NM Arun Sharma will do predictions for the Featured Monday night
matches,
while FM Ron Young will return for the Wednesday night matches.
**Back to your regularly scheduled predictions**
Tennessee Tempo vs. Seattle Sluggers
IM Ron Burnett - GM Gregory Serper
FM Todd Andrews - IM Eric Tangborn
FM Peter Bereolos - FM John Readey
NM Jerry Wheeler - NM Nat Koons
This opening match of the USCL should be a good one and should give
us all a good look at how strong the two expansion teams might really
be.
In my preseason predictions I felt that mostly due to the fact that
Tennessee would be fighting an uphill battle in basically every match,
their chances of making the playoffs weren't very good. Despite
that prediction,
I do believe that they have enough firepower to be very competitive
every week.
In the board one encounter, GM Serper has more
credits to his name with his numerous US Championship placings
(including being the runner up in 1999) as well as a World Open
win.
However, IM Burnett has a lot of high level experience too, having a US
Championship appearance under his belt as well (where he defeated two
GMs) as well as numerous solid World Open finishes and having the White
pieces, he surely will put up a good fight. But one cannot
discount the GM's
overall results and thus Seattle must have the edge on this
board.
The board two matches up FM Andrews - IM Tangborn. Despite the
over one
hundred point rating disadvantage, FM Andrews does have the potential
advantage
of being in much better form than IM Tangborn as he has been extremely
active on the tournament scene in recent years while IM Tangborn has
played
only about one event per year. Overall though, with the rating
differential
and having the white pieces, Seattle has the edge on this board too.
On board three we have FM Bereolos - FM Readey which seems a very
difficult match to ascbribe either side an edge to. Both players
have been quite
active recently and playing quite solidly so to me this one is a real
toss up.
The board four encounter of NM Wheeler - NM Koons
which, like board three, I think is very difficult to give an edge to
either player as once again both have been active and solid recently,
and so I have to also put this one in the category of toss up. Overall with their
inherent edge on the top two boards I think Seattle will take this match
2.5-1.5. In any case, these cities have been waiting a long time
for the season to start, and I'm sure they are both excited to play
their first league
match. Whenever such emotion and anticipation is involved, anything
can happen.