Watching from the sidelines for the first time in week 5 definitely gave me a different perspective on the matches and what it takes to create a successful team. Preparation is of course, very important, however there are more difficult issues. One of them is adjusting to this type of format of playing over the Internet. It will surely be a challenge for future expansion teams and our team is still wading through the different approaches. Tennessee continued to underperform this week and yes, it is just as painful for a team member to be watching as opposed to playing.

 
     On board one, Ronald played his first IM of the year with all the others being GMs! Burnett absolutely has the league's toughest schedule and with it, the toughest job. Ron got the opening he expected, but deviated with ...Na5 rather than the regular ...Nb8. The unfortunate position of his king led to a powerful exchange sack by Friedel that sent the king on a voyage eventually leading to mate.

 
     On board two, Peter also played a line he was familiar with, but that McCambridge has found an improvement on. The position was rather unusual (an early g4 spike in the dutch defense) and it seems like the chances of McCambridge following Peter's previous game are highly likely. Peter never got his pieces fully into the game and his king came under some heavy fire. McCambridge had many ways to win and he chose to simplify to a completely winning endgame.

  
    On board three, Pruess chose a lesser known variation of the accelerated dragon that was given a "?" in the dead sea scrolls of opening literature, ECO Vol. 1 with his e5-e6 choice. Wheeler didn't know about ...Qd8-d6, rather than ...Bg7-h6, where black scores 5/6 in an internet database. I don't know if we will see David toss this variation out again. Our team advisor, Brian McCarthy, had a funny quote from southern chess legend, Boris Kogan about similiar opening ideas to David's: "he's pushed his pawns so far that they become my pawns!"  Pruess found some good moves in a highly tactical position to take home the full point.

   There was a silver lining to our 3.0-1.0 defeat! Tennessee found its first "legitimate" victory of the year! Woohoo and it only took five weeks! On board four, Gerald Larson of Huntsville, Alabama said "not yet, kid! (*while one fist punches into his other hand*) " to the 10-year old wunderkind. Gerald had the fortunate luck of preparing the right opening variation without having any previous knowledge on the Naroditsky and getting a very comfortable position, where the kid was obviously not prepared. A nice win and first complete game from a Tempo player.


Larson - Naroditsky: after 45....Kg6
Gerald Larson capped off this smooth game by
playing 46.Rxg7 Rxg7 47. Rxg7 Kxg7 48. d7 and
black cannot stop white from queening and going
into the endgame with an extra piece.


Gerald Larson was happy to score the team's first smooth win of the season,
outplaying the 10 year old mega-talent, Daniel Naroditsky.

 

   Next week is a playoff match for Tennessee as far as I am concerned. We can't afford to lose another match to any team in our division and Dallas has given us our only half point of the year. I am sure Panchanatahn will be looking for revenge after the Burnett swindle! It should be an interesting match!