It seems that luck is on our side. Not only did Nat win on time from a losing position where he went down to 1.1 seconds left, Gregory's opponent mysteriously went into a losing King and pawn endgame instead of keeping the position pretty much drawn. I guess the Tennessee player got really discouraged/rattled when they lost board 4, or maybe he figured if he won, it would be a more respectable 1.5 to 2.5 loss? Granted, Serper had a very promising position that he time scrambled into a drawn one. When he realized he only had 5 seconds to make a move, simplifying to a Rook and pawn endgame was the first thing that came to him. This did throw the win away, but much better to draw than to lose.

    We got down to single digit seconds on both board 1 and 4 and if Eddie took 1 second longer to make Nat's Qc2 move, we would be the team that lost on time and then a draw on board 1 would have made it a 2-2 tie. The team owes this match win to Eddie's speed chess skills! I tried to do the relaying a little at the beginning of the match, but my speed chess is much worse than my tournament chess, and my tournament chess is well, spotty at best. I felt bad making Eddie do all the relaying, but we both knew it was what gave the team the best chance to win.

    Its better to be lucky than good, but its best to be lucky and good!

    In the entire history of the USCL, only two teams have ever started the season 4-0. Your Seattle Sluggers and the Boston Blitz. Ther're Sluggerific!

    I had a feeling that Tennessee would play us tough and this match could have easily been tied 2-2 and for a while I thought that it would. We were 6 seconds away from losing the match 1.5 to 2.5! Both Nat and Greg's clock was down below 20 seconds and we only had one computer to relay through. Greg made his move at about the same time Nat did, but either Eddie didn't notice that Nat had moved or just wanted to make sure we didn't lose a promising board, he made Serper's move. Nat's clock was down to 5, 4, 3, Qc2, Qc2, 2, 1.1 seconds. At least there was only a few minutes of such crazy time pressure, but the logistics made this week a lot worse even though there wasn't the 1 hour+ of time pressure like last week.

    Last week, Slava moves with 5 seconds left, but the piece is off center so it doesn't get recognized. He notices and adjusts it and the move gets sent with 2 seconds to spare. This week we get down to 10 seconds to make moves on both boards, including finding out what the move was. 8.9 seconds for that :)

    In spite of promises not to get into time trouble, all players other than John got into time trouble... Even Slava was getting pretty low on time, but he made quick work of his opponent and I think that really put the pressure on Tennessee. If Slava's game was still up in the air going into the time scramble, that would have given Tennessee hope that they could win the match.

    After John's early draw and Slava's crushing win, the only way we would lose the match was if we lost both the remaining games. Now, it did look like we would win board 1 and lose board 4, then a draw on board 1 and a loss on board 4 and when Nat won on time, which I still can't believe actually happened, of course that put us over the top and I think most players on most teams might have agreed to a draw for the last game and taken a nice 3-1 victory home.

    Not the Sluggers!

    I was very proud when earlier in the night Serper blurted out "Sluggers take no draws." You have to realize how focused Greg is when is is playing. He has such intense concentration, the pieces must surely feel the heat from his laser beam glare. You can tell he is zooming through all the possibilities with incredible precision and the judgement of a world class GM. His style is very technical and he is not prone to be found in a crazy free-for-all slugfest type of game, but the "Slugfest Attitude" he has in abundance. This I know is the secret to our success. His outburst was quite unexpected, but the message is clear. If you want a draw from a Seattle Slugger, you have to earn it. You better force a perpetual check, or a stalemate, or get down to bare kings. Alternatively, if you have a better position, we might consider the gift offer if it suits us :)

    Normal chess is not a sport, but slugfest chess is a sport. The difference is that in a sport, every game has a winner and a loser. Even without changing the point system to force reluctant peaceniks to play for a win, which requires taking a chance that they will lose, it is possible to play as if you would rather lose than draw. Most of you reading this probably know about my BAP system that gives 0 points for a white draw and that is the biggest complaint against it as it means that games that used to get white half credit now get nothing. Almost as if a school decided that if you got a C, you flunk the class. While it is possible to graduate with a C average, is that really what we want our point system reinforcing? The key is "as if". You don't want to lose games that you should be able to draw, so the trick is improve your play so that of the games that you would have drawn before, you win more than you lose. Easier said than done and your mileage will vary, especially at first, but I never said winning was easy.

    Is BAP unfair? Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Only time will tell if the 3, 2, 1 point system is biased in black's favor at the GM level. I personally don't think it is any more biased than the current 1867 point system and since Slugfest Pairings makes sure everyone gets an even number of games as white and black, whatever biasing there is totally cancels out. The upcoming GM Slugfest (http://www.gmslugfest.com) next October will show what slugfest chess between GM's is like. I know the skeptics will be pleasantly surprised at the results. The reason is that the way even GM's play normal chess leaves a lot of half points on the table and they just gift it to black. Without even forcing black to earn the draw, they agree to it, even when they have a better position. First off, no sport allows the players to just agree to a draw before all 4 quarters are played, or 9 innings, etc. Ties are to be avoided as best as you can, but in normal chess, the draw is the expected outcome. This is wrong. Even at the 40/2 + G/60 time control, 2600 GM's are not able to play precisely enough to achieve such a high draw rate. Maybe 2800+ players against each other might have 50% as the instrinsic draw rate, but not at the 2600 level. Hydra's result against Adams, indicates that 2700's can be beaten 90% of the time if you are good enough.

    So, the key is how do we learn how to win? BAP forces white to figure this out as the alternative is to get 0 points. I am convinced that it is this Slugfest Attitude that allowed an aging, A-player like myself to have a crazy ~2600 performance over 6 rounds at the US Open. I was making suboptimal moves to prevent my opponents from getting into drawish lines. Makes a lot of sense when you are playing a weaker player, but I was around 350 pts the underdog. Crazy? Insane? Twilight Zone? Hey, how can you learn how to win against masters if you don't give it 110%?

    I am convinced that even though I have not required any of the Slugger's to play like a crazed madman to win at all costs, each in their own way knows that winning is what matters. That's why we play the game, to win. Winning is everything. Losing sucks. If you have ANY chance to win, you play on. Now, if you are losing and you can get a draw, then by all means a draw from a worse position is better than a loss.

    In the pacific northwest, I have been holding Slugfest tournaments for a while, so the players around here have either played in one or certainly know about it and I think as a result they have more experience in playing out the "drawn" games. Look at our season so far. Every week, we have had games that most masters would consider "drawn" and a lot would have taken the draw. However, the Sluggers kept on fighting. Their opponents maybe got frustrated at why they have to keep playing an obviously drawn position and promptly lost most of these games.

    Is it a coincidence that we have won all these "even" games? Most of them when we are the ones in time trouble? I think not. The difference between winning and losing is razor thin. A single tempo. That's all. A Slugfest fighter spends no time thinking about how to draw the game and all their time on how to win, maybe some time on how to avoid a draw. Instead of playing to not lose, we play to win. As a result, we tend to win a lot. We do lose games too, but so what? I would much rather win one and lose one that draw 2. Much better for the fans, and we can all learn from every decisive game. What do we learn from most draws? How not to lose and how not to win?

    Now, Seattle certainly has a strong team on paper, but the 2400 rating cap is the ultimate leveler of the playing field. If it isn't the Slugfest Attitude that has gotten us 13 points out of 16 (81%+, +10 score!!, 2600+ perf!!), maybe it is something else? I know our DGT boards give us a slight edge as playing directly on the board eliminates half the relay work needed, but with tonight's ISP fiasco and our 3.5 pts, we can rule out the equipment. The Starbuck's run? Well, tonight was the first time I did that, but maybe that gave our players just a little bit more of an edge? It doesn't explain our 3-0 start though.

    See, it must be the Slugfest Attitude. Play to win every game of chess you play. You will lose more, but you just need to win more than you lose from all the games that you otherwise settled for a draw. That's the key. If you keep everything else the same, but just win 60% of the games that you would otherwise have drawn, well, you just became a better chessplayer! You will certainly gain rating points if that is a consideration, but I think more importantly this requirement that you work to win every game will force you convert better positions into wins.

    BAP forces you to do this, that is why I feel so strongly about it. The current point system first used around 1867 (?!) is a bit out of date and chess has changed so much since then, a new point system is needed to push us to a new level. At the very least BAP makes chess into a bona fide sport with every game having a winner and a loser. Just watch the games from the GM Slugfest and you will see what I mean. Speaking of the GM Slugfest, my brief mention of it in my 10 questions interview enticed three USCL players to signup. Thanks to GM Julio Becerra, IM's David Pruess and IM Josh Friedel! So there are now 11 titled players registered for the GM Slugfest:

GM Victor Mikhalevski 2670
GM Varuzhan Akobian 2660
GM Alexander Shabalov 2653
GM Julio Becerra 2605  (Miami Sharks)
GM Lubomir Ftacnik 2600
GM Dmitry Gurevich 2583
GM Greg Serper 2575  (Seattle Sluggers)
IM Josh Friedel 2528 (San Francisco Mechanics)
IM Eric Tangborn 2475 (Seattle Sluggers)
IM David Pruess 2453 (San Francisco Mechanics)
IM John Donaldson 2452 (San Francisco Mechanics - Manager)

    With another 4 non-titled players, that makes 15, which is a bad old odd number. 16 would sure be a nice number of players to have. So, fresh off of the 4-0 start, I am in a generous mood and I can extend an offer to any GM that would like to have a weekend slugfest of GM proportions. I will pay for airfare and hotel room is already booked. It is the weekend of October 13th and there is a $5000 first prize. We will use the Slugfest Pairing system and BAP. The gmslugfest.com website has more details.

    Now, I can't promise this as it is out of my control, but I will be lobbying for the winner of the GM Slugfest to get one of the US Championship qualification spots. Anybody that wins this tournament, certainly deserves to be in the US Championship! If I can get an official US Championship qualifier for 2008, then that will convince me to have another GM Slugfest in 2007. Paid travel spots will be limited next year, but preference will be given to this year's participants. There will only be one first ever GM Slugfest and it is in (gasp!) 3 weeks. Please email me at clint@slugfest.org if you want the 16th spot.

    So there it is, you now know the secret to our success. Let's all play for a win, every game!