Sluggers Lose Round 10 Match

Monday night’s match ended in defeat for the Sluggers: 2.5 – 1.5. Despite a substantial deficit in ELO Average (almost 80 points) the Sluggers appeared to be teetering close to a drawn or even won match at various points during the match.

The most important game of the match turned out to be on board two where the Slugger’s FM Marcel Milat had White against IM Keaton Kiewra. Marcel was able to establish quite a nice position in the King’s Indian using the older  continuation of 10.g3 in the Bayonet Attack. This choice paid off nicely since by move 15 (15.Bxe4!) White already had the initiative and a pleasant light-squared bind. For a long time, Marcel possessed the bishop pair and a potentially devastating dominance on the light-squares while IM Kiewra appeared to only be looking for some counterplay. But with very resourceful and accurate play (27….Rxb7! 28.Qxb7 e4!) the game once again looked very unclear and dangerous for both sides.  The players continued to trade accurate moves back and forth (29.Rg3!, 30…Be5!) when finally Marcel made a decisive misstep in the form of 33.Kh3 whereupon 33…e3! Was lights out as would have been 33…Rf5!.

Instead, had Marcel played 33.Kh1!, analysis shows that it is Black who must play accurately to compensate for his material deficit. Note that the bishop on e5 can not capture on g3 because of Qg7 mate. The move 33…e3 could, in this case, be dealt with effectively via 34.Rg2 Qf3 35.Qc6 as 34…Qf3 is not check. Instead Black would carefully need to play 33…Qb2! Followed by 34.Rd1 Bxg3 35.hxg3 Rf2 36.Qg7+ Qxg7 37.hxg7+ Kxg7 with an equalized ending.

With this slight misstep, a game which appeared to even having winning chances for the Sluggers ended in defeat and the remaining boards were under pressure to produce a +1 result in order to tie the match, or +2 result (of 3 games) to win the match. But this did not seem like too terribly unlikely. On board one, IM Slava Mikhailuk was defending the Black side of a dangerous looking attack on his kingside arising from the Sicilian. IM Zhanibek Amanov wielded the White pieces and was proceeding down the board, but Slava was remaining alert and gradually finding decent activity for his pieces.

After some back-and-forth mistakes (18…Bb7? Was mistaken and should have been met with 19.Qf2! rather than 19.Rf2? for example) Black had just about equalized when he made a critical oversight and played 26…Bxg7? 27.Rxf7 Qe2? Aiming to tie the queen down to e3 so she could not capture on g6. But Amanov quickly revealed a combination which Slava had overlooked: 28.Rxg7+! Kxg7 29.Qe5+ Kg8 30.Bd4 and the mate threats on g7 and h8 were far too much to cope with.  Instead, Slava could have played 26…Bd6! Whereupon 27.Qh3 (or 27.Qh4) can be met with 27…f5! amazingly solving Black’s defensive problems. Thus here too, equality was close at hand just before a tactical mistake spelled defeat for the Sluggers.

This game wrapped up not too long after Marcel’s and thus the Sluggers had scored 0/2 where 1/2 or even 1.5/2 had moments ago seemed feasible. But the Sluggers were not to be counted out! NM Josh Sinanan played quite smoothly and cashed in on a couple of inaccuracies (20…c5? in particular) by FM Eugene Yanayt to gain a healthy extra pawn with big winning chances. Still after some back and forth inaccuracies for both sides, FM Yanayt missed an opportunity to nearly equalize the ending with 35…Nh5+ when the check buys just enough tiem to coordinate the Black forces and avoid conceding any extra material. Instead after 35…Nf5 36.Rd7 White was back on a healthy path to victory and before long had regained his extra pawn, thereby obtaining a pair of protected passed pawns on the queenside. The game ended in checkmate and the Sluggers still had a chance to equalize the match.

It looked like this just might happen as on board three the Slugger’s FM Curt Collyer had gained an extra pawn against FM Konstantin Kavutskiy and appeared to have winning chances though it never quite looked like he would be able to break White’s resistance. Curt Collyer again sprung his 1…b6 defense and managed to, again, acquire quite a decent position! By move 15 (15…Nb4) it was already clear that White had not managed to gain much of anything out of the opening. The long maneuvering struggle which ensued remained mostly balanced though for a while it appeared that White had modestly better chances. At one point in the game, both players faltered severely, and Black should have ended up down a piece. This occurred after 30…Bb3? When White missed the opportunity to play 31.Qd3! threatening Qb5 and simply planning to meet 31…Bxa4 with 32.Qc4 b5 33.Qxc6. There is no adequate solution to this move and Black could have lost the game. Instead, FM Kavutskiy played the more meek 31.Bc2? and Black had attained full equality. A further serious mistake by Kavutskiy (36.f4?) simply blundered away a pawn and gave Black substantial winning chances. Tragically, Curt missed his chance when he played the quite natural recapture 63…Nxb5 instead of cleverly using the king to capture the pawn with 63…Kb6! 64.Kf2 a3! 65.Nc1 Kxb5 66.Ke3 Kc4 67.Kd2 Nf5 68.Kc2 Nxd4 69.Kb1 Kc3! -+ With the idea of 70.Ka2 Kc2 -+. Instead after 63…Nxb5, the slight loss of time for the king’s penetration was enough to allow White to hold the draw. Though he fought to the very last, Curt was unable to finally make anything of his extra pawn and the game was finally drawn.

A disappointing loss for the Sluggers but as the playoff seat had already been secured – the Sluggers will play on next week! Best of luck Sluggers!

Sluggers defeated 1-3

A tough loss for the Sluggers against St. Louis this week! Sadly, Seattle never managed to get into a groove and had clearly lost positions before the 20^th move had been reached on both of the boards where Seattle wielded the Black pieces. The first of these was board one.

I’ve heard it said that the result of board one is disproportionately a good predictor of the entire result of the match, possibly because of its effect on team morale. If this is true, then players in St. Louis must have doubled their resolve when GM Ben Finegold accumulated a nice advantage in the opening and then profited from an early but quite understandable mistake by FM Costin Cozianu (16…Ne8?) to immediately gain a winning advantage on the queenside in the form of an extra pawn which was passed and already threatening to march down the board.

Instead Black’s best chance may have been able to keep the balance through grabbing the pawn 16…Qxb4!? While it would seem that White would be able to gain much from attacking the queen, in fact after 17.Rab1 Qa3! Black is able to get away with capturing on a2, and aiming to trade heavy pieces as quickly as possible. The alternative 17.Rcb1 Rac8! Forces 18.Qxc8 Qxb1+ 19.Rxb1 Rxc8 20.Rxb7 and Black can achieve a holding ending after 20…Rc1+ 21.Bf1 Bxf3 22.Nxf3 Nb6! With adequate counterplay threatened in the form of …Nc4, …Ne4, and then a knight coming to d2. But all of these lines look extremely difficult to see at the board, and it’s understandable that Costin tried to hold the 7^th rank and harass White’s queen instead beginning with 16…Ne8 – but White was able to capture two pawns and was able to consolidate one of the extra pawns too easily. A rapid loss for the team Seattle.

On board three, FM Curt Collyer also suffered very early on against IM Levan Bregadze. Curt used his system of an early ....b6, provoking the opponent to take space in the center. White fully ouccpied the center with e4, d4, and c4 pawns, but with the strong play 7…Bxc3+ 8.bxc3 d6 Curt managed to keep White’s strategic plus down to its bare minimum. Strangely, White gave up most of his space advantage when he played 12.dxe6?! which is probably just an anti-positional mistake. No doubt, White was counting on generating sufficient active play with his bishop pair but had Curt simply replied 12…fxe6 13.Ng5 (this was the move Curt feared) 13…Qd7 – it’s not too clear what White will have and left to his own devices Black will play …e5 with a fine position. Perhaps White would have tried 14.f4 but Black has many ways to hold the balance. An attractive one is 14…h6 15.Nf3 Rae8, with the intent of playing a sharp thrust …e5 on the next move.

Instead, Curt, fearing Ng5, played  12…f6? Intending to recover the pawn on e6 at a later time. But White accurately burst through the position before Black had time to bring about a reasonable turn of events and by move 15 it was clear that White would be pressing home a winning kingside attack. The game was abandoned on move 22 when Black had the unhappy choice of surrendering his queen or being checkmated.

These two early losses could not be fully atoned for on the boards where Seattle had White. NM Josh Sinanan’s game against Matthew Larson was well-played by White who coped with a barrage of rapid moves fired off by a well-prepared opponent. Larson (rated around 1918) fired off the first 22 moves of the game (!) a full eight moves after Josh appeared to be aware of the “theoretical” moves. Josh remained calm and found one good move after another until finally Larson began to slow down around move 23. The fruits of Black’s preparation were a significant advantage on the clock and an opponent who had already expended much more nervous energy on the game, but finally the difference in playing strength made itself known and just four short moves after the storm of preparation had ended White had already achieved a winning position (27.Rd3 +-). It also appears that White had a chance to gain a decisive advantage a couple moves earlier with 25.e5! Qf8 (only move) 26.Bf1! and Black is losing by force - all variations end in winning attacks or in material losses for Black which lead straight into easily winnable endgames.

FM Slava Mikhailuk’s game on board three with White against 19 year-old IM Priyadharshan Kannappan did not go as well. Rating’s wise this was the closet game of the match with Slava holding slightly fewer ELO points. Here too, Black appeared to be very well prepared and a striking feature of this game is how intimidatingly fast IM Kannappan was moving. By the end of the game, Black’s clock appeared to almost never have been utilized, meaning that the 30-second increment was enough for Black to make all of his moves. Slava’s English fell into some troubles, but with accurate play Slava had just about managed to stabilize the situation. But, uncharacteristically, Slava lashed out with a risky pawn jump 19.d4? which I believe must have contained a miscalculating on Slava’s part. If I had to take a guess I would say that after 19…cxd3 20.Bb2 Nec4 21.Bd4 Nd2 (all of which occurred in the game) White may have believed he had 22.Rfc1+ Kb8 23.Bxd3 but later discovered that Black would have 23…Nb3 in the final position. Instead 19.Nf3 !?, for example, would have been enough for White to eventually exchange pieces and complete his development (Ra2-c2, Bb2). Ultimately 19.d4? ended up being a mistake so grave that it cost Slava an exchange. Slava fought hard to salvage the position but a lost exchange was just too much.

The match ended 1-3 for the Sluggers. A tough match indeed!

Sluggers Defeat New Jersey!

The Sluggers win! This was an exceptionally close match in which the advantage ebbed and flowed – from looking about equal, to sharply worse for the Sluggers, to nearly winning for the Sluggers, to sharply worse for the Sluggers, to suddenly winning and won for the Sluggers. See for yourself!

Boards one and two were looking shaky right from the start. On board one we had FM Costin Cozianu (2508) handling the White pieces against GM Joel Benjamin (2646). Clearly, a draw here would be an excellent result but Cozianu’s opening play left something to be desired right from the get-go. Costin used the Worrall Attack, a setup against the Ruy Lopez featuring Qe2 and Rd1. Strangely, he then followed up with 11.d3 when the placement of the rook seemed to call for 11.d4 – but the real enigma is why both players seemed to feel that 14.Nxe5 led to an acceptable compensation for Black. When I raised this question (including to Cozianu!) I mostly heard groans related to the Marshall Gambit – but this is most certainly not a Marshall Gambit position!

There are several factors in White’s favor. He will not find it necessary to play g2-g3. After the suggested 15…Bd6 (Cozianu) White can play 16.Qh5! (on 16…g6 17.Qf3!)  – notice that unlike the Marshall Gambit White has activated his queen very early (whereas in the Marshall White must play Rxe5 and then Re1 in reply to …Bd6 – he then struggles to include his queen into the affairs on the kingside). There is no question of Black achieving …Qh4 and this means that White does not to weaken his king’s front with g2-g3. What’s more in the Marshall Gambit White’s knight lives in b1 for quite some time, but here it is just a move away from hoping to e4. All-in-all Black is forced to prove that his piece play can be turned to account on the kingside and I just don’t see how this is going to take place. And if you’re still not convinced, just look at the alternatives! … White instead played 14.d4 after which he was saddled with an isolated pawn and Black’s space and majority on the queenside was impressive. A pawn in exchange for some pressure may have been a better compromise for White (and quite possibly- advantageous for White).

Fast forward a few moves and Black had achieved an outstanding position. NM Josh Sinanan, observing the game, immediately recognized 20…Ba3! as a very strong move which would have exploited the  unpleasant arrangement of White’s pieces on the queenside and creating the simple threat of …Bb2, White would have probably found this position highly unpleasant and needs to find 21.Be4 and hope for the best.

Instead 20…Bd6?! was played by GM Benjamin followed by a spirited attack – from here both players played excellently. Black built his attack and at the same time set all kinds of dangerous traps for Cozianu, but Cozianu was able to hold his ground and draw the game. This was an unexpected delight to all of us who had been following the game (and rooting for Seattle) since the opening and the strength of the opponent seemed to indicate that this game was headed toward disaster! Not so!

Board two was an even more hopeless cause from the outset but miraculously ended in a draw. FM Slava Mikhailuk (2415) was paired way up with the Black pieces against GM Boris Gulko (2590). White coasted straight to an overwhelming advantage somewhere by move 18 or so and was playing his moves fairly rapidly adding to the fright which we all experienced while watching the game and which must have ruffled Slava as well.

White went ahead a pawn at move 21 with 21.fxe5 giving him a 3-0 central pawn majority (!!) Black also had weaknesses on the queenside and a knight out of play. This is the Grunfeld at its worst! By move 35, White had a full two pawns advantage, every one of the remaining Black pawns was seriously weakened, and the Black pieces were barely holding onto their blockade. White also held four minutes on the clock to Black’s two (30 seconds are added every move).

Black faced overwhelming odds but continued to play the most precise moves which did not immediately lead to disaster. Everything was in excellent shape for White and it was just about time for Slava to resign before a very innocent mistake meant that White had to part with the fruits of all of his efforts. That mistake was the seemingly inconsequential 43.Rff2 when after 43…Qd3! White suddenly found that he could not prevent perpetual check no matter how he tried. Had White tried 47.Be5+ Kh6 48.Rxh2+ Kg5 49.Rxh7 Black would draw with 49…Qxe4+ 50.Kg1 Qe1+ … a miracle!! White was forced to accept a draw and this drastically altered the situation in the match. Instead, White could have put the game away with 43.Rb8+ Kg7 44.Rfb1 with an overwhelming position. For example 44…Kf6 (trying to prevent e7) meets 45.e7! … 1-0!  A great game by GM Gulko which was spoiled by very bad luck and a spirited resistance by Slava. Congratulations Slava!

And a good thing that Slava pulled through, because the situation on boards three and four where we were looking for at least that one win couldn’t have gotten more disturbing.  Board three was an interesting game full of little Catalan motifs. White was the Slugger's FM Marcel Milat's game against FM Carsten Hansen. This game was also the closest in terms of ELO points (Marcel having a 59-ELO point advantage). Black always looked close to equality but never managed to dispell the pressure on the queenside pawns. Little by little, Marcel seemed to be guiding the Sluggers to an important victory - a victory which seemed necessary to at least equalize the match given the dire situation on board four. But just as it seemed that Marcell would go a comfortable pawn up and wrap up the effort  neatly, Marcel decided to sacrifice a piece! (39.Rh1?). Instead, 39.Nb7 Nxa4 40.Rh1 is very strong. Marcel's piece sacrifice led to three pawns for a piece with still very dangerous pressure on the Black position. The maneuver 41...Nc8! followed by 42...Nd6 would have been enough to careen the game towards a simple draw for Black, but in time pressure we all quite liked Hansen's quick-thinking defense 41...Nxa4!?  immediately returning the piece for two pawns and holding a rook ending down a pawn. Very quick thinking! The last touch was 52...f5+! when White had to accept that the two pawns were useless in bringing about victory. Marcel continued to do his very best but luckily it became unimportant for him to win the game because of the dramatic events on board four....

The decisive game proved to be board four, where Black (the Slugger's FM Curt Collyer, 2294) magically found himself in a perfect King’s Indian position after opening the game with … 1…b6! With the colossal gap in ratings (White was Vince Klemm, 2073) and Black stretching out in the center and on the kingside, this game had been chalked up by the gang as 0-1 almost as quickly as it had begun. But things did not at all proceed smoothly, and unable to land a serious strategic blow, Black found himself being ripped apart by the exact same chronic weaknesses which tend to characterize the King’s Indian in its saddest moments – and with nothing serious in the form of a compensating attack. White was just a move or two away from forcing resignation but instead veered off track at the last moment giving Black’s pseudo-attack the right to exist. What amazing fortune, because the unexpected draw on Marcel’s board meant that Collyer’s game held the entire result of the match. Who could have guessed that he would emerge from this position unscathed! Congratulations must be paid because Collyer’s position was by no means easy. Rather than fold or launch a hail-mary, Collyer was able to get his attack close enough to success to profit from White’s inaccuracies. Suddenly, Collyer had won the game, and with it the match was secured in Seattle’s favor. Go Sluggers!!

Random Thoughts

So I looked at Bioniclime's simulations, and wow, STL and NJ have 0% of making it to the post-season. Shucks.

But then, I looked at Seattle's chances of making the post-season, and then I didn't really feel so good.

0.339%. Uh-mazing. Which means it would be hilariously funny if we did end up making the post-season. Like, what would Seattle do. Hm. Sweep STL. Sweep the Vibe. And then knock currently #4 Dallas out of the post-season. Hm. What if Dallas goes 0-4 against SF Mechanics and Miami Sharks. Oh, that would put Seattle into the post-season.

I like where this is going. We just need to sweep STL and the Vibe.

1. GM Hikaru Nakamura - FM Cozianu

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAA. Oh shnaps. what the ****. $#!@. Actually, not all hope is lost. Apparently, Hikaru is performing like a 2163. Heck. What the crap is that? Even lil' big gun Roland Feng has a higher performance rating than that. Oh, and as a matter of fact, now that I think about it, a kid who JUST graduated from elementary school has a higher performance rating. AND, he's from Seattle!

Holy cow. I just glanced at Roland's performance rating. It's 2326. That's actually pretty good. Shnaps. Future star material right there.

Haha. But this is only Nakamura's second game of the season. As if he's been saving 'it' for Seattle. haha, maybe not...though I'm interested in knowing why he hasn't played any more games.

As for the rest of the boards, I guess the popular opinion would be that SEA loses on board 2 and wins 3+4. But if we just get a draw on either 1+2, we got the match.

And then there was that time when Seattle still made the playoffs with a 4.5-5.5 record. Maybe the chips will fall our way again. Who knows. It's called Luck.

Some more Random Thoughts

So now that I'm blogging during a not-as-fantastic season for Seattle...

I guess I've got to admit, it's not as fun blogging when not everybody's winning all the time. Actually, it sure shucks as hell when a score like 0.5-3.5 appears more than once in the season. Cuz a score like that means that nobody won a game. Nobody. Like, what are the odds of that. Oh wait, with Seattle, that's 25%. Shucks.

It gets hard, cuz then, it's like, crap, what are you supposed to talk about.

Another thing hard about blogging for Seattle, especially when you're 969 miles away, is that it's really hard to know what's going on in the team atmosphere. It's hard to write in a mood that resonates with everybody else's natural frequency. Cuz you just don't know.

The unsaid screaming emotions emanating from body language and facial expressions aren't there. A blog post isn't the same when you don't know that Akobian's head was throbbing with seizurous activity when he was crushing Friedel, even though that detail may not ultimately pop up in the post. These little things--they matter.

I guess the problem with long-distance is that everything sensed but not said just isn't there anymore, so really, you're only looking at a chess screen, a blue-highlighted digital clock, and just plain old text. Said another way, you're only looking at a one-dimensional integer array of shifting ARGB values. Can't get very far with just text.

But add the smile, the friendly voices, and perhaps a bit of funky body odor, and it's something different. Perhaps even magical.

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lololol ok time to exit sappy-writing-mode.

I know I haven't been posting as much as I would like, and part of that has been that college is actually really tough. Way more work than I expected. And though I might not have realized it at the time, I guess the inability to generate content based on what I knew what people were feeling was part of the difficulty. But I also want to make it clear that I certainly haven't stopped blogging because there weren't prizes. It's actually probably a really good thing for the USCL that those blog prizes have stopped. Discussion, not competition, please.

Which reminds me...maybe the USCL should have a discussion board.

(SEA) Roland Feng - Ben (DAL)

OK, this year's season has not been brilliant for the Sluggers, and I guess, neither was this match. But hey, then again, there's this kid who's half my height and is already playing chess at an unusually high level.

I know that there are some small writing errors, but they just highlight the fact that Roland's young and is still a kid, which is, in my opinion, a higher honor than being called an adult. So here're Roland's annotations, presented as is, as the writing of a young gun who's still got a couple good years of chess ahead of him :).

Golub - Sevian

Here are Golub's annotations to a very nice win over Sevian. Check it out!