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