Seattle - San Francisco: USCL Rd 9 18:40 post

Hello again viewers, sorry I am late. Had some yardwork, got stuck behind a rake, yatta yatta... Anyway, the games are underway.

Friedel - Serper (F-S) is a Sicilian, Paulsen - Kann line. Serper seems to like this a lot as Black. Friedel player a line with Nxc6 after Bd3 and fianchettoed the QB. Serper has the e6/d5/c6 pawn triangle. Looks like White is going to try to put the squeeze on with c4 and Rac1. Time is about even

Tangborn - Bhat (T-B) Eric went right into the QGD exchange variation. The white squared B's are off and White just played Nf3-d2. This looks kind of like a non-commitment kind of approach, might work for Eric. The real deal will be in about 15 moves (they just played move 12) when one side or the other decides to make contact, it looks like Bhat will have to initiate the conflict.

Donaldson - Schmidt (D-S) Surprise, Surprise, an English, but for something different they got there from a Benoni Declined (old school speak). This one will go for a while also

Sinanan - Noroditsky (S-N) is a main line Bayonet Attack Kings Indian. I hope that this is some kind of prep by Josh, as the SF Mechanics have a player who published a book on this line. It is still early though, I don't understand some of the moves.