10/15/2006
Philadelphia vs Carolina Prediction
--------------------------------------------
by NM Arun Sharma
--------------------------------------------
Philadelphia Masterminds vs. Carolina
Cobras
When
I made my preseason predictions for this season, I had predicted these
two teams to finish in fourth and fifth in the East and
though that's
where they currently stand, I would have assumed that this match would
have little in the way of playoff implications and thus would almost
surely not have chosen this for Monday's "feature" match. Clearly
though our league commissioner puts little stock in my predictions
(I
fear perhaps rightly so as those of you who've been keeping track can
attest to) as he, despite what I thought, still chose this match for
Monday. As much as it pains me, it may be that he's actually alot
smarter than I am as this match actually turns out to contain an
enormous amount of playoff implications and is likely the most
important match of the week.
These two teams
met a couple of weeks ago, but unlike most other pairs of teams
which
have done the same, we have a true rematch in this case as three of the
four boards pit the same opponents as the previous match (in each case
the victor last time having the Black pieces, though as the league
statistics show, Black winning is not much of a surprise in this
league). Philadelphia comes into this match having drawn the last
two
matches (both of which they were heavily favored in) and really must
win this match to keep themselves in serious playoff contention.
Carolina arrives on a bit of a run as despite being huge underdogs the
past couple weeks have managed a draw and a win (the former against the
Philly team) to put themselves solidly in contention but like the
Philly team really need this win to keep themselves in the thick of
things.
On
Board 1 we have GM Ehlvest vs. IM Milman. The last encounter was
a
pretty dominating performance by GM Ehlvest, but IM Milman showed last
week that he's capable of turning around such an initial display (ie
winning vs. GM Charbonneau despite their first encounter being a
slaughter the other way) even when he has the Black pieces.
As much as
I'd like to think that last week was the place where IM Milman was
going to turn his season around, GM Ehlvest is just too strong and has
a big edge.
Board
2 FM Hoekstra faces FM Smith. FM Hoekstra pulled off a surprising
upset
last time to lead the Carolina team to the draw (unfortunately one of
the few bright spots of his season) while FM Smith should be eager to
turn things around as the Masterminds really need better production out
of him to continue their playoff run. On the whole, I have to
give a
slight edge to the player who was the victor last time and now has the
White pieces, but this match is a lot closer than Board 1.
Board
3 pits the real superstars of each team in IM Costigan vs. FM
Zaikov.
Both of these players are still in the hunt for the league MVP and each
is certainly a big reason why their team is still in the playoff race
with both coming up with some big wins. Again I have to give Costigan
the edge as he won last time and has white this week.
Board 4 I finally have an original match
to discus in WFM Levina vs. FM M Shahade.
This
is WFM Levina's debut in the USCL, and there likely hasn't been a
situation where her team needed her more as a good result here would go
a long way towards Carolina's playoff hopes. Given it is her
debut,
it's somewhat difficult to assess her chances (not that I've been
successful in assessing board four games anyway), but despite her
rating disadvantage she does have White. Despite this I
still have to think Philly has to have a
slight edge here.
When
in a playoff race of any kind, a team's momentum often can be more
important than how the match looks on paper and that's definitely one
department where Carolina certainly has the edge. In
entirety
though, I think Philadelphia is just too strong from top to bottom so I
think they'll take this by the narrowest margin, Philadelphia 2.5-1.5.
Click here to go back to
the US Chess League
homepage