Dear Mr. Sharma,
Wow, Seattle never gets any respect. Thats why we are here to prove everyone wrong. The Mariners never get any respect. Not until they won 116 games in 2001. And this year we are right behind the Angels and leading the wild card, and we still get no respect. Save goes for Seahawks. No one but us saw the potential that we had and predicted us to go the Super Bowl. The refs even had to rig the game so we wouldn't win. Maybe they had money on the games, like Donaghey. This is the second year in a row you have discounted us. This year you have us taking 4th, instead of the 3rd you predicted last year.
First off, I was unaware that we could recruit players from Canada. Marcel Milat lives here in Washington, but I would be more than happy to go recruit some guys from our neighbor to the north BC. We have good relationship with them, having an annual BC-WA match, so I'm sure some would be willing to come down to play. Especially with extremely low rated USCF ratings. (Greg: Is that ok?)
Second, for our fourth board dominance, expect it to continue. Unless you want to discount Josh Sinanan's run at the Far West Open, when he scored 3 draws in a row vs IM Zilberstein, GM Serper, and GM Kudrin. Throw in a win against IM Emory Tate this year, and you have a fourth board to be wary of. Or discount an improving Michael Lee who just seems to get stronger and stronger and continues to be dedicated to chess.
Lastly, you also addressed our lack of titled players. FM Loren Schmidt has 2 IM norms. FM Slava Mikhailuk is another 2400+ FM. And last year, Greg Shahade even contemplated giving IM Georgi Orlov an honorary USCL-GM title, because, according to his words, "There really is just a GM with an IM title."
Our goal this year is to win, and win it all. Again we are discounted by the nation, and again, we will prove them wrong.
Eddie Chang
Seattle Sluggers Manager
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4 comments:
I am a fan of the us chess league but I do not play tournament chess and i thought i would share my ideas.
An attack on Mr. Sharma seems a little agressive for a mere prediction. All of his points are seemingly correct. Although Seattles best lineup is strong, the sluggers will not be free for every match and it will not always be able to be used. Their strongest lineups are very similar to last year, and last year they did well but were crushed by the Knights and the Mechanics when they were on form. And what is this about Board 4 dominance? Board 4 lost twice in last years playoffs and Seattle had a -1 score vs SF on board 4 and did not have a board 4 all star.
First off regarding last year, I had you guys losing in the semifinals to San Francisco which if memory serves me is what actually happened so I don't see how you can claim I "discounted" you guys last season. In any case, I'm rather confused why people keep taking their belief that I haven't predicted their team to finish as high as they think it should as some kind of personal attack. Predictions are just what the name suggests and some team is going to have to finish last, second to last etc. in them. No one seems to be satisfied unless I predict their team to win though huh?
As for the Milat comment, I recall Ballard saying he was Canadian last year when he joined the league so that's where I got that assumption -- I guess it was wrong. Sorry I don't happen to possess a personal biography of every player in the league, I just make do with the information I do have (which
sometimes happen to be wrong due to whatever reason, and btw playing
Canadian players is perfectly legal if they want to show up so this wasn't an unnatural assumption for me to make).
For the titled players, well honorary titles aside, facts are facts about the titles and be a little realistic, nearly every team in the league has something close to what you guys have, those small differences are the only way to really differentiate between the teams' lineups. For the board four
dominance, what you say might well be true, but somehow if we polled the other managers and players in the league, my guess is they might have differing opinions about it.
Once again, predictions are just predictions, and if you think they're wrong then it's up to your team to prove me wrong over the board.
In any case, though I predicted your team to finish fourth, I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see you guys take the division crown (or even win it all). Due to the league set-up it's frankly somewhat of a crap shoot to really make accurate predictions about anything (which is one big reason I'm really looking forward to this season as I think it'll be far more exciting than the previous two). Good luck to your team (and that's even if you wind up making my predictions wrong!).
I'm sorry if this came off as seeming as a personal attack. Its just the natural voice of my writing style. I understand predictions are difficult, and I am also biased in my opinions.
Eddie
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