Looking forward to the playoffs!

Hey everyone :) Well, the regular season is over. We (the Queens Pioneers) improved our record by two and a half match points from last year, and I definitely feel that we should be happy about that. The first half of our season was impressive, but unfortunately towards the end we stumbled a little bit. That mainly of course includes scoring only half a point out of two against Carolina using sub par lineups, and a tough loss against a very strong team, the Boston Blitz. I honestly thought in the middle of the season that it was going to be a race between us and the New Jersey Knockouts for the division title as the other teams seemed to be too far behind, and New Jersey's potential monster lineup with Benjamin, Gulko, Ippolito, and Ng, along with their backup lineups are all very powerful. However surprisingly enough, not only did New Jersey fall from the competition for the division title, they also in the end simply collapsed. Now, of course congratulations to Joel Benjamin for having his first child as that's obviously way more important than the USCL. Clearly though that probably affected his play in the last few matches, and when your leader is stumbling and the team follows the leader, it becomes somewhat tough and with a few unlucky breaks, these sorts of things happen. Even though this was a pretty realistic turn, I was still quite shocked by it, especially since a similar thing happened last year, and how similar this was to the way the New York Mets lost a series at the end of the season two years in a row to spoil their season, and how Joel Benjamin roots for the Mets. I just find this an interesting connection, the way both teams unfortunately collapsed two years in a row. But speaking about our own little "collapse", I have a few explanations as to why that happened.

1) A managerial mistake.

I am not sure if there was a misunderstanding in the rules about which rating supplement was permitted to be used. What I later realized was that we used the November 2007 list, and all of our players' ratings were the same or lower in September 2007. Other teams like New Jersey used ratings from that month, and I was really confused as to why Stripunsky didn't use the September list. That ended up affecting us pretty significantly a few times as for matches with Dmitry, Eli, me, we had to use Ben Katz (a 2100 player) instead of Thaler (a 2250 player) on fourth board. Even though this paid off against New Jersey as Ben won a miniature, it unfortunately backfired for us later as Katz had some difficulties in his later games. But whether he lost or won, he always displayed a great effort, played very hard, and really gave us what we wanted in that regard so I certainly hold nothing against him for that. Also, with a slightly lower rating for me (which the September list would have had), we could have used me on Board Three instead of Katz in the Week 9 match against Carolina, since that would have then had a legal average of 2400.75. As Katz lost his game against Simpson from a winning position, I have a feeling we would have won that match and thereby won the division. Instead, Stripunsky for some reason thought that we were still using the 2580 rating cap for players rated above 2580 that was used in 2007, not the 2590 cap used in 2008, and figured that we WOULD be able to use me in that lineup. And then, when I told him we could not, he of course was very disappointed.

2) Some unexplainable choices.

In Week 6, Parker was unavailable against Carolina so we faced a dilemma. We were supposed to use a lineup with Dmitry, Eli, me, and Katz or a lineup with Stripunsky, two IM's, and Ostrovskiy. Instead, Alex decided to use Thaler on three (!!!) and Katz on four so that Thaler would get to play more matches like he wanted to. Then Week 9, against Carolina again, both Parker and Thaler declared themselves unavailable because of school and being "a little tired". They both knew that Ostrovskiy was away at the World Youth, and that Dmitry Schneider had just arrived back from China so I found this completely unbelievable. We ended up using Stripunsky, Eli, Katz, and Smith, really as sub par a lineup that any team can realistically use. So what was really missing here? The integrity of the game factor. Stripunsky's students unfortunately to me simply didn't understand the integrity of the game or didn't want to understand it, knowing that Carolina was just behind us, and we still had Boston left to play. This lack of integrity had also been displayed to me when Stripunsky used Thaler simply due to Thaler's personal desire even though it was clearly not in the best interest of the team. Sadly this seemed to relay to me that the team was more about individuals' desires rather than the team's best interest, and I've never believed that that's how it should work. What I do know is that Joel Benjamin played every week despite the fact that he just had a child, and Marc Esserman played against a tough player, Sam Shankland, despite being injured. I play when I have an exam the next day even though I get a maximum of five hours of sleep on those nights. Krasik I'm sure probably plays when he doesn't want to and so does Charbonneau. This all demonstrates the integrity of the game, a very meaningful game, and shows what team play is really about. The second half of the season, I realized that with my praise filled blogs, I might have spoiled a lot of players on our team, and everything that went well first half, all the great team play that existed, the chemistry, etc. simply seemed to go away.

So now let me explain my choice to take a draw against Esserman as I'm amazed that most people haven't realized my motives quite yet. I saw Becerra had already drawn against Bhat. A draw therefore clinched me the MVP, and I took a draw in a slightly better position, way up on time, since it was still a position that I was at risk of losing. The thing is, we had already made the playoffs, and even Stripunsky told me before the game not to worry too much about this match that much, not to sweat it, and to do what fit my own best interest. It's not like I had to win for us to make the playoffs as then of course I would have played on. But for the difference between first and second place, to risk the MVP, after I'd been one of the main carriers of the team, had gone 7 – 0, and after Stripunsky had shown that he'd rather fill his students' needs and baby them as to whether they could play or not by using sub par lineups in important matches, I just realized that there was no point. I'd done everything I could for the team and would really have wound up suffering if I'd then lost that game and lost the MVP award. Think about it, guys :) Plus, I saw that Philly had lost 2.5 – 1.5, and I knew we needed just one more draw to clinch the division. I actually thought Ben Katz could draw his game, but unfortunately in time pressure, he missed it. But Esserman deserves a lot of credit, from a tough position, he was able to get into a very unorthodox position, down a pawn, but these are the types of positions he excels at. Unfortunately, I didn't do my job in not giving him enough counter play and let my big advantage slip away. I thought my preparation was interesting, even though it was mostly psychological, but anyway, it ended in a draw, and now it's time to think about the playoffs.

In any event any manager can make mistakes. Bottom line is: We had a great season. Stripunsky has prepared me very well mentally and chess wise for all my games, and he prepares all his players very well. We've worked together as I helped Katz and Ostrovskiy, and Stripunsky helped his students. He's also played very solidly for us this year; the only two games he drew were when he was using the club computer, didn't have his own computer working, and it's hard to play when you go have to go back and forth from the main computer screen to your board. I feel that Stripunsky overall is a very good and very smart manager still. He was very helpful and most importantly always calm even in tough positions in places where many other people would panic, and you can't take that away from him. I loved working with him and look forward to working with him in the playoffs and possibly next year. And of course some people might know that he is playing at the Continental in a few days. Definitely best of luck to him in his quest to try to qualify for the World Cup!

Now is not the time to look back anymore. It's time to look ahead towards revenge and playing Boston again in the first round of the playoffs. The playoffs are a totally new season, where everything in the past is mostly irrelevant. We obviously got shellacked in our Week 10 match, but we will learn a lot from it, why they beat us and will try to make the necessary adjustments. This includes adjusting to their style of play, being ready for our possible opponents, and bringing a lineup with the best chance of going at least 2 – 2 against their monster lineup of Two GMs + Esserman + Krasik or possibly Jorge Sammour replacing one of the GM's. I doubt we'll see Jorge Sammour, Vigorito, Shmelov, and Krasik, even though that lineup won for them in Week 1. But anyway, there is no point in looking back anymore, the playoffs are a totally new ball game, and we're just going to take it step by step.

Hopefully you all enjoyed this blog :) My next one will be when our season ends which hopefully will also be when the USCL season itself ends :)

Alex

Biggest Match of the Year Brings out the Best in Us

Week 7 was a very big, exciting match for us. We were playing the very strong, second place New Jersey team who were also using a monster lineup; the highest rated lineup ever used in USCL history, with a whopping 2484 rating average. Not only that, the players were obviously strong as well, all of them likely playing at, if not better than their ratings. A seven time US Champion, rock solid, Hall of Famer, GM Joel Benjamin, Soviet Champion GM Boris Gulko, who at his prime was probably at least top ten in the world, a steadily improving strong IM, my opponent, Dean Ippolito, and a rapidly rising star, near master, Andrew Ng, who was originally only a team alternate, meaning he would be able to only play two games and not compete in the playoffs. However, they unfortunately changed him to a main player, meaning that he, with his year old 1950 rating, can play being underrated two hundred points. This will definitely make it much tougher for us to outlast them in the long term and make them a very hard matchup in the playoffs, given that they can use this strong lineup there also. In any event, we obviously had our hands full, but we were as ready as we could ever be. I noticed they were also going to be quite ready as they all were logged onto their accounts over thirty minutes before the start of the match which definitely showed us that they were preparing hard. Indeed, we were not mistaken.

The first game that finished in the match was Boris Gulko winning against Eli Vovhsa. Eli's game ended up transposing into the Pirc, where Gulko had a steady advantage the whole game. Eli had a lot of problems to solve against Boris's space and two bishop advantage so he was down on time for the whole game, at one point having five minutes versus fifty. Against a player Gulko's caliber, having any kind of little disadvantage is almost hopeless and even if he's not in his prime anymore, still his chess understanding, opening knowledge, positional knowledge, and most importantly, his practical play is so phenomenal and at a such a high level that playing him, especially when he has White, is an extremely daunting task. In fact, as White he's nearly untouchable, and in the league, it definitely shows, as he's won three efficient games, with his opponents having little chance in any of them. Unfortunately for me, I also had the honor of being hopelessly defeated by him in a somewhat famous game that was published in Chess Life. It was a Smith-Morra gambit in Round 8 of the 2007 US Open, a big game for both of us, where he just took the pawn, then the initiative, and later the whole game as I had very little chance to get anything going. So as you can imagine, I was happy not to be playing him, as he, in my opinion, is definitely still a true high-class grandmaster. Eli really fought tough with the Black pieces and gave it his best. It was a very hard battle, but unfortunately Gulko was just too strong. Hopefully if we meet New Jersey again, we are able to get him with the White pieces :)

However, I didn't have an easy task either. I was playing a strong IM, Dean Ippolito, who also has been having a very nice year at the USCL, being a leader in the MVP Race and coming up with some great clutch wins for his team. He even managed to put me on the ropes with his very first move!! Despite all the games of Dean's that I had looked at, never had I seen him play 1... c5, not even once. But here he did exactly that and with all the Sicilian players on that team, Joel, Boris, etc. this was definitely an alarming development. So what was I to do? My hard preparation was now down the drain, and so Dean was already winning psychologically! I tried to make sure to not let this affect me, and the key was now to play solid, try to also get him out of his opening preparation, and most importantly not spend too much time. So what direction was I to steer the game towards? The Smith-Morra did not seem to be a reasonable option with Gulko possibly having prepared Dean, and the main line seemed like a bad idea since Joel might have prepared a good line. The c3 Sicilian was also not attractive since I had just played it against Oleg Zaikov. Amongst the few other choices, I figured the Rossolimo Bb5 line after 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5, was the safest game I could get out of all of them. Unfortunately, I think I misplayed it early. My move 5. e5?! was already dubious since I allowed him to get a strong center by playing 5... f6. After that it definitely became a difficult battle for me with a tough position. However, I was fortunate enough to get a solid enough position, not giving him much play either, which probably cause him to spend a little bit more time than me as he was likely looking at different ideas to get an advantage while I was just making easy solid moves relatively quickly. Eventually he likely played a little bit too aggressively with 14... Bd4+ and 16... e5, leaving his pieces somewhat exposed. Since my pieces were coordinated a little bit better than his, I then found some nice tactical motifs taking advantage of his slightly awkward pieces. Afterwards, I ended up sacrificing two pieces for a Rook and two Pawns. Because his two Bishops seemed a little bit loose and his King was close to having trouble with the back rank, I felt this was a good plan, especially since all the other moves didn't seem to offer much. Then I found a nice tactical idea with 25. g4, where all the variations seemed good for me (at least all better than my position would've been had I not played g4). Dean responded with the creative 25... Rc8, which I saw, and luckily for me, 28. Qxf7! was winning. I still had to be careful in the endgame as his King was active, but I let him have the c4 pawn since I saw that my two Pawns were unstoppable. I give a lot of credit to all of Dvoretsky's books for this clutch win for my team and possibly my biggest win of the year against another good player. First of all, his positional book helped me be patient with my moves, my plans, and looking at my opponent's plans very carefully which helped me come up with some solid moves like 8. f4 and 14. Rad1 which did not let him get much play, thus getting him into a little bit of time trouble. The tactics book Volume II, which I recommend to everyone, especially helped me a lot in this game, helping me to figure out which kind of candidate moves I should analyze for me and my opponent and knowing when I have to rely on intuition and when I have to calculate specific variations. I felt that I managed my time just the right way, spending time to calculate when I absolutely had to while playing simple and solid, not spending extra time, when I didn't have to. Also, it helped me make the brave moves like 19. Bxd6!? and 25. g4!? which both really helped me improve my position. The move g4 was especially tough, as I had to analyze a lot of Black's ideas with his open Bishops and Rook and had to see all the motifs of why it would be good for me in all those lines. Essentially, instead of just analyzing three to five moves for me and my opponent, seven or eight was closer to the right number, as it definitely had to be at least about five moves ahead. It was hard work, but luckily it paid off, and I ended up getting into a winning position. And of course Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual helped me finish this game off with just the right kind of technique, not giving him any chances at the end and securing the right kind of pawns. Overall, to those who want to get better, and are 1800 or higher about, the Dvoretsky's books are surely excellent if you read the books carefully and grasp the ideas. They have truly helped my chess over the few months I spent studying them.

So, we were tied at 1 – 1. Alex Ostrovskiy had a tough position the whole game with Black, where his opponent, Andrew Ng always had a slight edge. As time pressure and the endgame approached, Andrew's advantage got larger and larger, until he eventually won a Pawn, got more space, got all the squares he needed, and achieved two connected passed Pawns. At that point Alex was probably strategically lost, but he fought very hard and found some nice resourceful moves. As good a talented and improving player Andrew is, his technique clearly wasn't perfect in this game, and Alex was able to come back to a drawn Rook and Knight vs Rook, Knight, and Pawn endgame which later transposed into a Rook and Knight versus Rook ending. Fortunately, Alex knew how to defend that relatively well and after a long 100+ move battle, he was able to salvage a big, clutch draw for us. By that time, Alex Stripunsky had drawn Benjmain. The interesting part about that game was that it was very even for the most part, and with a very equal Queen ending. However, since Alex O was losing, Stripunsky was trying very hard to win, but as often happens when you try too hard to win a drawn endgame, it can lead to something bad. Benjamin's position slowly improved until he got more space and then won a Pawn. However, Stripunsky made it hard for him to breakthrough, defending excellently by combining active resourceful moves and strong defensive moves. Eventually, down to only two pawns, he got so much counter play that he even considered playing for a win. Had Alex O still been losing he certainly would have tried, but by then it looked like he was going to draw, so Stripunsky waited it out by repeating a few moves and then agreed to a draw. Overall, we were really on the ropes in all of our games. However, in a nice team effort, we came up with a 2 - 2 tie, which was very big for us, since New Jersey was using this strong lineup, making them the favorites. As they can also use this lineup in the playoffs, winning the division and being able to win against there by tieing 2 - 2 there would be a very big plus for us as having to beat that lineup 2.5 - 1.5 would really put our backs against the wall.

Anyway, as a closing note, we also officially clinched our playoff spot. Not really a big deal to us since after our start, our goal has always been to win the division, but it's still a very good thing for our organization since last year the team didn't make it so we have already improved significantly from then. On that note, hopefully we'll continue our successful run against Chicago next week. Till next time :)

Alex

Our first disappointment

Hello everyone, thanks for reading my blog for Week 6.

Week 6 wasn't as kind to us as the previous weeks had been and obviously the result speaks for itself. First of all, we had to use a slightly compromised lineup, because a few key players were unavailable for the match; we had a rating average of only 2339 which was the lowest we had used all season by far. However, we still felt confident because Dmitry was coming off a big win while I was feeling good about my preparation and chances in my game. I also felt confident that Michael Thaler would put up a great fight against a strong, somewhat proven player from Carolina, Ron Simpson, and I definitely thought we had good chances on the last board with a good team player, Ben Katz, with White against a player below 2200.

Unfortunately it didn't quite work out as well as we hoped. It all started with our internet connection not working at the club due to a wire issue meaning we had to play with a huge mental handicap with Stripunsky relaying all our and our opponent's moves on one computer. It was very annoying and messy and our concentration level clearly wasn't at the same level that way. There was even a relay error late on Board Four which killed our chances for a comeback from a tough position for Ben.

I really felt that we had great chances on all our boards early on though. Dmitry had a better game, Michael Thaler had a slightly better or at least even game, and Ben Katz had a decent position. They all had put in good preparation and had played well early, but unfortunately playing under conditions like this, it would affect any player and when at this level, if you're even at slightly lower than your 100% strength, it makes a big difference. Michael ended up getting outplayed, probably playing a little bit too defensively in a good position. Lev Milman defended outstandingly against Dmitry's nice opening preparation, and the game fizzled out into a draw. Dmitry put a lot of pressure and fought hard, but it was difficult in a complicated position to come up with the most accurate moves. Unfortunately, Ben confused one opening line slightly, and there followed by a Pawn blunder in an already worse position in a Fischer's variation of the Caro-Kann. So even though I won, we obviously still weren't happy about the result of the match, but at least we only lost 1.5 - 2.5 so our tiebreaks weren't hurt that much. The most important thing now is to put this match behind us and do the best we can next time to improve on what went wrong this time. Hopefully, one main thing will be the internet working better :) Our next match is a very crucial one against New Jersey, who even though we did beat the first time, are very dangerous, and they're breathing down our neck with 4 / 6. So it's really key for us to try to at least draw this match to stay ahead of them, but at the same time of course we want to play the best we can and hopefully get a win, to push our lead even further.

Now, speaking about my game, I can tell you all honestly that I would've been extremely surprised if you told me it would get even third in the Game of the Week rankings. I never even had a thought that this game might actually win GOTW :) Obviously I want to thank the Judges for it, but as Greg Shahade rightly said, I would have rather had the team win than the award. The interesting thing though is that I thought that this was actually the worst game I'd played in the USCL thus far. Beforehand this game seemed like a probably must win for me, given our compromised lineup and along with the stress of the internet not working made me feel very tight. I really felt that my game against Mark Ginsburg was much better than this game for sure. Anyway, this game started off softly, a c3 Sicilian, as I had looked at Tiviakov's games to see his plans and how he generally went about playing this line. Unfortunately, according to Alex Stripunsky, I still played the opening poorly. The h4 - h5 plan was way too aggressive as I honestly just forgot that he could just develop his pieces from the Queenside first and then castle Queenside, without having to play Be7, allowing Qg4. I tried playing it like a Caro-Kann, but even with a closed center, Oleg all of a sudden started attacking me on the Queenside. That definitely made things dicey for a while, but then I found some nice creative moves. The move I'm most proud of was 13. Rh3; the reason being all the ideas behind this rather unusual looking move. First of all, I wanted to keep the option of playing Rg3 or Rf3 later on to pressure his Kingside pawns, like in the Caro-Kann, with my h pawn fixing his Kingside (naturally of course after moving the Knight on g3 somewhere as it was basically useless at this point). Also, it defended the d3 and c3 squares which was extremely important for me the entire game. I always had my Knight on c3 defended and able to safely play 18. b3, kicking his annoying knight on c4 out. I also later came up with the 16. Bc2 idea, where I was able to leave my d4 pawn en-prise because if 17... Nd4 18. Nd4 Qd4, I'd have 19. c3 followed by 20. Nb5+ and if 20... Qc5, then 21. Rc3. After that, the game got pretty crazy, but I felt I did have to be very creative and come up with many things on the spot to try to both defend and put pressure on him at the same time. Fortunately for me, Oleg got into a bit of a time pressure, with all my unorthodox moves, and then he got a little too aggressive with 19... f6?!. After this I calculated some key variations, and they all seemed to work out well for me as I got a clearly better game and ended up, after the messiness, having the key passed pawn on h5. This eventually gave me the game as it tied his pieces down, and then I slowly shifted my own to put pressure on him on the Queenside. It was a tough fight for sure, but let me make one thing clear: I would've played the same exact way regardless of how the team was doing because to me I simply was playing the moves that I thought were the best. During most of the heat of the battle, the team was still not losing, and we still had a great chance to score in the match.

So even though this was clearly a tough sea-saw battle, I must admit that there were a lot of inaccuracies there, including my opening and technique inaccuracies, and I probably wouldn't have given myself more than a one or two in the GOTW rankings, because as I said, I felt the Ginsburg game was far more clean, smooth, and accurate. But via this game, I was able to see by example, exactly the three judges have totally different styles. Jon Hilton seems to be mostly of a fan of nice, smooth clean positional games and upsets as well as nice opening preparation. The fact that he ranked my game against Ginsburg third does mean a lot to me, and obviously I definitely like the fact that there is never seems to be any bias; all the judges just rank based on their style. When it's a back and forth battle that becomes truly exciting tactically, but possibly with some errors, it seems to be the type of game that Greg Shahade likes the most, rather than the one-sided (perhaps boring games). Arun Sharma seems to like games which are smoothly won but also exciting, with some nice tactics, rather than exciting comebacks from tough positions out of the opening. But all in all, I think it's great that all the Judges are so different and have their own nice points of view as that's what makes the GOTW and GOTY competitions so much more dynamic and fun. That's why a game like Sammour-Hasbun vs Pruess which was voted first unanimously must have been indeed a great game. Anyway, hopefully Week 7 will be more kind to us, and I'm looking forward to our next match. Hopefully I will play and be able to contribute :)