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