Week 7 Game of the Week

This week I felt contained a very difficult choice for the best game as I think there were definitely more good candidates than most other weeks. This game to me was really the whole package as it had its own fair share of drama, was very well played, and the fact that it came from the biggest match of the season so far gave it the slight nod over the other games. One nice move was of course 45. Rexg5 which forces the win of the Black Queen and liquidates into a favorable ending, but another very good move was 47. g3! as the more natural looking 47. Rg7+ Qxg7 48. fxg7 Rxg2+ 49. Kh1 Kxg7 seems to put the win in serious doubt. As shown in the game, by hanging onto the g-pawn, the h-pawn is just too strong in the ending making White's win inevitable. A big win for IM Friedel which salvaged a draw for the San Francisco team and allowed them to stay atop of the division. Friedel, despite starting the season at a sluggish rate, has now had four very impressive results in a row and sits in the thick of the MVP race. It seems quite likely that if both can keep playing the way they are, the MVP award might be a battle between IM Friedel and GM Becerra, who will likely face off in the Week 10 rematch of San Francisco and Miami, a match which is likely to be big in determining if the Mechanics will win the division and if the Sharks will make the playoffs but might also determine who this year's MVP is.

As mentioned above, I also seriously considered this game for the possible Game of the Week since it contained more drama by far than any other game I've witnessed in the USCL. For those not aware, you must remember that the majority of the moves of this game were played after the rest of the overall match score had been decided to be 1.5-1.5 and that both players were under two minutes on their clock (and remained as such for basically the rest of the fifty or so moves played). The position itself during this scramble was a very tricky one, and I think both players did quite well to play as well as they did despite the time they had left and what was at stake in the game (not only was the overall match tied, the two teams were also tied for the third and final playoff spot in the West division prior to the match). To the naked eye during the endgame, it would have been easy to immediately say that Lopez was winning due to his material edge, but I think the position was actually far trickier than that. I think Barredo, despite his material deficit, had some very dangerous ideas (for example instead of 29... Bb8, 29... Bc4+ seems rather interesting in order to meet 30. Kd2 with 30... Be3+!). One nice move found by him was 47... h2! shunning the more natural looking 47... Bc5 which is actually a much weaker move. A huge win for the Miami team as they no doubt had to be feeling a bit down about the way the season had transpired until then as they were in serious danger of missing the playoffs with their 2.5-3.5 record, definitely not somewhere I think they expected to be after making it to the finals last year, but with this win they've definitely put themselves in the driver's seat to make it to the playoffs, but still have their work cut out for them as they face both the Seattle Sluggers and San Francisco Mechanics in two of their last three matches.

I know GM Charbonneau wasn't particularly pleased with me the last time I picked one of his losses (week one vs. IM Costigan) as a potential Game of the Week, but unfortunately I felt this game was too much of an upset (both individually and for the overall team) to not include it here (and he should take it as compliment anyway that I consider any loss of his to be such a big upset ). The first time these two met a few weeks prior was a slaughter the other way so I don't think many expected it to go in Milman's favor especially given the overall records for the respective players this season, but IM Milman came up with the big upset, especially surprising from the game too since most players felt he was losing throughout the middlegame (After running the game through Fritz, black seemed to be ok the entire game - ed). A huge victory for Carolina whom most had probably written out of the playoff picture a few weeks ago, but they currently sit only a half game out of it and should definitely not be counted out.