Complacency is an evil thing.

This was the third week of season 2, so this should be a breeze, right? Well, I should have known better when four of our guys, GM Eugene Perelshteyn, IM Igor Foygel, FM Steven Winer, and FM Bill Kelleher couldn't make it for the special Monday Night Chess match against "the hated" NY Knights. A plea from his friend and teammate Ilya Krasik, and some begging to the team Manager (me) from the League's commissioner, convinced Eugene to play. This allowed me to put in the "Twin Guns" lineup of GM Christiansen, GM Perelshteyn, NM Martirosov, and NM Krasik; average rating, using the Feb. '06 list (we were allowed to pick any published USCF rating list from 12/05 through 8/06) 2400.25!

Setting up the playing site started out OK; then at 5:53 I got a cell phone call from our board 4, Ilya, telling me his car won't start. Ilya lives about 30-45 minutes away, on a good day with no traffic and a stiff tailwind., both ways. No time to drive out and get him by 7:00. Then I send a tell to Greg "Commish" Shahade on ICC:

Globular says: We have a situation...
USChessLeague says: What's the situation?

After many phone calls, discussions, and fretting, Ilya ends up on a commuter train scheduled to arrive close to the playing site at 7:20. The entire match is delayed until 7:15, so he shouldn't lose too much off the clock. (Special thanks to Greg "Commish" Shahade, and Jennifer "Sis" Shahade, the NY team Manager.) Then Larry Christiansen calls me wondering where Ilya and Vadim are; they're supposed to pick him up in Harvard Square! Aaarrrrggghhh!!!

It all worked out, everyone made it. We even had an extra relayer show up, George Duval, a.k.a. BlunderProne

So I'm relaying the Christiansen - Charbonneau game, which frankly was kind of boring (to me), when I look over at Ilya's game and I see the position after 17... Rxe4 and I think "nice looking exchange sac!" Only after the match did I realize that Ilya had captured a pawn on e4! This clearly was the move of the match, if not the season. We heard later that no less than GM Kaidanov, on chess.fm, praised this move very highly. Even more impressive though, was Ilya's conversion of a materially equal endgame after the fireworks ended. Before the match started, Larry said, "Always an adventure with Ilya." Boy, was he right!

Hess - Perelshteyn was a smooth win by Eugene with the nice shot 32... Rxf2! to finish off the game in short order.


(Hess vs Perelshteyn) Black to move after 32. Rf1-c1
Perelshteyn found the killer blow 32....Rxf2! as after
33. Kxf2 g3+ 34. Ke2 Qxd7 winning the queen. White 
resigned in a few moves.

Our secret weapon, Vadim Martirosov converted another win against a higher rated player to seal the match, 3 - 1 Boston.

After Baltimore lost to Carolina on Wednesday, the Blitz stand alone in first place in the USCL Easter Division. It must be the brilliant managing.