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Wednesday Night, 8/31

by Michael Lee and Alex Guo

Board 1: GM Varuzhan Akobian (Seattle) vs. GM Dmitry Gurevich

Board 1 features GM Varuzhan Akobian against GM Dmitry Gurevich. Gurevich held down board 1 for Chicago last year, playing a full 10 games. However, Akobian is dangerous, especially with the white pieces. Both players are fresh off the recent 1st Metropolitan International in L.A., so should be in good form. This looks to be a game to watch.

Board 2: IM Florin Felecan vs. FM Costin Cozianu (Seattle)

Wow, I like the alliteration on these names here. I wonder whether the team managers planned it that way. Felecan rhymes with Pelican which almost sounds kinda scary while Cozianu brings me warm feelings of coziness. Additionally, I kinda like Cozianu's profile picture better than Felecan's. It's like comparing a fierce competitor with ... with someone who almost looks dazed that his picture is being taken. Aside from that, they're both strong players. Felecan is a strong tactical player while Cozianu is solid. Should be an interesting matchup.

Board 3: NM Dereque Kelley (Seattle) vs. IM Angelo Young

Kelley's got gutsss to go up against Young. Young's got a pretty dang good track record, but I wouldn't count Kelley out here. Kelley's got some pretty nice victories in his last few tournaments. And Kelley's actually smiling in his profile picture while Angelo Young's standing next to...idk, some random move center. What is up with that. You should switch profile picture.

Board 4: NM Eric Rosen vs. NM David Golub (Seattle)

On Board 4, we have two rising juniors Eric Rosen and David Golub facing off. Both have improved greatly over the last few years, Golub recently breaking National Master and Rosen almost gaining an IM norm in his last few tournaments. Interestingly enough, this will be the 3rd Seattle Board 4 player Rosen has faced with White in the last 3 years.

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Hm, and the twitter account SeattleSluggers will be tweeting during the match. Go follow us!

The Final Match

Tough match, tough match.

There's not much for me to add on to what has already been said. Kostya and the Farmer pretty much said all there is to say. Altounian held on to a tough draw against Akobian (first result). Wang got into a bad position pretty darn early through surprisingly passive play that only got worse as the game continued (second result). The dreaded must-win situation dawned on Cozianu and Slava. Cozianu slugged a tricky win against Rogellio. The only comment I have on that game is that Cozianu probably didn't 'see' the win, but what Cozianu probably did feel that there was a win, but being in a bit of time pressure, could not work out the concrete variations. Once it had come to calculate the variations, though, Cozianu took a couple of minutes and found the win.

So it was all up to Slava. Kostya and Farmer have already spotted most of the winning possibilities, just check out their annotations for details. Lots of possibilities...so many chances...time trouble...missing the first easy win (Rexd4) probably came as a psychological blow to Slava--I'm guessing he saw it just after he played Rxe5 (probably the worst possible feeling, that you see the win...just after....you play another move)--leading to some more missed opportunities. Oh well...

I've always thought that these matches and games were as much a matter of luck as they were a matter of skillage. Once again, Arizona has gotten pretty DARN lucky that their mistakes and missed opportunities didn't cost them. just look at that match against St. Louis, and they're darn lucky again in this match. The last thing I've got to say here before I sign out for the season:

the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

~Ecclesiasties 9:11

Till next season, I remain

Alex Guo

formspring.me

Anything related to the Seattle Sluggers or the US Chess League! http://formspring.me/SeattleSluggers

Week 10 Recap against STL

Before the lineups were posted, we were pretty scared of a Naka/Shulman/double-Finegold lineup, against which we were going to go with Var/Mikhailuk/Lee/Guo anyways. A win could be expected on fourth board, but the other three...? Not too sure. Shulman was probably going to win his game, and whether Var could pull off a win, and whether Lee could hold his own against Finegold, was a little speculative.

But instead, we had the Shulman/Finegold/Brooks/Finegold lineup, which is substantially weaker. We would expect a win on fourth board; Var's chances of a win on first board greatly increased because Shulman's USCL play so far has not been too stellar. We'd hope for the best on second board, and FM Lee now had good chances for a win on third board (Brooks USCL record has also not been too great)

Which is what happened.

Board 4: Spencer Finegold - Guo, 0-1

(after 42...Qc2)

Given the firepower of Nakamura and Shulman on the top boards, I wouldn't have been surprised to know that Spencer prepped some crazy line against me, which might actually be credible. So the best thing to do was to play some wacko sideline to steer Spencer into unknown territory (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 b6!?), and ended up getting into a dubious position with the black pieces. Interestingly, the resulting position was rather easy to play and did not present many difficulties for Spencer, and thus he was able to exchange down into the endgame position shown above.

At this moment, Spencer blundered with 43.Nd7??. My only guess as to why this happened is simply that the move was played too fast. At this moment, I had around 16 minutes to Spencer's 56 minutes. This was probably 30 seconds...

Board 2: GM Finegold - FM Slava Mikhailuk, 1-0

Slava's been playing tough opposition all season, and this match was no exception. Slava got the Black side of a IQP position:

(after 21.Nc3)

White is threatening Nd5. which will get him out of the unfavorable pawn structure. Black needed to play 21...Nxe3, giving up the IQP pawn structure but getting the two bishops. After 21...Nxe3, the position is about equal. Black played 21...Qb8, and after 22.Nxd5, pressure on the IQP is lessened and a target is borne on d5. White now has the much better position, and White played well to achieve a great position. Even before Black gave the exchange in a bid for counterplay on move 27, White already had a domineering position (my computer gives White a 1.19 edge...). White converted the point convincingly.

(after 27.Bb1)

In the above position, Black is under very strong pressure from White. The knight cannot move because of Bc7, Be8 and Rd8 are stalemated...all of White's pieces are just really active. My computer engine gives White a 1.19 score +/-...it's a pretty tough position and I wouldn't blame Slava for playing 27...Ne7, which gives up the exchange to Bc7.

Board 3: GM Akobian - GM Shulman

Varuzhan played a fantastic game against Shulman, almost garnering him GOTW honors! Varuzhan went into a gambit line, and gained tremendous positional pressure,

(after 20...Nc7)

Varuzhan has an ideal position! All of Var's pieces couldn't be better placed.

Varuzhan let all heck break loose with 21.Nxf6!, Qxf6 22.Bxe5 Qf7 23.Bxc6. Unsurprisingly, Akobian soon won the exchange, leveling the material balance. Akobian then ran his extra c-pawn down the board to get a winning position

(after 38...Bxb7)

In the process of running the c-pawn down to the 7th rank, the queens were exchanged, but simply 39.Rxf8 Kxf8 40.Rd8+. The pawn promotes, and it's all over. Wow.

Board 3: FM Lee - IM Brooks, 1-0

So at this point, Seattle was up 2-1, but we needed more than 2 to get past draw odds. It was on this game that Seattle fans were most scared on. Michael had been gobbling piece....after piece....

First, Brooks dropped a pawn in the opening on the fifth move (a little rusty, maybe?)...

(after 15.Rc1)

Then Brooks gave up a pawn, another pawn, and the exchange! 15...Na5!? 16.Qxc7 Ba6!? (another pawn? ok!) 17.Bxd6 Rxd6!? (I think I'll take that too...if you don't mind :D), 18.Qxd6. At this point, Michael was already up three pawns, so perhaps a little caution is called for, and instead 18.Qxa5?. Taking the knight instead of the rook eliminates any danger from that piece, but I guess a rook....is a rook.

At this point, the players in the skittles room knew that Michael Lee had the better position (he's only up...three pawns and an exchange), but that the path to the win would be tricky. Brooks definitely had some counterplay - definitely not enough to win, but certainly not ignorable. The trouble started in the following position:

(after 26.Bg2)

So the files are wide open for attack! All the obstacles that are left on the middle files are now...Michael Lee's pawns (by the way, Michael Lee took yet another pawn on e4). Brooks knocked them out of the way with 26...Nxe3! 27.Qxe3 Re8, gaining back...some material. Then Michael Lee almost lost his marbles when Brooks had a chance to come back

(after 30.Rc5)

Michael Lee had played 30.Rc5, which is dubious, but it's tough to find a consolidating move in this position. Brooks had a chance to play 30...Qh4+! 31.Kf1 (Kd loses to Qf2), Qf6+ and if 31.Ke1/Qh4, with a draw (Kf1 Qg3 32.Bb7!!) Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for STL, who were down 2-1 at this point, so unfortunately, Brooks had to do something else to try for a win (note that if Finegold had drawn his game with me, Brooks would simply force a draw at this point, and STL would go to playoffs because of draw odds. Wow, we got lucky in this match...).

But the bad thing is that....Brooks doesn't have anything else besides Qh4+. 30...Ne4 31.Bxe4 Qxe4 32.Rf1 and to be frank....there's not much you can do with two pieces! Michael found his way out of the complications and out of time trouble, to clinch the match for Seattle!

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To be honest, the Sluggers got a little lucky this match. First, we had to be grateful for Nakamura's absence during this critical match, and second, the Sluggers got a win on fourth board, where Spencer had every right to expect a draw. If the Sluggers got a draw on 4th board instead, Brooks could've easily forced perpetual at some point, and it'd be all over.

But that's not to say that the Sluggers were always lucky. As I pointed out in my earlier posts, we were actually pretty unlucky during the season. I can point out at least a couple...Friedel-Akobian...Sinanan-Gupta...Slava-Becerra (a draw would've clinched the match against Miami). Nevertheless, the effort to make the playoffs was made possible only by everybody's effort, as the Sluggers needed every. single. point. While it is true that GM Akobian, FM Lee, and myself are the only ones with + scores, and have collectively scored more than half of the team's points, just look at the standings! Seattle got in only because of tiebreaks, by 3.5 game points. Every draw mattered. And let's not forget the fans who came in on the week 10 match (and on every other week, for that matter) - you guys make the matches worth playing.

Next week, the Sluggers are playing the Arizona Scorpions, fighting against draw odds. Interestingly enough, Arizona picked the white colors, hoping for better chances on board 1 with the white pieces, and possibly looking at my 0% record with the white pieces. Though, draw odds definitely aren't something to be too afraid of. There're plenty of teams in the past who've made it to the Championship match despite fighting draw odds (Miami comes to mind...). In fact, the Sluggers may have a weird psychological advantage because Arizona might be content in playing for draws on all boards, while the Sluggers will slug it out no matter what happens.

Should be an exciting match this week! By the way, sorry for the late post. College applications are extremely annoying. And speaking of college apps, I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't apply to Berkeley cuz of the weirdest arts requirement ever, but that's for another discussion. But before I sign out...St. Louis, you might want to know that I'm applying to the UW in St. Louis....just saying :D

Week 10 Match vs St Louis

One word. Yay!

Season Recap and preview of the the "1st" playoff round.

So, the playoffs are here. Sort of. This is technically the last round of the regular season, but in reality is just an extra round of playoffs. Unfortunately, St Louis has draw odds. Since we are looking at next weeks game as a playoff game, I will do our season recap now.

Its been a difficult year for us, losing Nakamura to St Louis. Luckily, we had Var step up and fill the void. Going into the season, we were very excited with our revamped lineup and knew people would be shocked to see Var on our lineup. Then GM Anka was unable to participate due to work load, and we had our State Champion Costin Cozianu step up in a big way. Then due to an unfortunate situation, we lost our rock, GM Serper for the season. However, after its all said and done, we are now looking a shot at the playoffs and looking for a championship.

We started off the season using a balanced lineup in week one and debuting Costin in week two, but things didn't go our way. Then, in week 3, GM Varuzhan Akobian came in and put a very impressive performance against GM Becerra to help lead the Sluggers to our first victory of the season. Var's enthusiasm was infectious, and I see why John Donaldson wanted Var on the Olympiad team so badly. Who needs cheerleaders when we have Var?

Unfortunately, in week 4, we suffered a close loss against our long time rivals, the Mechanics and we needed to stage a comeback to make the playoffs. From there on, we went undefeated, beating New Jersey and then drawing two more. Last week, we experienced our second ever win against San Francisco.

Despite going into the last week with only 4-5, we have actually scored the 2nd most points in the Western division, only short of Division champs Arizona.

Looking into our "1st" Playoff match, we are lucky that GM Nakamura is away cleaning up at the Cap D'Agde tournament and we won't have to face the deadly Triple GM lineup. On one hand, I feel that it helps our chances of scoring a victory, but on the other, I would like to face the best, only then we can see how good we are.

On Board 1, we see the matchup between long time friends, Yury Shulman and Varuzhan Akobian. They have been teammates, representing the US in various competitions, have played matches against each other, and also have had numerous training sessions together. Yury is the higher rated player, but Var has white, so its a toss up as to who will prevail.

On Board 2, we have Slava facing a big challenge in Ben Finegold. On this board, St Louis has the edge, as we have seen in the USCL, anything can happen.

On Board 3, young star Michael Lee faces IM Brooks. Brooks has been struggling this season, and Michael has looked better every match. I think Seattle has the edge here.

On Board 4, we have two underrated kids playing, Alex Guo and Spencer Finegold. It looks like Spencer will be looking to steer the game into tactical waters, where he's at his best, but in the end Alex has been remarkable this season, and he should be able to win this game too.

Given what we see, I feel like we have great chances to "advance" to the playoffs this year, but in the USCL, you never know what will happen.