop can solve. Julio concluded the game with a nice and simple demonstration of the value of opposite-colored bishops when attacking.

Board 2: Perea - Friedel, 1/2

This was a pretty standard Nimzo with Josh playing more of a Dutch hybrid setup with ...Ne4, ...f5, and so on.

15.dxe6 was quite accommodating by White since it opens up the diagonal for Black's light-squared bishop, making the attack with 15...Ng5! possible. Actually, this is why Black is in no hurry to play ...e6-e5 himself, since that would relegate his bishop to biting on stone from b7, and it would take time to reroute it to f5 via c8.

Perea made a serious mistake with 15.Nd4 (15.Qd1 was probably better), but Josh played the tempting 17...Nxf2+ which only leads to a draw. The correct move was not that easy to spot, but looking at the game continuation, you realize that White's king now has an escape hatch on f2.

I'll let John take over in his newsletter comments:

"Can you find the win? Imagine the Knight on h4 was gone - ...Qh4 would immediately mate.

The answer is 17...Nf4!

Now 18.Bf3 Qh4 19.h3 Nxh3 20.Nxf5 Ng5+ 21.Nxh4 Rxh4+ 22.Kg1 Nxf3+ 23.gxf3 Bxf3 is the prettiest line;

while 18.f3 Qh4 19.Kg1 Qxh2+ 20.Kf2 Qxg2+ 21.Ke1 Nxe6 and 18.Qxf5 Bxg2+ 19.Kg1 Rf8 20.exf4 Qh4 are easy wins."

With this opportunity missed, Josh had to take a draw very quickly. This didn't seem too bad actually, as by this time, even though we were down 1.5-0.5 on the scoreboard, we looked to be winning on boards 3 and 4.

Board 3: Shankland - Galofre, 1-0

Sam's opening didn't go so well in this game, but it wasn't that easy to punish it and he quickly achieved a better position.

One of the pitfalls that was pointed out on ICC during the game was if 13.Bb2? (instead of the correct 13.Bd2), Black has 13...Qf5! 14.Rc1 (14.Ra1 allows 14...a3, when White's bishop can't keep in touch with the knight) axb3 15.axb3 Ra2, essentially winning.

Having avoided this trap, White is still probably not any better, but ...Ba6 was a bit funny as the bishop doesn't have much of a future there in this position. In order to make this setup work, Galofre probably should've taken on c4 at some point, and after 23.Rdc1, there was no doubt White was in control.

Sam played nicely to increase his advantage and squeeze Black into submission, but then he amazingly forgot about the knight fork and just dropped a piece! He might still be able to draw with correct play, given his strong pawn on e7, but he gave SF fans a real heart attack there. Luckily for him and the rest of the team, Galofre was in some time pressure and blundered back, and resigned after letting Sam queen safely with check on move 47.

Board 4: Rodriguez - Naroditsky, 0-1

This was a pretty nice win from Danya, who played the cleanest game of any of the Mechanics this week. I'm not sure what happened to Rodriguez, but in a pretty standard position, he thought for about 45 minutes on 4 moves from 10.h3, 11.a3, 12.Re1, and 13.Bf1. Maybe he wasn't prepared for this position or hadn't played it before?

As John wrote, "[w]hen White trades on e5 in the King's Indian, he hopes to follow up with c5 and Nf3-d2-c4 or Bc4 at some point. He never got close here..." Black managed to maneuver his knights to the key d4-square and then went to work on the queenside and the center, pushing all of White's pieces backwards. The position after 22...Ne6-d4 is especially amusing, as White has all his pieces on the 1st or 2nd rank, while Black has made inroads into White's 4th rank.

The squeeze continued and White gave up the ghost after 41...Qc2 as Black's pawns will crash through.

And so we managed to knock off the Sharks by a score of 2.5-1.5 and hand them their first loss of the season. It was also nice to get the youngsters on boards 3 and 4 back on track after their lackluster performance in week 2 against Chicago.

Held to a draw by the Blaze

2008-09-04T16:39:00.000-07:00

In week 2, we were up against an expansion team from Chicago, the Chicago Blaze. They presented a very balanced lineup with IM Angelo Young on board 4! This is probably the first time an IM has managed to make it down to board 4 in the USCL, while still keeping the average rating below 2400.

Still, on paper, we were rating favorites in this match, as our current average team rating was about 2440 compared to 2393 for the Blaze. However, we only came away with a 2-2 tie, and were likely a bit lucky to get that. And now to how the games were actually played ....

Board 3: Pasalic - Shankland, 1-0

The match got off to a bad start for us, with Sam's game finishing first. His position after the opening was fine, but then it seemed he played a little too loosely (I'm not sure about 17...h6 and 18...Bd5, for example), not doing much with his position while White started to make some threats. After 25.Bb4, he simply lost the thread of the game and went down in flames quickly. His position was worse for sure, but he could have put up more resistance with 25...Rbe8 or 25...Rfe8. As it was, it was all over shortly thereafter and we were in the hole 1-0.

Board 2: Bhat - Tate, 1-0

This was a crazy game, with many more complications than I had hoped for. I was a bit tired before the game, so I decided not to challenge his opening of 1...b6 and 2...e6 and soon we reached a position that could arise from a French (albeit a rather odd move order). I was quite happy with my position after 7.h4 Ba6 8.Bxa6 Nxa6 9.Qe2, as Black must either lose more time with his knight (going back to c6 via b8), or close the center and release the tension with 9...c4.

Emory chose to close the center, and I probably should've stopped a move to play a2-a3 to slow down his queenside play. White has a clear advantage on the kingside there. However, I thought I could make use of the b-file after 15.Rb1. My original plan had been to play 17.Rb7!? Qc6 18.Qb2, taking the b-file (and if 18...Ba3 19.Qxa3 Qxb7 20.Qd6, virtually winning), but while he was thinking, I realized he could play 18...Kd8!! there, with the simple idea of 19...Kc8. All of a sudden, my "control" of the b-file just gets me into serious trouble.

Therefore, I played 17.Bxh6, but then he wisely closed the b-file and then castled queenside. At that point, I felt it was becoming more of a mess as I didn't see how to checkmate Black or take all his center pawns. Actually, that was a bit of a mirage, as after 21...Nh4, White can play 22.Qxf7. I was worried about 22...Bg5 23.Qxe6 Nc7, seemingly trapping the queen, but 24.Rb4! saves White and leaves him winning. The game line, after 25.g4 Nfxd4 (a necessary sacrifice, as if 25...Bxf6 26.gxf5 Be7 27.fxe6 is winning) devolves into a real mess. Throw in my time situation (down to 1 minute as usual after 33.Kh1) and I was not too happy with myself.

But then Emory started to slip a bit, first with 34...Qe3, then more seriously 37...Kb4, and then fatally with 39...d4?. I found 40.Rf4! (40.Rf2 is actually even better according to the computer), which cuts Black's queen off from giving any checks, opens the long diagonal for White's queen to give a check on b7, and eyes Black's king along the 4th rank. He played on a bit, but it was too much to deal with.

Board 1: Felecan - Friedel, 0-1

This was a smooth performance from Josh on board 1. Felecan chose the offbeat Worrall Attack with 5.Qe2, and then shuffled his knight around to the kingside before castling. From what little I know, the point is normally to not lose a move with Rf1-e1 (to make way for the knight), but Josh seemed to equalize quite easily. With ...Bg5 and ...Ng6, he seemed ready to start pressing, but then Felecan lashed out with 19.h4?! Bxh4 20.Ngf5 Bg5 21.g3. It looks to me like 21...Ne6 might be simpler, but Josh decided to ignore the threats with 21...g6!?. Felecan then made a serious mistake with the imaginative 25.Qg3?, when 25.Qxf4 would have sufficed. The difference is that if 25.Qxf4, we get to the same position in the game after 27.Bxh6, except that Black doesn't have a pawn on g3!

After that mistake, Josh pounced with some very accurate moves starting with 27...d5, saddling White with a weak e4-pawn. Felecan tried to mess up the position with a piece sac, but Black's cool defense left him with a trivial endgame win.

Board 4: Naroditsky - Young, 0-1

Josh's win was key because while this game was the last to finish for us, it was virtually over much earlier. It was a rather weird opening, sort of a hybrid between a Pirc and a Philidor to my untrained eye. Daniel must have been a bit flummoxed by the opening line, as he made some decisions I'm not used to seeing him make (like putting his knight on h1, and then cementing his own dark-square weaknesses with g2-g4). It took a little while, but the result was never in too much doubt, as Young squeezed all the life out of White's position.

Thus, we finished the match in a 2-2 tie. A little lucky, perhaps, to come away with 2 points from the top 2 boards, but also a bit unlucky to see our strength on boards 3 and 4 come away empty for the first time in club history.

Next week, we have a special Monday Night Matchup with the Western Division leading Miami Sharks. They've given us some trouble in the past and have stomped some pretty solid teams from Seattle and NY so far this year, so we'll have our work cut out for us.

SF Beats Defending Champs in Week 1

2008-08-29T14:41:00.000-07:00

The Mechanics are off to a good start in 2008. We started off the season by beating Dallas in week one 2.5-1.5. We managed the tough task of fielding a team with an average age over the legal limit, while our opponents fielded their typical lineup of strong college students. Let's check out the games.

Zorigt-Naroditsky was the first to finish. The kid played a KID, and it seemed like he was slightly worse, but he offered a draw and she took it. Not the most exciting game, but I think he saw Sam was winning by that point, so he offered to get us a 1.5-.5 lead.

Shankland-Schneider was a game in which the importance of opening preparation showed through. Igor can get a bit experimental in the openings at times, and in this game he payed for it, playing a sacrifice which is known to be bad. It wasn't known to me either, but luckily it was known to Sam, who looked at it as part of his preparation. He didn't bother hiding it either, managing to spend -4 minutes on the game due to increment. To be fair, I believe it was all known to him, and I think he only spent time on the final blow Qxf4. While it is a rare bit of luck when people walk right into your prep, it was still a nice victory by Sam, who continues to perform very well in the league.

Wolff-Zivanic was a very interesting game. Patrick played what I thought to be a somewhat dubious sacrifice in the opening, and I'm usually one to think even the dumbest sacrifices are jewels. Then it looked like his attack was looking promising, up until Zivanic found the nice defensive move Qb6! This is the kind of move a computer will play against you, and you want to bash it over the head with a frying pan. However, Patrick found a way to get to an exchange-down ending. which he held with surprising ease. In fact, it looked as if he was almost better in the final position, though it's doubtful he can break through, so he took a draw. A very entertaining, yet stressful game to watch.

I knew I'd have my work cut out for me this week. In fact, I'd probably have to cut it out for myself. I had black against IM Kuljasevic. He was one of Dallas's best performers last year, and his FIDE is now over 2500. Meanwhile, I've been having a rough summer chess-wise, right after making GM in late spring. Despite this, on Wednesday I managed to play a pretty solid game. In an e3 Nimzo, he mistimed an e4 break, and after everything fizzled I felt I was slightly better. He played an interesting exchange sac, and while I still felt I should be better, practically it is very difficult to play. Somehow I managed to play it correctly, however, finding the key idea Bc8-f5. It would have been tougher had he played Nd4 instead of Re1 in order to prevent it, but I think he missed that after Bf5 Nd4 Bg6 f3, I can play Qh4! Once I get that awful bishop into play, his compensation is minimal, and in the final position where we played a three-fold I was probably winning. Still, it would still take some effort to win, and anything can happen in time pressure, so I decided to play it smart for once and took a draw. This was understandable from his point of view also, as he can't really play for the win himself at that point.

So, a strong performance in the first week vs. an always tough Dallas team. Next week we get Chicago, one of the new additions to the league. They lost a tough match to Arizona in week one, and hopefully we can compound their misery next week.

-Josh

Open rant at Jonathan Hilton

2007-10-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that for the first time in USCL history,Friedel-Serper 1-0 did NOT win game of the week. The league commissioner Mr. Shahade voted this game second and clearly made a very bad call, but because it was only off by one and not such a huge offense i will let him slide, although we can hope he will exercise better judgment in the future. However, JONATHAN HILTON DESPERATELY NEEDS SOME BRAINS IN HIS NOGGAN IF HE IS TO CONTINUE BEING A GOTW JUDGE.

Jonathan has ranked every single one of Friedels losses this season quite highly, and none of them with the exception of the Milman game (even still, that is pushing it) were any kind of good quality chess. However, when josh comes up with a masterpiece like this against Serper, of course Hilton doesn't rank it at all! Instead he ranked a game first that was decided by one move. Josh specifically made sure not to blow out Serper too badly, he wanted a close encounter, and the result was a great game of fighting chess. Hilton also ranked Bhat's win third. I mean HELLO! Bhat ALWAYS wins his game and already has two gotw's under his belt! The game was not anything special, they just got an equal position where Vinay slowly outplayed his opponent and won with a tactic in the final position. The way I see it, we either have a biased judge that must be disciplined or a blithering idiot helping decide who makes big bucks. Either way, the uscl has a problem. I have nothing personal against Hilton, he is a good kid, but seriously, this is just MADNESS.

P.S. Mr shahade, i believe organizing a Friedel-Hilton boxing match would be largely appreciated in San Francisco.

Back to the Playoffs ...

2007-10-25T23:33:00.001-07:00

After dropping to 4th place in the West after 7 weeks, we've made up serious ground the last couple weeks and now sit in 2nd place!

Week 9: SF (3) - Seattle (1)

(2) Tangorn (SEA) - Bhat (SF), 0-1, http://www.uschessleague.com/games/tangbornbhat07.htm

This was a tough game that was marred a little bit by Eric's blunder with 46.Qc3 at the end of the game. The opening was relatively quiet, and I equalized easily with the Black pieces. I spent a good amount of time coming up with the plan starting with 14...Bd6 and 15...Qb8, as there were easier ways to get dull equality at hand (such as ...Ne4 or ...Ng4 in general). With 16...Nh5, I have visions of playing ...Ng7-f5, while the knight performs a useful function of keeping watch over the f4-square if White ever gets over-ambitious and plays e3-e4. As it was, Eric played g2-g4, but then Black is happy to push on the queenside and play with the isolated d-pawn. 22...Bf8 and 23...Bg7 was a silly idea (I should've just played ...c5 straight-away), and I then followed it up with 29...Rcd8?!. The e8-rook is doing nothing, and so it should be the one on d8, while the queen's rook should go to a8 to support the a4 push. I realized this one move late, but then with 33.f4 (weakening the long diagonal), it was back to c8 to get rid of the rooks. This made for an optically puzzling sequence, but I think it all makes sense. As Dana mentioned on his blog (http://www.danamackenzie.com/blog/?p=15), I hallucinated when playing 39...dxe2, thinking the Qc4 was unprotected and so 40...Bf8 would win a piece and the game. As it was, I was only able to win a piece a few moves later, although Black's position was already clearly better after 40...Qc7.

(4) Sinanan (SEA) - Naroditsky (SF), 1/2, http://www.uschessleague.com/games/sinanannaroditsky07.htm

This one went down the KID's main line of the Bayonet
Attack, but with 11...Nf4 12.Bf1, veered off into a sideline thought shouldn't trouble Black too much. White's position may have been slightly for preference in a practical sense, but despite being low on the clock, Daniel defended well and saw all the right tactics in the endgame. A solid game from both players.

(1) Friedel (SF) - Serper (SEA), 1-0, http://www.uschessleague.com/games/friedelserper07.htm

This is the 5th time that these two have faced off in the USCL, and as has been written elsewhere many a time, white had won all the games. Thankfully, this was no different. As usual when Josh has the white pieces, it was a Sicilian Kan (or maybe a Taimanov/Paulsen/etc - I can't remember the differences in general), and rather than going fishing around on the kingside with a plan of e4-e5, Bc1-f4 and Qe2-g4, Josh played more solidly with b3, Bb2, and Na4. White's idea is just to play c2-c4 and claim a safe advantage. At first glance after 17...Rfd8, Black seems to be doing ok as the dark squares are under control, he can set up his own battery on the h1-a8 diagonal, and his rooks can be centralized. However, White is probably better already - with 18.Be5!, followed by 19.Nb2-c4, Josh hit upon a strong plan to recentralize his pieces and stay out of any dangerous exchange sacrifices. Black could have met 18.Re3 with 18...Rd4!, when maybe it's Black who will be better! After 25.Nf6+, the real problem for Black is highlighted - he cannot plug the long diagonal, while when White neesd to, he can just play f2-f3 and kill the threats. Serper defended well and hung around for a while despite huge positional weaknesses, but in the end, it caught up to him and with his king chased to h4, the end came switftly.

(3) Donaldson (SF) - Schmidt (SEA), 1/2, http://www.uschessleague.com/games/donaldsonschmidt07.htm

I'll let John write the summary here: "I had a big advantage from the opening (11...Qc5? 12.b4! was a Kasparov-Kramnik blitz game) but then lost my advantage through a combination of good defense by my opponent and lack of energetic play by myself (around move 15 or so I should have been thinking about e4 and f4. Going into the endgame was not a good idea for Black. At the end White was winning a second pawn with a very likely win. The score was 2.5-.5 and prudence dictated locking in a draw to secure the tiebreak advantage going into the last week."

That said, we're now back in the playoffs for the 3rd straight year, although this time, it won't be as division champs. Dallas clinched the division with another win over Tennessee. Coupled with Miami's win over Carolina, we have sewn up a playoff spot, although it is yet to be seen if that is as the #2 or #3 seed. The #2 seed comes with rather useful draw odds, so stay tuned for the final regular-season match next Wednesday, October 31st!

Better late than never ...

2007-10-25T23:01:00.000-07:00

Finally an update on the team's results the last few weeks, just as we have turned things around and clinched a playoff spot. We've gone 2-1 in the past 3 weeks, and here's the rundown ...

Week 7: Miami (2.5) - SF (1.5)

The match itself was quite interesting, and it could have easily turned the other way with a couple lucky breaks.

(1) Friedel (SF) - Becerra (MIA), 0-1, http://www.uschessleague.com/games/friedelbecerra07.htm

Both these guys make a living with the Ruy Lopez, and in their 3rd USCL career matchup, they entered a theoretical discussion in the ...Nd7 Chigorin Variation. Black's 17...f5 was supposedly refuted by Khalifman, but maybe Becerra has resurrected it? The first key position was probably on move 24, when Josh decided to go with 24.Bxf5 instead of the tempting alternative of just pushing his central passed pawns down the board. It worked out great, and Josh was well on his way to victory, when he played 34.Kg2?, walking right into ...Qg5+ and ...Qxc5. The idea of Kg2 was to trade queens with Qg3, which is a good idea (as then the pawns will run), but the execution could have been better. 34.Rg2, with the same idea is virtually curtains for Black. Instead, Josh accidentally dropped the c-pawn first, and the d-pawn wasn't destined to live too much longer after that.

(2) Martinez (MIA) - Zilberstein (SF), 1/2,
http://www.uschessleague.com/games/mmartinezzilberstein07.htm
Dima's 2007 USCL debut was an exciting affair. Don't let the result fool you - this was an exciting game. As John Donaldson wrote, "Marcel sacs the house for mate but Dima comes up with 24...Nf3+!, 28...e3! and 30...Rb3! and Marcel has to bail out with a perpetual. Nice defense!" An amusing sidenote is that the game followed Becerra-Friedel, USCL 2006 for the first 17 moves!

(3) Pruess (SF) - Espino (MIA), 1-0, http://www.uschessleague.com/games/pruessespino07.htm

A nice, smooth win from David, who was due to get back on track. Maybe 5...Nf6 and 6...Ng4 is already the wrong idea, as Black's position just doesn't impress there. Burmakin likes to play the positions after 5...dxe4, and he tends to have some ideas about these positions. As it was, David just developed all his pieces, pried open a kingside file, and then his activity (and Black's lack of development) carried the day.

(4) Rodriguez (MIA) - Naroditsky (SF), 1-0, http://www.uschessleague.com/games/erodrigueznaroditsky07.htm

A tough loss for Daniel, whose first mistake was probably 12...e5. A more standard plan with 12...b5 was probably called for. In a tough middlegame, Black just got outplayed, and made a serious error with 28...g5, blocking the path of the bishop on h6 and allowing Nc2-e4 (preparing to jump into d5 in some cases).

Coming off the loss against Boston, this loss to Miami dropped us to 3-4 and into 4th place in the West. Meanwhile, we headed into the home stretch, with one match apiece against each team in front of us at the time - first Carolina (one spot ahead of us), then Seattle (two spots ahead), and finally Dallas (who continued to put up good result after good result and was leading the division).

Week 8: SF (3) - Carolina (1)

(3) Zaikov (CAR) - Donaldson (SF), 1/2, http://www.uschessleague.com/games/zaikovdonaldson07.htm

A relatively tame game from both players. Queens were exchange on move 7, and after further piece exchanges, peace was the exchange. A solid, uneventful draw that worked well for us given the other boards.

(4) Shankland (SF) - Jones (CAR), 1-0, http://www.uschessleague.com/games/shanklandcjones07.htm

Sam has been a beast for us in the league (putting up a massive 6.5/8), but this year was relegated to alternate duty because of other commitments. His game with Jones followed Pruess-Jones from week 1 until 12.Na4. Black never seemed to get any real activity, and in the meantime, was left with a hemmed-in light-squared bishop and kingside pawn weaknesses. Sam played quite well, with 25.Bxg6! (25...fxg6 26.Rh8+ and 29.R1h7# is the point) and then 29.Rxe8+!. The only blemish was that he didn't play 32.Bg8#, and instead went for the prosaic 32.Bxe8+ (which led to mate anyways).

(1) Milman (CAR) - Bhat (SF), 0-1, http://www.uschessleague.com/games/milmanbhat07.htm

I had come into the game expecting a tamer opening (the Ruy Lopez Exchange, in fact), and instead I got a slugfest. We went down the main line of the ...Nd7 Chigorin, but instead of the ...f5 idea as Becerra played, I went with the more traditional idea of ...Bh4. I hadn't played this line before, and hadn't specifically prepared it for this game, and so when Nf3-g5xh7 was quickly played by Lev, I was a little worried I had walked into something bad. A 35 minute think convinced me otherwise, although the position is still a mess - White has a major alternative in 25.e5 that wasn't clear to me then and still isn't clear to me now. 25.Qd2 was tempting though, and I'd like to say I came up with the best defensive plan - 28...c4 (threatening ...Qb6+ and so forcing the King to the h-file), 29...Rb7, and 30...Ng4, clearing the way for ...f6 and opening the 2nd rank for my rook. However, White could've secured a likely draw with 30.Qh4 instead of 30.Raf3, as then 30...Kg7 31.Qh6+ Kg8 32.Qh4, and Black has nothing great to do. Alternatively, if White tries to play on there with 30...Kg7 31.Raf3 Rh8 32.Bxf6+ Bxf6 33.Qxf6+ Qxf6 34.Rxf6, I think he's worse after 34...Rd8. Black threatens 35...Bf5, which forces the rook back from f6, after which Black's rooks aren't so tied down while White is saddled with a horrible bishop on c2. 35.R6f3 b4 is slightly better for Black. As it was, after 31...f6, it was all over.

(2) Pruess (SF) - Schroer (CAR), 1/2, http://www.uschessleague.com/games/pruessschroer07.htm

A marathon game that essentially went on until closing time at the Mechanics. People were noting at the recent Mexico World Championship event that the Ruy Lopez had taken over for the Sicilian as the opening du jour recently, and for the 2nd week in a row, we had our pair of Spanish Games on the top 2 boards. David played what appears to be a sideline of the Zaitsev and after some small fireworks on the queenside and in the center, came out a pawn ahead. However, by about move 30, we had already secured the match with 2.5 points, and maybe David lost his concentration for a little bit. His advantage slipped and then he had to fight to make sure he wasn't worse. The endgame was quite interesting with chances for both sides - maybe 45.Bc2 was better, similarly 50...g4 instead of 50...Nxd4. In the end, a draw was a logical result.

This win let us switch places in the standings with Carolina. With Dallas' victory over Seattle, we were only half a match point behind them for 2nd place, and we were facing them the following week.

How SF will defeat Carolina

2007-10-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

In conjunction with Josh Friedel and David Pruess, I have figured out a way to assure victory against the Carolina Cobras. In the last 2 years of the USCL, the mechanics have scored 8.5/9 when they have won board 4. This goes to show that board 4 is the key - When we win on 4, we win the match. Here is my plan of action: Just before the match starts IM Bhat and i will switch to each others computers. I will play a solid french defense and make it look like am vinay, and vinay will make random looking moves that somehow manage to confuse people into messing up. As a result we will lose on 1 and win on 4, but the win on 4 is all we need. David and John will therefore easily score at least 1.5/2. Special thanks to Josh and David for helping me come up with this idea, Carolina's cars will be working again after tonight.